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Grassroots support essential

The Government's peace initiative is proceeding well.

There has been a positive response from the LTTE. This has facilitated the revival of the Norwegian facilitation process.

The Government has taken a series of goodwill or Confidence Building Measures (CBMs in modern parlance). These CBMs satisfy some of the pre-conditions the LTTE had put forward last year for the commencement of the negotiations.

As reported in the media, then ext step will be the evolution of a truce mechanism by way of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties to the conflict.

President Kumaratunga in her address at the just concluded Eleventh SAARC Summit openly pledged her support to the Government peace initiative.

This augurs well. It opens the opportunity for much needed bipartisan approach and cooperation.

With these developments, the peace process has gathered momentum during the last four weeks. This momentum has to be kept.

Much could be done by the civil society to keep the momentum going.

The government's peace initiative needs to be backed by civil society initiatives.

The initiative taken by the Association of Parents of soldiers missing in action is commendable, in this respect. They are planning a goodwill march into the uncontrolled areas of the Vanni. Initiatives like this could go a long way towards reconciliation of the two principal communities who are estranged at present.

International experience shows that such grassroots initiatives are a necessary complement of a successful peace initiative.

Of equal importance are initiatives by professionals, academics and businessmen. Often they played a facilitator role in bridging the 'unbridgeable' gaps in the positions taken by the rival sides at peace talks.

This was particularly evident in the case of South Africa and Guatemala.

Mid-level and grassroots initiatives are specially important in that they provide outside support to top level negotiations as well as prepare the masses to accept an ultimate positive outcome from such negotiations.

Given the history so many agreements that were torn off due to action in the streets, the significance of such mass preparation cannot be over emphasized.

The peace constituency should wake from its slumber and take the initiative in the streets lest the anti-peace groups that have taken a beating at the elections regroup and mobilize to scuttle any accord as they had successfully done in the past. It would be a tragedy of colossal proportions, if history were allowed to repeat once again. 

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