MENINGFUL DEVOLUTION OF POWER!!! KEY TO PEACE!!!

Sri Lanka: victory announcements are far too premature
The Guardian, Thursday 5 February 2009
The situation in Sri Lanka certainly looks as though the war with the Tamil Tigers is almost over, although over the last 25 years the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have demonstrated the ability to recover from adversity several times (Victory but not peace, Leader, 3 February).

The Tamil Tigers certainly seem to be on the back foot, but even if they are crushed militarily, major questions will remain about the future political make-up of the island, and the conflict will remain unresolved in the long term.

The quest for meaningful devolution of power is one that has dominated Tamil politics since the mid-1970s, since parliamentary options were effectively closed, leading to armed conflict between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan armed forces.

The role of both Norway and neighbouring India needs to be brought back into the picture in order to help broker a lasting peace. Although India has its domestic problems at the moment - such as tensions with Pakistan and forthcoming elections, its interests in regional stability should be used as a positive influence in Sri Lankan politics.

Clearly, there is a significant danger in Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa assuming all-out victory. The increased attacks on journalists also echo the darkest days of the Premadasa regime in the 1990s, an era that ultimately led to war resuming with an even mightier force on both sides.

Dr Alan Bullion
Author of India, Sri Lanka and the Tamil Crisis
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There will be neither victory nor peace in Sri Lanka till the rights of the Tamil people are enshrined in a federal constitution that devolves power to the Tamil areas in the north and east - as was envisaged by the Norwegian peace process of 2002-05.

First, because the cause for which the LTTE has fought, if not its methods, is the cause of Tamil peoples everywhere, and cannot be suppressed. Second, because the present government, even more than all the governments before it, has, through the Aryanisation of race, the perversion of Buddhism into a violent, communal creed, and the exaltation of the Sinhala language as the language of office, achieved the successful symbiosis of the fascist elements that keeps it in power. In the process, it has killed off civil society with its blanket censorship, judicious murders and the suppression of the intelligentsia till there is no one left to oppose it. Instead, it has bred a culture of hate among the Sinhala masses that sees babies kitted out in army fatigues, accepts torture as a fact of war, and calls for the complete subjugation, if not the ethnic cleansing, of the Tamil people - which, in turn, ensures the perpetuation of an authoritarian government. Alas, my country.

A Sivanandan
Director, Institute of Race Relations

COURTESY:guardian.co.uk