It’s tricky path to peace
The new government is moving fast towards an agreement with the LTTE. The country is bankrupt as it has never been and growth has gone negative, and although the fundamental problems are various they are all tied into one another.
Peace and president: New Govt.’s tight-rope walk
The Prime Minister and his retinue have crossed the river full of man-eating crocodiles and reached land. They may think the walk to the oasis is easier than the crossing was. Land looks safe and is full of pits and mirages, and sometimes crossing it is harder than crossing water.
A sail through stormy weather
The attack at Katunayake has brought down a large part of an already weak economy, and neither the parties struggling for power nor the public seems to grasp how serious it is. They behave like the crab that dances in the pot until the water boils. One more such attack would be enough.
Ensuring healthy peace talks
After the failure of Agni Khiela the government has had to soften the hard conditions it set for starting talks. It now enters negotiations from weakness rather than strength, and the talks are likelier to deepen its crisis than to steady it.
Will Prabhakaran take the peace path?
The LTTE and its leader are stuck in a quagmire and finding it hard to keep the violent struggle going. Whether Prabhakaran can take the path of peace, and what it would cost him to try, is the question — and Ivan’s answer is neither hopeful nor hostile.
The inherent limits of the Norwegian peace initiative
The Norwegian attempt to bring peace to Sri Lanka is being discussed from every point of view. What the column sets out is what a third-party facilitation can and cannot reach — and why India’s own intervention carried the limits it did.
Can India be a genuine aide?
India has said it is ready to intervene as a third party if both sides ask. Both sides have stayed silent; only some of the bhikkhus who once rose against the Indo-Lanka Pact, and the leader of the opposition, have answered favourably. Whether India can be a genuine helper is the question the column puts.
Invasion of Jaffna inevitable
The Army Commander says Elephant Pass was given up on strategic grounds. What the LTTE had in fact done was bring the base to a point where the army could not get water or food into it — and a base abandoned for strategic reasons still proves that the means of holding Jaffna are gone.
Way to peace is found within
Norway has come forward as a facilitator to help Sri Lanka find a way out of the ethnic crisis. Will the Norwegian intervention lead to a solution? Ivan’s answer turns on what both Sri Lankan leaders have already shown they will trade for Prabhakaran’s neutrality.
Who killed Kumar Ponnambalam?
Kumar Ponnambalam was the most courageous of Sri Lanka’s political commentators. He lived in Colombo among Sinhala people, most of his associates were Sinhala, and knowing exactly what it cost to defend the LTTE from Colombo he went on saying what he thought, fearlessly and well.