Sri Lanka welcomed its 60th Independence Day with a bomb explosion that claimed 14 lives, adding to the thousands of innocent lives lost in the conflict between the Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the LTTE as the terrorist outfit is widely known as. Even as President Mahinda Rajapakse extolled his military’s so-called achievement in the ethnic conflict as against the LTTE, a suicide bomber blew himself up to claim 14 more lives to add to the surging numbers of the victims of Lankan violence.
Now when the Cease-Fire Agreement between the government and the LTTE is abrogated, there are only minute chances of brining peace to the war-mired land of Tamils and Sinhalese. The conflict that began for demand for a separate Eelam or Tamil homeland in the early 1970s became increasingly violent with the advance of LTTE supremo Prabhakaran in the 80s and acquired the form of insurgency. Notwithstanding Indian mediation or Norwegian effort at peace both the government and the LTTE continue to exhibit war tendencies. Even the ceasefire brokered at Oslo failed to achieve any consolidation and finally the government withdrew from it. On the other hand, division in LTTE and Karuna’s exit weakened the rebels considerably.
The Lankan Government, on the pressure from the chauvinist Sinhalese elements, let every chance of peace go waste. The army continued its operations and the LTTE carried its retaliation. The war crossing the threshold of Elephanta Pass and the Vanni forest soon reached the very heart of the Colombo city. Politicians, high-level officers, and innocent civilians became its victims. Both sides are resorting to clandestine killings to harm each other, but the victims remain the innocent civilians found in the mass graves of the East and the North.
Source: iafrica
