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| Sunday, 30 January 2005 |
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Politics | Today's Top Story |  |
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Tsunami offers opportunity for peace - PM by Elmo Leonard The tsunami of December 26 has not gifted Sri Lanka with eternal peace, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse warned in Colombo yesterday. The Premier drew attention to the pre-tsunami situation where there was an unequivocal voice by many critics and political analysts to return to war. Instead, tsunami had offered the Sri Lankan people an opportunity for peace, Premier Rajapakse said at a seminar on `the future of the peace process held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute yesterday. The only thing specific about the sheer magnitude of force that struck, disregarding race or creed was that it terminated the north-south dichotomy that was coded in the Sri Lankan psyche. The post-tsunami situation had also given way to challenges to the peace progress. It had come in the form of disputes voiced by the LTTE and Parliamentary representatives of the north and east of discontent in the manner of relief operations taking place. The Premier said that the protraction of these disputes was a clear danger to closing down the window of opportunity for peace which the tsunami had brought about. These issues should be and could be resolved through positive negotiations. 7The Prime Minister did not intend to analyse the challenges posed by tsunami to the peace process in the context of such disputes. Far more important was the challenges posed by tsunami for speedy resolution of the nation's ethnic conflict; the challenge of speeding up efforts of restarting the peace process. The Premier raised this issue because all stake holders in this problem had claimed that they represented their communities, their interests and rights. If so, these people who had suffered much from two decades of ethnic conflict were further ravaged by the tsunami disaster. These people, more than ever before, were begging for "eternal peace." Thus, the Premier called upon all political party leaders, academics, professionals, journalists and artists to contribute positively to the challenges posed to the peace process in the post-tsunami context. Earlier, the Prime Minister said that the disaster the tsunami brought about was the worst disaster in the political history a government of this nation had to face. He maintained that the government was taking up the challenge and standing tall in confronting the devastation of such sheer power unprecedented in history. |
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