The high profile fundraising effort undertaken by the Sri Lankan government in partnership with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has raised many issues. Unsure of the rapprochement with Jaffna, critics of the move, including several opposition parties, denounced the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, for sharing a stage with LTTE spokesman, Dr Anton Balasingham, at the 25 November Oslo meeting with international government representatives. Even so, this historic partnership represents what might be described as a paradigm shift in which former foes are now constructively dealing with each other.
What it also represents are this government's leadership qualities. Since its election in December 2001, Wickremesinghe and his ministers have been considerably ahead of the rest of society in evolving a relationship with the LTTE. By sitting with Dr Balasingham at the Oslo meeting, the prime minister has substantially elevated the status of the LTTE in the eyes of the international community. This has been difficult to accept for those who continue to see the LITE as an enemy of the Sri Lankan state. In the past two decades of war, the LTTE has assassinated many Sri Lankan leaders and attacked the island's civilian population, the economy and the military. It is easy to understand why old patterns of thinking have a continuing appeal – the present ceasefire, though the longest ever, is not yet a year old.
However, with the rapid evolution of political life and ground realities, there is at least now some willingness to countenance new strategies. The proceedings at the recent annual convention of the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo, on human rights, peace and democracy bear out this assertion. The opening session's panel, comprising ethnically representative and non-partisan discussants, devoted itself to analysing the two-decade-old conflict. As the chairman of the panel, Colombo University political scientist Dayan Jayatilleke pointed out, the panellists ranged from those who have criticised the present negotiation process as conceding too much to the LTTE to those who supported it as the only feasible option. But the common element, he said, was that they all believed in the necessity of a negotiated settlement, whereas the old polarisation was between those who advocated a brokered settlement and those who supported a military solution. As indicated by recent opinion polls, Jayatilleke's observation on the attitudinal shift holds true for the Sri Lankan public as well.
Objections