....Peace is a long way off. The LTTE has demonstrated a clear lack of interest in a negotiated settlement. The government is beholden to and sympathetic with forces that conceive of Sri Lanka as an essentially Sinhala and Buddhist nation. Denying the existence of legitimate grievances specific to Tamils and the need to accommodate their concerns in a settlement, the politically dominant forms of contemporary Sinhala nationalism assert that the central problem is a terrorist threat that needs to be crushed.
Despite claims to be committed to a political solution, the decision to rely on hardline Sinhala nationalist parties with an ideological commitment to the unitary state has left the government with little option other than to pursue the LTTE’s military defeat. Any meaningful southern consensus on devolution – necessary for a lasting solution – will take time but without much stronger international efforts to persuade both the government and the UNP to find common ground beyond unitary and federal labels, there is little chance the APRC will produce a political package attractive to Tamil moderates and able to win two-thirds support in parliament. Reaching a sustainable settlement will be even harder if government plans to establish new Sinhala settlements and weaken the power of Tamil and Muslim political parties and civil servants in the Eastern Province are in fact carried out....
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