Sri Lanka at Critical Point after Peace Deal: Analysis

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 24, 2002

Sri Lanka at Critical Point after Peace Deal: Analysis

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Sri Lanka's promising peace process hit another milestone yesterday, pushing along a timetable that has given the island its best chance to end nearly 20 years of war and start rebuilding shattered lives.

As the government and Tamil Tiger rebels mark "D-90" - 90 days since signing a ceasefire in February - they can point to an agreement that has all but stopped the killing and raised hopes for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

But political analysts say that while the achievements of the Norwegian-brokered process so far were unthinkable just six months ago, the next steps may be even more difficult.

"The peace process has stopped the killing. It has been a massive achievement," said Rohan Gunaratna, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

"But they are still at a very early stage. Basically, the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the Sri Lankan Government have been going around the peripheral issues. None of the substantive issues have been addressed," he said.

Those core issues centre around a demand by the Tigers for an independent Tamil state in the north and east, something the Tigers have been fighting for since 1983.

"Things are going reasonably well, perhaps too fast at the beginning, but some of the really hard issues are still to come," said Rohan Edirisinghe, a constitutional analyst at the University of Colombo.

International backing kindles new hope

With the two sides still trying to set an agenda for talks expected late next month in Thailand, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said he is willing to discuss anything short of splitting the country, while the LTTE have said it will not give up its core demand.

One of Asia's longest and deadliest wars, Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict has left more than 64,000 dead, made refugees out of hundreds of thousands and handcuffed the economy of a nation composed of world's most beautiful islands.

Four previous peace bids all ended in renewed bloodshed, but since winning elections in December on a pro-peace platform, Wickremesinghe has moved quickly to put those pledges into practice.

Wickremesinghe has also benefited from more international backing in the wake of September 11, with countries such as the United States and Britain clamouring to praise the truce and step up pressure on the LTTE to negotiate an end to the conflict.

The raised hopes have already filtered down to those most affected by the war, with the UN refugee body saying that more than 71,000 displaced people - about 9 per cent of those internally displaced from the war - have returned home so far this year.

That comes as the ceasefire has cut deaths so far this year in the conflict to a handful from the roughly 1,000 who would normally have died by this time.

But after nearly two decades of fighting, the lack of trust on both sides is still immense, with each accusing the other of violating the ceasefire.

While the political atmosphere in the south is much improved over last year when the parliament was suspended, Wickremesinghe must also deal with nationalists from the majority Sinhalese and powerful Buddhist monks who accuse him of giving away too much.

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