The Kilinochchi disaster in September 1998 was the exclamation mark at the end of the Sri Lankan government's failed strategy to capture the Jaffna-Vavuniya highway, help Tamil moderates establish a political beacbhead in the Jaffna peninsula, and force the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) to negotiate on its (the government's) terms. The battle resulted in thousands of casualties, mostly on the army's side, and was perhaps the costliest since US troops cornered Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. The defeat was soon followed by the government's decision to call off its "Operation Victory Assured" and, sensing its advantage, the LTTE's new offers to enter into unconditional talks which the government promptly rebuffed.
Further deepening the gloom, recent reports in the Sri Lankan press that South African President Nelson Mandela would facilitate negotiations turned out to be, in the words of the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, "idle speculation" What no one bothered to ask was why Mandela would risk his unmatched cache and credibility in attempting to reconcile two warring sides that seem so uninterested in compromise. As the new year began, the government turned its attention to the provincial council elections, while the army appeared to have changed its strategy, from forging mass formations of troops and artillery to opting for smaller fighting patrols.
Sri Lanka's citizens are quick to blame their leaders for the seemingly endless political and military stalemate but the "civil societies" on both sides of the ethnic divide are equally to blame. This is a war in which the sons and daughters of Sinhalese cultivators and fishermen fight on against the sons and daughters of Tamil cultivators and fishermen, cheered from the sidelines by the middle classes of both communities who dominate the war's discourse but whose contributions to the war effort are mostly measured in airy words and good intentions.
The contradiction between the Sinhalese desire to vanquish the LTTE and their unwillingness to enlist, especially when the tide of battle shifts and victory appears remote, is perhaps the Sri Lankan army's greatest obstacle to achieving its objectives. The Tigers face the same frustration. Their dream of Elam would be closer to reality if more Tamils left the comforts of asylum abroad and joined up.