Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, East Timor - these are the civil and inter-communal wars that have aroused horror and sympathy in the past few years. But in Sri Lanka there is another internecine conflict no less tragic, a war that has waxed and waned intermittently since 1983, destroying more than 60,000 lives.

Now with the results in from Tuesday's presidential election and Chandrika Kumaratunge re-elected with a dramatically reduced majority of only 51 percent, the time is ripe for an international peacemaking initiative. All the humanitarian justifications for saving lives in Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, and Chechnya apply in the conflict between the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka and the Tamil minority. Civilians, conscripts, and victims of terrorist bombings all deserve to be saved from a senseless repetition of murder and mayhem that can be ended only by a negotiated solution.

Chandrika, as the president is known to her compatriots, was elected five years ago as the leader who would bring peace to Sri Lanka. But instead of trying to end the killing by granting autonomy to the Tamil areas in the north and east of the country, she yielded to hard-line arguments for a decisive military solution. In turn, the Tamil Tigers have shown no willingness to end their campaign of murder and terror.

In a scorched earth offensive this year, government troops occupied most of the Tamil homeland. But this fall the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam overran one government post after another. It should be clear by now that the government's tactics succeeded only in driving the moderate Tamil population of the north and east into the hands of the Tigers. The war is unwinnable.