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Some year-end thoughts

As the festive season descends on us the country will set-aside even for the moment, the pressing domestic concerns which had preoccupied it for the rest of the year and enter into the spirit of the season.

The celebration of Christmas will be followed by the ushering in of the new Roman year which is done in style by the new plutocracy of Colombo at all those five-star shrines, although one hopes that the celebrations will not be marred by those ugly scenes of rowdyism which have attended functions at these hotels in recent times. However, once the euphoria of the New Year fades, all the grim realities of life will press back again on the people and the daily grind and the struggle for existence will take over.

Clearly, the coming year will be decisive for Sri Lanka just as the one that is rapidly expiring has been. The year ends with the President and the Government attempting to salvage at least a semblance of that co-habitation which has been so loudly touted at the beginning of the year. The coming week will see whether the national leadership, cutting across political differences is able to rise to the requirements of forging a consensus on which a settlement to the urgent national problems can be founded.

The New Year will also see the negotiations for the settlement of the Tamil National Question enter a more tangible state. What will be at issue will be the essence of the Federal solution which has been proposed, the extent of power which the Federal state will enjoy and its relationship with the Central Government. These are, needless to say, knotty questions (not least of all the whole question of the East) and all sides will have to bring to bear on the negotiations the highest degree of diplomatic skills, patience and political sagacity.

Hand-in-hand with this will go the question of mobilising opinion in support of a settlement. This will be the key to the whole problem because laudable as the understanding which the Government has arrived at with the LTTE is it will not advance significantly unless there are strong political forces which will be able to support it and keep the momentum going.

With the SLFP and the JVP already mobilising against a settlement, the Government will have to tap all the resources at its command to push a settlement forward. In this regard it would appear that the Government has been somewhat lukewarm, seeming to depend on the support of the international community, the domestic business community and a scattering of NGO peace groups. There should be a more vigorous push in the coming year to take the campaign for a solution to the people directly through all the means available.

The Government will also have to address the fears and reservations of various groups in this regard and answer these in a convincing way. Some of these fears are legitimate, such as those of the Muslims of the East about their status in a future Federal State while others are of the kind which emanate whenever a settlement is mooted. There are also the diehard extremists and war-mongers. But whatever group they might represent they have the potential of upsetting the process and this the Government should be mindful of.

But again a central question will be the relationship of the President and the Government and it will be hoped that even at this late hour a truce will be called in that confrontation which has been unfolding this whole year both in their comic and tragic dimensions. The country cannot afford the luxury of such confrontation at the very apex of power which can only have debilitating consequences on the whole polity.

So as the year reaches its end, there is reason for cautious optimism.

A major breakthrough has been made on the negotiating front, and in spite of teething problems the ceasefire has held. Never before have hopes of a settlement been so high. So therefore, while lots of hope will be invested in the peace process, it will also be hoped at the same time that the Government would also pay attention to the lot of the common man who has to return to the daily grind of existence once the seasonal jollities are over.

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