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President Mahinda Rajapaksa has once again reiterated that he believes in the need for a political solution to end the current conflict in Sri Lanka. He has made this statement at a time when the Sri Lankan armed forces are poised to capture the LTTE\'s administrative capital of Kilinochchi after months of heavy fighting and heavy casualties. When government spokespersons say that the government is for a political solution this is often taken as an affirmation that the government is prepared to negotiate with the LTTE with whom it is engaged in warfare. However, a political solution does not necessarily have to be negotiated with the LTTE, or so the government seems to think.

There is also the possibility of a political solution that is put into place without the LTTE being either consulted or being made a party to it. The government seems to be thinking that it can formulate a political solution by acting in consensus with ideologically allied parties, such as the Sinhalese nationalist parties of the JVP and JHU, and pro-government Tamil parties such as the EPDP and TMVP. The President may be thinking of a political solution that is put into place after the LTTE is defeated on the military battlefield. In the same speech where he spoke approvingly about a political solution, the President also called on the LTTE to lay down their weapons, surrender to the government forces and enter the democratic process by contesting elections.

The President took up these positions in a speech delivered to the All Party Conference. This is an important initiative that he summoned over two and a half years ago to find a political solution to the ethnic conflict. While the representatives of the APC have laboured considerably and made various proposals, the government has not been prepared to accept them. The only recommendation that the government has so far accepted is what the President himself proposed. This was to implement the present constitution, in particular the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, and no more. Unfortunately, this too has yet to be done, although this recommendation was made with much earnestness at the beginning of this year.

The whole history of the Tamil struggle is to find ways of dealing with the outcome of Sinhalese ethnic majority domination of the polity. It is hardly a cause for surprise that in these circumstances many Tamil people continue to place a degree of support in the LTTE, despite their track record of human rights abuses and political bungling. This is on account of the LTTE continuing to possess a measure of bargaining strength through its remaining military strength, which is unavailable to any Tamil political party. Even Tamil allies of the government, such as the EPDP and TMVP have little or no bargaining strength, as they are almost totally dependent on the government for their survival.

TAMIL SUPPORT

Since it was first established, the APC and its representatives have held dozens of meetings, but none of these meetings have included representatives of the TNA, which is the largest Tamil political party. Only a few of the meetings at the earlier stages included the main opposition party, the UNP. The UNP left the APC process accusing the government of bad faith. It continues to say that the whole exercise is one to deceive the international community and is unwilling to join it. In these circumstances, it is readily apparent that the political solution envisaged by the President is one between allied parties, rather than through negotiations with antagonists or those holding oppositional views.

The original source of popular Tamil support for the separatist insurgency was the perception amongst Tamils that the existing political system was based on permanent ethnic majority rule, rather than on any principle of fairness that ought to govern relations between an ethnic majority and ethnic minorities. In the absence of the LTTE, the government can unilaterally seek to impose a solution upon the Tamil people. It is not likely that such a political solution that is designed by Sinhalese nationalist parties such as the JHU and the government\'s own proponents of Sinhalese nationalism, can even be minimally acceptable to the Tamil people.

On the other hand, the government may reasonably feel that it is simply not possible to negotiate a political solution with the LTTE. This is not simply the view of nationalist Sinhalese. It is also the considered view of many in the international community, who are today giving the government a considerable degree of leeway in militarily dealing with the LTTE. The best opportunity for a negotiated political solution was the peace process of 2002-2005 which was facilitated by Norway, and behind which stood countries like Japan and the United States. But the LTTE continued to think in terms of its own leadership of a separate Tamil state and sought to undermine that peace process.

Today, unfortunately, the members of the government that entered into the ceasefire with the LTTE are in the opposition. There has been a full scale war in the north and east of Sri Lanka for the past two and a half years. The Ceasefire Agreement was formally abrogated by the Government of Sri Lanka, led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in January 2008. But the blame for the return to war cannot be put on the government alone. The foundations of the Ceasefire Agreement were shaken five years earlier when the LTTE walked out of peace talks in March 2003 and refused to attend the Tokyo donor conference in July 2003.

CONTINUING CONFLICT

What Sri Lanka needs for peace that is stable and lasting is a political solution that is fair by all communities, and is perceived as such by them. The challenge for peace making in Sri Lanka is to overcome the two main obstacles to such a political solution that is fair by all communities. These two obstacles are Sinhalese nationalism that sees Sri Lanka as a Sinhalese country and seeks to impose its own vision of a political solution upon the ethnic minorities. The other obstacle is the unwillingness of the LTTE to accept anything less than a separate Tamil state under its own leadership.

The military battles being fought at the present time in the north may get rid of one of these obstacles. The government\'s ongoing attempt is to militarily eliminate the proto-structures of a separate state that exist in the north, as was done in the east two years ago. The loss of the outer form of a separate state, such as their office buildings and administrative apparatus, might compel the LTTE to have a more realistic assessment of the contours of a political solution. If the present leadership is not prepared to be realistic, but is determined to continue to take the Tamil people to their doom, this can even lead to further splits within the organisation.

The problem, however, is that the very process of a military victory by the government may lead to the strengthening of the other obstacle to a political solution that is fair by all communities. This obstacle is Sinhalese nationalism that claims Sri Lanka to be a Sinhalese country, in which the ethnic majority has the power to impose their own vision of a political solution upon the ethnic minorities. Unless the government is prepared to accept the reality that Sri Lanka is a multi ethnic society, this will be a recipe for continued ethnic strife in the years to come.

During his Presidential election campaign in November 2005, President Mahinda Rajapaksa critiqued the Ceasefire Agreement that was signed in 2002, and pledged instead to design a new peace process that would bring peace with dignity. The ground reality in the north today is one of upwards of 300,000 people fleeing from place to place to escape the ravages of war. This is not peace with dignity for the Tamil people, who have a birthright to this country, who are sons and daughters of Sri Lankan soil, who are necessarily represented by the Government of Sri Lanka, and whose support and goodwill is necessary if Sri Lanka is to reach its full potential as a rapidly developing nation. The plight of the people of the north is reason enough for the government to consider a new peace process based on negotiations that are different from the past.

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