Sri Lanka - Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Sri Lanka - Light at the End of the Tunnel?

The Sunday, March 3, 2002 issue of “The New York Times” featured an article by Barbara Crossette, “The War on Terror Points a Country Toward Peace. The second sentence of this article stated: "A week ago, the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, one of Asia's most ruthless and totalitarian rebel movements, agreed to a firm cease-fire, with the promise of peace talks to come".[1] But are the LTTE planning on keeping their promises this time? Is Sri Lanka's 20 year old struggle finally coming to its end? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

The history of the conflict extends into colonial times, when Sri Lanka was a formal colony of Great Britain. Even then “politics were already split along rigid ethnic lines…”[2] Sri Lanka is populated by two ethnic groups, the Tamils and the Sinhalese. The Tamils constitute only 15% of the total population in Sri Lanka. But, according to Stuart Bell from National Post, the Sinhalese still feel as a “minority within the wider region”[3], because of Sri Lanka’s geographic position, only 30 kilometers off the coast of India’s Tamil Nadu. Another factor to be taken into consideration is that Sri Lanka is the only place in the world that the Sinhalese culture exists in. There is no question that the Sinhalese feel even more threatened because of that. Additional differences adding oil to the fire between the two groups are:

language (Tamil vs. Sinhala);

religion (mostly Hindu vs. Buddhist);

history interpretations;

moral superiority claims;

question of the original inhibition of the island.

The post-colonial government took the path of an extreme pro-Sinhalese mood, after coming into power on Februa...

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...n the weapons inflow. The LTTE have also been loosing their legitimacy among their supporters.

Secondly, the country itself, seems to also have grown extremely weary of the constant human and economic sacrifices. Both sides, it seems, can’t go on, and are very ready to compromise. And thirdly, the growing global no-tolerance atmosphere itself, as mentioned earlier, is playing an important role in taming the tigers this time. As “The Hindu” asserts: “…the post-September 11 world might prove an increasingly tough place even for groups that fight their battles within a defined geographical territory in remote corners of the globe, like the LTTE, to use terror as a strategy.”[19]

I think, that the combination of these three factors might result to be just the right mix to, finally, put an end to a 20-year long war in Sri Lanka. And the country will see the light.