Calling peace in a time of terror

PEACE: Sri Lanka is once again at crossroads. Peace is under threat and concerns are mounting that the nation could be heading back to a prolonged conflict. Everyone is familiar with the phrase "history repeats itself and those that don't learn from it would be bound to repeat it." Nowhere does this phrase apply more than to our present conflict.

It is seen that throughout last three decades, peace treaties were made and then they were broken by the LTTE. As a result, Sri Lanka has gone through two internal conflicts and has had to pay with not only lives but also land as well.

One has only to look at the history of the conflicts elsewhere and the final outcome to see that no peace treaty has ever worked until violence completely ceases to exist. In order to accomplish this, Prabhakaran must cut all of his ties to terrorist activities and take control of his people and lead them to believe that there is a democratic way to live with their Southern neighbours in peace.

But isn't it just wishful thinking? It certainly is. LTTE violence in Sri Lanka has been going on for quite a long time and it'll continue to do so in future too. The current outrages have acquired new bloody dimensions because of the introduction of the atrocious claymore bombs.

LTTE rationale is quite obvious. These are the same people who have blown up the Central Bank, killed one President of Sri Lanka and maimed another, killed a Prime Minister of India, killed worshippers of Sri Maha Bodhi, attacked Dalada Maligawa, killed thousands of people, whether Sinhalese, Muslims or his own Tamils and in literally hundreds of other acts of violence.

Four years ago, we thought that terror and mayhem would stop after the signing of the Peace Accord. That has not happened. On the contrary, it did not last for more than two years.

More and more people have been killed thereafter by violent attacks even when the South was calling for peaceful means for a negotiated settlement. It is now obvious to the common man that LTTE will not be satisfied with a "reasonable" solution.

Prabhakaran needs his pound of flesh. For him, the presence of Sinhalese and Muslims in the North and East is an unacceptable thorn -an insult that must be avenged and eliminated. Regardless of what other proposals may be put on the table by well-meaning (and sometimes not so well-meaning) third parties, Sinhalese were living side by side with Tamils and Muslims in the North and East in peace and co-prosperity. Three decades ago LTTE simply made it not possible.

Yet, in spite of all these, we need peace today. We need it not only for a safe and healthy future of our country, but possibly for its very survival.

An understanding of the real peace we need is, therefore, of greatest importance for the future of our country.

We must recognize that the tendency to define peace as the absence of armed hostilities must be changed. Such a negative definition of peace is actually a moral tragedy of a conflict. It amounts to an avoidance and renunciation of the need for a deep transformation of the national system that defeats all genuine social discourse. Peace is not merely a political condition: even less is it a tense readiness for war.

All this amounts to the need for a new peace process - not the mere resuscitation of the old one, which is now (at best) on life-support. Sadly, at the current rate of the failure of compromise of LTTE's political thinking, Sri Lanka may well be forced to go through a period of conflict before a refashioned peace process becomes possible.

The Government has shown a degree of generosity that few other countries can match. In the face of extreme provocation by the LTTE, the Government has shown exemplary tolerance, patience, and restraint. Unfortunately, LTTE has misread the generosity as a weakness. It has adopted violence as an instrument of policy. Every time the Government has tried for peace through dialogue, LTTE has responded by launching a fresh violent offensive.

But the current incidents should not deter the Government in its commitment to protect the national interests and preserve the national unity. The State machinery has the means to do so.

No one can doubt that. While we share the grief of the loved ones of those who lost their lives in the recent violent activities, we should be doubly determined to have our minds focused to pursue peace. Even in this period of calamity, a nation of a twenty million people cannot (and should not) be dissuaded by violence, no matter how gruesome and senseless they are.

We must not lose sight that those atrocities have been perpetrated at the behest of and by those who neither believes in peaceful co-existence nor in peaceful resolution of issues. This is the sad truth.