The peace process that began in 2002 in Sri Lanka is now in serious crisis. An undeclared war between the armed forces of the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is intensifying every day. In the escalating violence, civilians have become victims of claymore mine attacks, while there are reports of civilian killings by unidentified death squads operating in the northern and eastern provinces. The conflict has now become a dirty war, in which civilian populations are deliberately targeted.
The 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) and the presence of the International Monitoring Mission are no longer effective instruments to arrest the spiral of violence or the sliding back to war. Indeed, it can now be said that the war has begun. Now more than ever, Sri Lanka needs new initiatives from the international community and the government to prevent the war from developing into a catastrophe
All this is taking place against a backdrop of the recent failure of Colombo and the LTTE to re-start the stalled peace process. The first such attempt under the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse was made in February in Geneva. Facilitated by the Norwegian peace brokers, the two sides met there after a three-year gap in direct talks. The immediate context for the Geneva meeting was the increasing violations of the CFA and the fears of a resumption of full-scale war. In Geneva, the two sides agreed to renew their commitment to honour the CFA fully and to take immediate steps to prevent future violations. That pledge was not kept, and within two weeks Sri Lanka had returned to violence, with each side blaming the other.
The European Union's listing of the LTTE as a terrorist entity on 29 May happened amidst an increasing risk of full-scale hostilities. The decision should come as no surprise, said the EU, given that the LTTE had systematically ignored prior warnings. The LTTE had disregarded the EU's repeated insistence that the parties in Sri Lanka "show commitment and responsibility towards the peace process, and refrain from actions that could endanger a peaceful resolution and political settlement of the conflict".