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Most people believe the economic misfortunes they are being subjected to have their origins in the war. In addition, the hope of a quick military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam has receded with the passing of over a year of sustained warfare.
There are other compelling reasons for the government to make known that it is contemplating a change of approach. There is increasing pressure from the major donor countries on the government, urging it to change track. Although they have not joined publicly with the Western donor countries who are outspoken in their criticism, both Japan and India are reported to be putting serious pressure on the government from behind the scenes.
The representatives of the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway have recently come to a common position to reject a military solution, and reaffirmed their faith in the possibility of a negotiated political solution. They have also called for an end to human rights abuses by both the government and the LTTE, and insisted that the Norwegian facilitators should be given access by the government to meet with the LTTE in the Wanni, Sri Lanka's heartland. Fourth, they have urged the government to come up with a credible political package through the All Party Conference process to address the ethnic conflict.
However, it appears that the government's willingness to contemplate peace talks with the LTTE is combined with a determination to continue military operations to counter the militant group. This suggests that the government's new approach will, at best, be a two-pronged one, reminiscent of that of the government of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who herself declared a war for peace against the LTTE in 1995. However, in the latter half of her second and final term of office in 2004, the former president lost faith in this dual track approach, and instead focused only on the political approach.
Tragically, war appears to have a beguiling allure to both the Rajapaksa government and the LTTE. Those who support the government's military campaign believe that the government has to defeat the LTTE in order to defeat the threat of Tamil separatism. On the other hand, those who support the LTTE's military campaign would believe that the LTTE has to wrest Tamil rights, and Tamil territory, by force of arms away from the government. But both are dealing with symptoms, not with causes. The fact is that the ethnic conflict existed before the LTTE was formed in 1975 or the Rajapaksa government came to power in 2005.
The main argument against a military solution is that eradicating a symptom does not deal with the cause of the problem. Even if the government were to defeat the LTTE on the battlefields of Sri Lanka, it would not be able to eradicate Tamil nationalism. The desire of Tamil people to enjoy equal rights and to have real decision-making power in Sri Lanka, whether in the north and east or in Colombo, is not limited to the LTTE-controlled Wanni. It exists in the same measure in other parts of the north and east, in Colombo and elsewhere in the country. In addition, there is a vast reservoir of Tamil nationalism in the Tamil expatriate community that lives abroad, that no amount of military solutions in Sri Lanka can ever hope to subdue.
There is only one answer to Tamil nationalism and that is a just political solution that accords with universal human rights principles. The best hope of arriving at such a political solution today is for the government to reinvigorate the All Party Conference process, as recommended by the donor co-chairs.
There are two necessary steps for this. The first is for the government to heed the views of its old left and ethnic minority coalition partners, and improve the proposal that the ruling party has made to the All Party Conference. The second is to include the Tamil National Alliance into the All Party Conference process instead of seeking to exclude them, as the government has done over the past year and a half.
Both of these steps require a fundamental reorientation in the government's approach to the ethnic conflict. The government will need to stop placing its faith in the power of Sinhalese nationalism to deliver a military victory over Tamil nationalism. It will need to stop being a hostage to Sinhalese nationalism, and recognize that Sinhalese nationalism cannot provide either military victory or economic prosperity. The TNA parliamentarians, as the elected representatives of the Tamil people, have the duty to represent the democratic aspirations of the Tamil people without simply being the pawns of the LTTE's military agenda. Without these two steps, the government's promise of a new approach to the ethnic conflict is unlikely to come to fruition.
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(Dr. Jehan Perera is executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, an independent advocacy organization. He studied economics at Harvard College and holds a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School.)
