An antipathy for peace

The Tamil Tigers made two things unequivocally clear with their lethal truck-bomb attack in the heart of Colombo's business district on Wednesday.

First, the government will not be able to revive the Sri Lankan economy until a solution is found to the country's 25-year-old ethnic war.

And second, that the separatist group has no real strategy except to strike out madly whenever they feel they are being sidelined or slighted.

Wednesday's attack was not as big as the one last January, but the damage to the economy and international confidence in the country will nevertheless be severe.

Before the attack, the government was expecting the economy would post a growth of five to six percent this year, up from 3.5 percent last year. The Tigers' determination to attack economic and civilian targets will no doubt cause investors to hesitate to launch new projects. The biggest economic victim, however, will be the country's beleaguered tourism industry. After the attack, several countries have branded the Tigers as a terrorist group.

Much to her credit, President Kumaratunga vowed that the terrorist attack would not derail her efforts to find a negotiated settlement to end the fighting and to respond to the grievances of ethnic Tamils, who make up nearly 20 percent of the island's 18 million inhabitants.

The Tigers want control of an independent state called Eelam' in the northeast of the country, which constitutes one-third of Sri Lanka's land area and two-thirds of its coastline. For the government, separation is non-negotiable.

Unlike half-a-dozen other Tamil militant groups which eventually gave up their Eelam' claims and entered parliamentary politics, the Tigers have no clear political ideology. Short of unconditional independence under iron-fisted ruler Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tiger's only discernible goal of the last decade seems to be to keep the country on its war footing as a way of fueling ethnic tensions.

Ultimately, the conflict must either end with the elimination of the Tiger leadership or through talks. After decades of fighting and more than 50,000 deaths, the preferable option should be clear to both sides.

The international community can help by cracking down on the separatist group's fundraising and weapons smuggling activities.

-- The Nation, Bangkok