Stooping to conquer

The difference this year is in the nuances. The Tiger leadership, while not diluting its position, has gone further than ever before in praising the Government and in making pronouncements that would ease the fears of the Sinhala majority community. Leaving aside the LTTE8217;s posturing, Sattahip Round 1 did produce substantive results: other than the commitment to a timetable of future talks; there8217;s the agreement on a joint Government-LTTE 8216;8216;Task Force8217;8217; to oversee the rehabilitation of the Northern and Eastern Tamil areas.

Such a 8216;8216;Task Force8217;8217; could be perceived as being a first step towards a Tiger-dominated interim administration, something many rights groups as well the Muslim minority in the North-East have worried about, given the LTTE8217;s penchant for authoritarian rule. Nevertheless, the 8216;8216;Task Force8217;8217; is the first institutional arrangement that draws the LTTE into a nexus with the State providing an opening for the possible, re-integration of the LTTE-controlled sections of the North-Eastern region.

The country is today enjoying the longest stretch of peace in over a decade and that alone is a historic achievement acknowledged by all except the Sinhala supremacists, who want more war. But even if the Government is naturally reluctant to publicly acknowledge it, the cost of this possibly temporary respite has been great: the virtual concession of about a quarter of Sri Lankan territory to an insurgent group in an ad hoc cease-fire arrangement that is open-ended and does not define the limits of control. What is worse8212;from the State8217;s point of view8212;is that the ceasefire agreement renders porous the State8217;s defences making uncertain the military equilibrium between the State and the LTTE.

This leaves open the ominous prospect of an expansion of the rebel group8217;s writ over more territory if negotiations fail and the current military equation is found to have been subverted by Tiger infiltrations and cross-border mobilisation. All the same there is no escape from doing business with the LTTE. Only, the establishment must ensure that no one8217;s interests are sacrificed at the altar of expediency and all concessions made to the Tigers inexorably lead to a just settlement of the ethnic tangle.

That requirement, however, can only be met if another conflict is settled or at least suspended. This is the conflict at the very centre of Sri Lanka8217;s embattled Sinhala-dominated state: between President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who heads the People8217;s Alliance, now in Parliamentary opposition, and Ranil Wickremesinghe8217;s United National Front government. While the conflict has the advantage of international mediation, there is none to help resolve the struggle at the centre of the polity. Unless the political leadership resolves its internecine war, the larger war can8217;t be fully ended.

The writer is editor of the Colombo-based Sunday Observer magazine