Sri Lankan War Nears End, but Peace Remains Distant

by Thomas Fuller, The New York Times, February 18, 2009

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka — Just north of here, after a string of recent victories, the Sri Lankan military is closing in on separatist rebels in what it calls the climactic battles of the country’s long-running civil war. But in this heavily militarized port city, there are no signs of jubilation.

Ethnic Tamil civilians waited on Feb. 7 to go to a camp for displaced people. Intense fighting is still expected in the territory that remains held by the rebels, where an estimated 200,000 civilians are trapped.

The government similarly declared victory here in Eastern Province 18 months ago. Though there are clear hints of reconstruction, the fear and lack of development apparent in the area reveal just how far the government still has to go to win the peace, even if its forces ultimately prevail on the battlefield.

“What the victor does after the battle will determine whether you win or not,” said Rohan Samarajiva, a former government regulator who is now a business consultant. “It’s appalling to see how little things have improved in the north and the east.”

The government has yet to address the cultural and political grievances that fueled the insurgency among the ethnic Tamil minority, analysts say. But more than that, the northern and eastern regions that have been the scene of most of the conflict are several decades behind the southern areas that are home to the Sinhalese majority in terms of wealth and development.

Without addressing the gap, analysts say, there is little hope of securing a peaceful and prosperous future for Sri Lanka’s 21 million people. “They lost their investor class, they lost their physical assets, their infrastructure,” said Sirimal Abeyratne, professor of economics at the University of Colombo. “People lost their skills.”

The country’s economy has been remarkably resilient in recent years despite the conflict. But today any effort at reconstruction is likely to be hampered by the global economic crisis, even if the government is fully committed to it — and that remains an open question.

Money today is literally in short supply in Sri Lanka. Tourist arrivals were down 32 percent in January. The garment industry is shedding jobs, and the prices of two major exports, tea and rubber, are plummeting. The central bank’s foreign reserves are down to an estimated $1.5 billion, enough to pay for about six weeks of imports.

Security here in Trincomalee has improved, according to S. Thevarajah, an employee of the local government health service, but he does not plan to tell his son, who has lived in Britain for the last 17 years, to come back. “There are too many problems here,” Mr. Thevarajah said. “And he’s my only son.”

The capital, Colombo, is buzzing about whether President Mahinda Rajapaksa will seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund or the Indian government.

Opinion about the country’s future seems sharply divided between north and south.

In Colombo, which is in the south, many say they are both relieved and hopeful that the country can finally exploit its full potential as a tropical paradise for tourists and a strategic port between the Middle East and East Asia.

For Lohitha Kalhara Peiris, a 35-year-old lifeguard from the majority Sinhalese ethnic group who works in a hotel in Dubai, the end of the conflict may mean he is finally able to start a family in Sri Lanka. “Seeing the war ending, I feel we have a future,” he said. “We can do something.”

Farther north, however, ethnic Tamils are waiting for signs that the government will address what a Tamil politician named Douglas Devananda, who opposed the rebels, called their “genuine political grievances,” chiefly a desire for greater political autonomy.

Even with a military victory apparently at hand, the prospect of new bloodshed looms. Before the war is over, intense fighting is expected inside the tiny wedge of territory still held by the rebels, where an estimated 200,000 civilians are trapped.

And even if the separatists, who call themselves the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, lose all their territory, they are likely to retain the capacity to unleash terrorist attacks.

Major fighting in this corner of the east ended months ago, but residents here say they are still too scared to leave the city limits after dark, fearing retribution from rebels or pro-government factions.

Ariyawathie Gallapathy, a member of the Eastern Provincial Council, which oversees development plans, shrugged off a question about recent violence, including the assassination of the chief priest of a Hindu temple in September and an attack near the beach resort of Nilaveli several weeks ago.

“In the wartime, how many people died and how many bombs were there?” she asked rhetorically. “We are not as concerned when one or two people die.”

The argument might not be enough to persuade foreign tourists to return, however. The beaches are nearly deserted. The small handful of foreigners in Trincomalee these days work for the Red Cross or other aid agencies.

Analysts worry that Mr. Rajapaksa and his government are not committed to the type of political power-sharing that may be needed to ensure peace.

“I don’t think the prospects of a follow-up political agreement for the Tamils is in the cards for some while, unfortunately,” said Alan Keenan, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization based in Brussels.

Without greater recognition of Tamil minority rights, Mr. Keenan said, the “odds are that there will be significant political resistance and some degree of armed resistance.”

The victories on the battlefield have lifted the popularity of Mr. Rajapaksa, at least among the Sinhalese majority. His party won solid majorities in two provincial council elections on Sunday.

The president’s fortunes have risen as those of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the rebel leader, have fallen.

Mr. Prabhakaran urged Tamils to boycott national elections three years ago, effectively giving Mr. Rajapaksa, whose campaign pledge was to end the war, the margin he needed to win.

The Rajapaksa administration has managed to corral political support to quash the Tamil Tigers, crush dissent and dismiss any international criticism of human rights as pro-rebel propaganda. Independent journalists have been hounded out of the country, jailed on antiterrorism laws and killed.

“We have now been able, within a short span of two and half years, to almost completely defeat the cowardly forces of terror that had wrapped our entire nation in fear through several decades,” Mr. Rajapaksa said in national day celebrations this month.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, who leads the nonpartisan Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, wondered whether the Rajapaksa government would simply impose “a victor’s peace.”

He described the government’s challenge this way: “Now that we have nearly ended the war, are we going to end the conflict?”

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi.