Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Archives

Value of the 'third party'

Even as the biggest violation of the Cease-fire occurred at sea off the East coast last week, politics in the South also took a turn that will test the resilience of the tentative peace the country currently enjoys.

The incident off the coast near Vakarai may or may not have been the detection of an LTTE arms smuggling operation, but the immense value of the Cease-fire monitoring mechanism is further demonstrated by it. If there had been no independent monitoring group, the incident could very well have provoked an outbreak of hostilities. As it is, the procedure of making complaints to a third party initially serves to postpone further hostile reponses.

Then, the availability of such a third party enables an independent inquiry into the matter and a finding that cannot be regarded as partisan.

There is no need for anyone to jump to conclusions about what happened or to point fingers at presumed guilty parties. In fact, any attempt by anyone else to pre-empt the findings of the Monitoring Mission will only serve to mar the atmosphere. All this has helped stretch the current suspension of hostilities into the longest peace Sri Lanka has experienced in some years.

But the politics of the South will also be a determining factor in the future of peace. The entire process of confidence-building depends on the ability of the national political leadership - a leadership that is largely based on the majority ethnic community - to establish a consensual position on the nature of a viable political solution. Indeed, the viability of such a political solution depends on the strength of that consensus.

While the United National Front, by its very action in concluding the Cease-fire Agreement, has made clear its own approach to the peace option, the UNF's opposite number in Sri Lankan politics, the People's Alliance, has yet to set out its own position. Instead, the individual parties that make up this coalition have come out with their own separate postures and with sharp differences emerging between them. While the LSSP and the CPSL have adopted a stance of unequivocal support for the current peace initiative, the SLFP, in its statement last week was less than enthusiastic about the peace process.

When the principal alternative to the ruling party casts doubts on the veracity of the peace process - a process that has already aroused much worry and tension - this can only serve to fan the fears of the general citizenry. It has been the fanning of such ethnic suspicions and fears that has led to the failure of previous peace initiatives and the prolonging of the tragedy.

While diligence is essential concerning the legitimacy of the current peace moves, that diligence must not go to the extent that it acts as a drag on these moves. What the peace initiative needs today is a positive response that daringly supports it even as caution is exercised. At a time when ordinary people are filled with doubts and suspicions engendered by decades of hatred and violence, it is the task of the political leadership to act positively in order that the people are reassured.

The SLFP's concerns about the peace process may ring true only if that party remains a participant; a participation that can actively share in the ownership of the peace process. In fact it is only such consistent participation at the centre of the peace process that will legitimise the SLFP condition of an end to the political harassment to which it has been subjected since the UNF came to power.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security 
 Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager