Sri Lanka has suddenly entered a period of escalating violence after the general elections that saw Mahinda Rajapakse, the candidate of hardline Sinhalese parties, being elected president on 17 November. Ironically, it was the LTTE's enforced boycott of the polls by Tamil voters in the north and east that clinched victory for Rajapakse, by the slimmest of margins. Most of the Tamil vote would have gone to opposition candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had projected himself as the peace candidate.
Following an election campaign meant to energise his Sinhalese base and an inaugural speech reaffirming his poll promises on 29 November, in recent days, President Rajapakse has been speaking of peace, compromise and restraint. It is the Tamil Tigers, on the other hand, who are behind most of the large scale attacks that have seen the death of more than 50 security personnel in the five weeks following the presidential election. Most of the casualties have been due to landmine blasts.
The reversal of policy of the new government headed by President Rajapakse and his nationalist allies is quite remarkable, given their election time rhetoric. In a situation in which the government is not reacting aggressively to the LTTE's provocations, it is the rebels who are looking increasingly the belligerent party. This does not bode well either for the LTTE or for the peace process. Due to their ongoing campaign of violence, the LTTE is slipping ever nearer a total ban at the hands of the European Union. So far, the travel ban imposed on them in September 2005 has been largely a symbolic one and has served as a warning of what is to come. It prevents LTTE delegations from being received by the EU countries. If a total ban is placed on the LTTE, the group will not be able to operate at all out of Europe.
Despite the violent turn taken by the LTTE, however, the Rajapakse government too is required to undo its own contributions to despoiling the peace process. During the election run-up, Rajapakse led a propaganda campaign to lampoon what he called opposition candidate Wickremesinghe's appeasement of the LTTE. Rajapakse promised instead to roll back the clock on concessions made to the LTTE, including a revision of the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, on terms that would be more favourable to the Colombo government. He also promised to abrogate an agreement with the LTTE to set up the 'joint mechanism' on tsunami reconstruction and to put aside an agreement made by the government and LTTE in Oslo in 2002 to explore a federal solution. What Rajapakse promised during the election campaign was a unitary or centralised state, tsunami reconstruction carried out by Colombo, and a new facilitator to replace Norway, which his hardline Sinhalese allies accused of partiality towards the LTTE.