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Financial Times Editorial on April 12, 2002

While world attention is rightly focused on the conflict in the Middle East, there are grounds for hope in another hitherto intractable dispute. After almost two decades of bitter fighting between minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese government and armed forces in Sri Lanka, both sides seem prepared to launch a peace process. A stable solution is still remote, but there are important lessons to be learned from the progress so far.

The overriding factor has been sheer exhaustion with the conflict on both sides. There is a powerful popular desire for peace, demonstrated by the support for Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Sri Lankan prime minister, who won last December's general election on a pro-peace platform. Since then his United National Front has won a landslide victory in local elections. At the same time, there has been a growing realisation that the ruthless terrorism of the Tamil Tigers, and massive military response from the Sri Lankan armed forces, have simply led to a stalemate.

The fanatical Tigers have been unable to keep control of the main northern towns, while the 120,000-strong army has failed to deny the countryside to the separatists.

Yet international involvement has also played an important part and is likely to remain essential to any solution. Branding and banning the Tigers as terrorists - first in India and more recently in the US, UK, Canada and Australia - has been essential in seeking to deny the movement its support from the Tamil diaspora. Those actions pre-date September 11, but they have been intensified since the anti-US terrorist attacks.

The patient and neutral diplomacy of Norway in brokering the present ceasefire has also been critical. Creating trust between the combatants is essential. At his press conference on Wednesday, Velupillai Prabakharan, the Tigers' leader, stressed his belief in the good intentions of Mr Wickremesinghe. That is already dramatic progress.

Whether Mr Prabakharan is himself capable of abandoning the armed struggle is another question. His ruthless campaign of assassination and suicide bombings, and his creation of a slavish personality cult, make him unlikely to become a natural democratic leader in peacetime.

Many obstacles lie ahead. The Tamil leader insists that his organisation is legally recognised before he will talk. He continues to demand a degree of autonomy - although not outright independence - that will be hard for Colombo to stomach. But at least this fifth attempt at peace in Sri Lanka looks more likely to achieve success than the previous four failures.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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