Mechanisms of power sharing

When Sri Lanka surfaces in the international media it is almost invariably in connection with ethnic violence. Such stories have been grim and arresting in the last two decades. There have been mob riots in which the government has been complicitous. There have been dramatic military encounters where on a single day major army bases have fallen and a thousand soldiers have been killed. There have been devastations in the heart of the capital, Colombo, including an attack on the airport that destroyed the country´s fleet of international carriers. The bulk, though not all, of the violence of the last 20 years is an outcome of the long war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighting for an independent Tamil homeland. In these two decades, the LTTE has emerged as a powerful, internationally active organisation claiming to be the sole representative of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. Its leader has a cult status and he commands an army of over 10,000 soldiers, each of whom has sworn to commit suicide by swallowing a cyanide rather than surrender.

However, things are beginning to change after the dramatic ceasefire agreement between Sri Lankan government and LTTE in February 2002 that followed nearly three months of unofficial ceasefire. Increasingly media coverage has focused on Sri Lanka as a possible model for peace making in a conflict-ridden region. South Asia, with its nuclear arsenals, geopolitical rivalries, ethnic conflicts and insurgencies, is regarded as being amongst the most unstable regions in the world. Consequently, there are many who see the recent developments in Sri Lanka as a possible indication that textbooks approaches to peace making, with third party mediation, can be successful.