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| Sunday, 2 June 2002 |
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Editorial |  |
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Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 1 429239 / 331181 Fax : 94 1 429230 Citizens' peace initiatives Even as the country's political leaderships yet fail to collaborate in building peace, its ordinary citizens, even those direct victims of the war are taking the initiative in reconciliation and solidarity between once-warring communities. The latest mission northwards comprises a group of disabled services and police personnel who plan to meet with disabled LTTE cadres in Jaffna this week. Theirs' will be a goodwill mission aimed at building solidarity among those similarly affected by the war on both sides of the conflict. Just six months ago such armed services personnel, in their physically fit state, would have been determinedly committed to travelling North to do battle. Now, they wish to greet their former enemy - perhaps those same cadres who inflicted those disabling injuries; who knows? North or South, Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim, the ravages of war mark all equally severely. There is already an unity and a solidarity in the suffering. That awful experience has now built an unity of aspiration for peace among the general citizenry. This is what is inspiring such initiatives for peace by citizens. Unfortunately, the country's political leaders, both North and South are yet to show a similar readiness to compromise, to abandon hard and fast commitments, in favour of a new dynamic that reverses the previous dynamic of conflict and confrontation. The exigencies of regional, national, Sub-continental and global politics are such that simple aspirations for peace and democracy must be overridden by the demands of expediency and self-interest. The partisan and the partial yet rule over the common interest and collective aspiration and hope. Whether Government or Opposition, State or insurgent, the various sides to the conflict are yet show a determination to go beyond this first stage of a suspension of hostilities. If the peace process is to progress beyond this initial stage, all sides must make that huge effort to transcend existing animosities and compulsions to compete. It is time that this country's political leaderships learn that politics is not only about power but also about the maintenance of decent relationships between individuals and groups even in the process of governance and administration. Indo-Pak tensions The political situation on the Sub-continent is not showing any indication of emerging from the intensely angry state of confrontation between India and Pakistan that currently besets both countries. More than a million military personnel and the most formidable array of weaponry in the Third World are now locked in a tense stand-off between the two countries. The leaderships in Islamabad and Delhi are yet to show signs of a softening that could raise hopes that the danger of war is now on the wane. Rather, South Asia's billions must live in uncertainty. Given their nuclear military capabilities, the prospect of war also raises the prospect of a nuclear battle - a battle that would devastate this region as never before in human history. Such a conflagration will engulf not only the teeming populations of the two warring countries but also the societies of the entire South Asian region as well any other area to which nuclear fall-out is carried by the winds. And the economic, social and political burden the rest of the world will have to bear in the event of such a catastrophe, makes the current Indo-Pakistan confrontation a matter of international concern. All countries, especially those in this region thus have a responsibility to make every effort to help India and Pakistan move away from confrontation and resume a dialogue on the burning issues of contention between these two great countries. |
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