Historic Talks Boost Sri Lankan Peace Hopes, but No Easy Gains

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 19, 2002

Historic Talks Boost Sri Lankan Peace Hopes, but No Easy Gains

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"Vote for me, our nation will be a Sri Lanka," a prominent Southeast Asian politician once told his voters. "If you do not choose me, then the country will become another Sri Lanka," he warned his countrymen recently.

It is not a joke, but vividly reflects how the once-shining "Pearl of Indian Ocean" has plunged into a chaos of destruction and violence since a bloody civil war broke out in 1983.

However, hopes of peace and national rebuilding are now lit up again as both sides of Sri Lanka's 19-year-old armed conflict concluded a historic three-day peace talks in eastern Thai naval base of Sattahip, 250 km southeast of Bangkok.

The talks, the first ones in 7 years, really mark a new beginning of a process to end one of world's longest and bloodiest civil wars, which has so far killed 64,500 and displaced another 1.8 million in the small country of only 19 million people.

"The parties agreed that in their determination to bring the peace process forward, they are responding to the overwhelming call of the peoples of Sri Lanka to bring an end to the ethnic conflicts, and create the conditions for lasting peace, prosperity, and respect for human rights," said a joint statement issued upon the conclusion of the talks, brokered by Norway and hosted by Thailand.

Sri Lankan Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris and LTTE ideologue Anton Balsingham, each leading a four-member team in the talks, said they are satisfied that the framework of future talks are set and three more rounds of such meetings will take place between Oct. 31 and Jan. 9 next year.

The two sides also decided to set aside thorny political issuessuch as the LTTE's status, and focus on de-mining and facilitating the return of displaced persons by setting up a high-level joint committee and a special task-force.

They also devised plans for reconstructing facilities and economy of the war-torn areas in Sri Lanka's north and east.

Peiris even suggested that the government would try to fulfill LTTE's legitimate demands within a united nation, while Balsingham made it clear for the first time that the LTTE will pursue "self-determination" of Tamils, but not a separate state.

Some may attribute the positive outcome of this landmark talks to Norwegian diplomats, who had worked very hard during the past few years to convene such a meeting, but more importantly, it is the changing domestic and external situation which helped to make all this happen.

The ethnic conflicts between Sri Lanka's majority Singhalese (74 percent of the population) and minority Tamils (12 percent) canbe traced back to the country's colonial past decades ago when Tamils enjoyed social privileges promoted by British rulers. After the country's independence in the 1940s, Sinhalese dominated the government and conducted several discriminating policies against Tamils as revenge.

Later governments had tried to mend such wrongdoing but it was too late as a bloody war already broke out. The LTTE began fighting with government troops for an independent Tamil state in 1983 and the war was often extremely inhuman involving suicide attacks, mass slaughters of civilians and bombings of public buildings.

The two sides had also tried to sit down for talks for several times, but all previous attempts failed, followed with more intensified violence.

However, as the war dragged on, the price became more and more unbearable for Sri Lankans. The country spent some one billion US dollars, or 5 percent of its income in financing the war each yearand the losses of human lives and property are too large to figure out.

According to recent opinion polls, majority Sri Lankans, once supporting the idea that war was the only option, now prefer peace. When the peace talks started Monday, the Colombo stock index surged to its five-year high.

Amid Sri Lankan's rising public demand for peace, opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe was elected as the country's new prime minister in December, largely due to his peace agenda.

Few days after his election, the government and the LTTE agreed on a truce, which was formalized in February under meditation of Norwegian diplomats.

The two sides thus started to make informal contacts and the government lifted its four-year ban on the LTTE earlier this month, paving the way for the talks.

Meanwhile, the worldwide anti-terror campaign after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States also forced two sides to soften hard-line stance. LTTE was blacklisted by the United States, Britain, India and Canada as an international terrorist group, which threatened the overseas finance sources it relied on.

The government also successfully won support from major powers such as the United States and India for its peace agenda.

However, given the protraction, complexity and intensification of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflicts, the road towards a final solution will be quite lengthy and challenging, as admitted by negotiators of both sides and their Norwegian broker.

Future political status of the LTTE and Tamil-dominated areas holds the key for future talks. However, although the organization is trying to shake off its violent images, those horrifying memories among many Sri Lankans will be a setback.

LTTE once said it killed over 100 important figures, including former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi and former Sri Lankan PresidentRanasinghe Premadasa.

If the government intends to approve a LTTE-led Tamil autonomy in future talks, it will surely face strong opposition from withinthe majority non-Tamil population. Some fear that such a concession will finally lead to the breakaway of that region. Even Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who is also the top commander of armed forces, objected the idea of Tamil autonomy.

Moreover, any bid to incorporate the LTTE into the country's mainstream politics requires constitutional change, which some fear will hurt the state's fundamentals.

In addition, LTTE's claim of Trincomalee, an eastern deep-water seaport of international strategic value, worries the United States and other western powers.

At the talks, all parties agreed to embark on a reconstruction work in war-torn areas without waiting for the solution of political issues. However, the task itself is rather daunting.

It is estimated that some 800,000 displaced people need to be relocated within the island, not to mention another million who fled the country during the war. Clearing some 1.5 million landmines will not be easy, either. Moreover, a comprehensive recovery of local living and economy will take a long, long time.

Apparently, the war-struck island is unable to burden such an enormous task alone. Large and continuous international donations and assistance are needed and the country is yet to secure any new outside funds so far.

However, with strong public mandate and international support, Sri Lanka, after so many years of devastating wars, now stands on a threshold to a long, rugged but promising path of peace. The two sides of the talks are making history by showing their sincere commitment to peace.

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