Receding Prospects for Peace in Sri Lanka

When President Chandrika Kumaratunga called for a snap presidential election last month her central objective was to emerge politically stronger to be able to deliver peace to her war-torn country. She hoped for a solid mandate-better than one she was accorded in 1994 - to end the prevailing political impasse and shore up her peace mission. After the way the events unfolded during her five years of presidency she was left only with her twintrack policy of 'war for peace' which aimed at seeking a consensus on her devolution package to isolate the LTTE politically while at the same time conducting a war to weaken the Tigers for their acceptance of a political settlement.

But by November 1999 none of the objectives were achieved. Swing the month the Tamil Tigers cut through the army lines in the North and regained all territories that had been taken earlier from them in past two years. The LTTE did not allow the government troops to secure a land route to their garrisons in Jaffna Peninsula through the tiger-held northern area of Wanni. On military front it was a devastation of sorts making it clear that there could not be a military solution to Sri Lanka's 17 years old civil war. The setback left in ruin Chandrika's strategy of forcing the guerillas to the conference table. Also the constitutional reforms designed by Chandrika government to devolve substantial powers to the country's provinces in a bid to meet the LTTE demand for a separate homeland in the North and the East were rejected earlier by the parliament. Chandrika's PA (Peoples Alliance) could not muster two-thirds majority required for the passage of those reforms.

Under the circumstances President Chandrika Kumaratunga was perhaps left with only option of calling for an early election. But unlike in 1994 when she was swept into office with a convincing win this time, with her dwindling popularity and a bagful of failures - particularly in bringing peace - the response of the electorate was lukewarm at the best. She however won the election marginally - thanks to the last hour sympathy wave generated by a LTTE attempt on her life. She lost her right eye in a bomb blast in her last campaign meeting but won with barely 51 per cent votes. Her main opponent Ranil Wickremsinghe gave credible fight to the president with his 44 per cent votes. This result is going to substantially influence the parliamentary election due soon. Unless some miracle take place - in all likelihood - the political stalemate which Chandrika wanted break would persist.

In the meantime, the two suicide missions of the LTTE at short intervals right in the heart of the capital during the meetings of the two presidential candidates is a grim pointer to the Tigers' persistent refusal to any political settlement. The continuation of the same terror tactics in blasting yet another suicide bomb recently in front of the Prime Minister's office the LTTE unmistakably sends signal of their resolve to subvert the country's political process. The series of the LTTE bomb blasts are apparently intended to press hard their demand for Eelam. With both political and military setbacks the government is hardly left with an alternative to take its peace mission to a point of fruition.

During the election Ranil Wickremsinghe of the United National Party, a former prime minister portrayed himself as the only option left for peace. Wickremsinghe promised to open an immediate dialogue with the LTTE and set up an interim council of the North and East to restore normalcy in the country. Not only his electoral defeat negates those possibilities, the observers also view with scepticism the prospect of peace under Ranil whose party, the UNP, in fact set in motion the ethnic insurgency in Sri Lanka with its harsh treatments of the Tamils under the prevention of Terrorism Act. It was during the UNP government in the late seventies that the Tamils were for the first time pushed to a collusion course with the authority. Although in an odd twist of the party's usual policy with regards to Tamil militants Ranil Wickremsinghe accepted the LTTE's demand for an international mediation few believes it to be workable. Moreover by targetting also Ranil Wickremsinghe during their latest series of assassination bids the Tigers did not show any special inclination for the UNP presidential candidate in the last election.

According to the baffled diplomatic circle in Colombo no one exactly knows what the LTTE will finally settle for; nor does anyone know whether the LTTE has reached a point of exhaustion where they will be prepared to negotiate. But the way their ascendancy in the military front continues it appears that they will negotiate only from a position of strength. It will allow them nothing less an independent homeland to settle for.

On the other side, with the return of Chandrika whose first and only peace overture was scuttled by the Tigers in 1995 the government will have a tremendous crisis of trust in dealing with LTTE whatever may be its demand. With the stakes raised on both sides and the attitude hardened the peace appears as elusive as before in Sri Lanka.