Do you think a resurrection of the LTTE is possible? They have resurrected themselves strongly in the past.
Now we come to where we began, the third aspect, the Sri Lankan aspect. It purely depends upon how Sri Lankans use the success. If success is purely for the ruling party coalition to buttress itself forgetting the basic problem of how LTTE came into being, the end result will be different.
It all started because the Tamils failed to get equal rights from the Sinhalese politically. Has the condition improved? I fear it has not. The 13th Amendment is not being implemented fully.
It looks as if it is back to square one. If such a situation continues, Tamils will take it up politically first and it will continue for some time. If it doesn't succeed, they will revert to militancy. Even those guys who broke away from the LTTE may revert to militancy. A man like (LTTE rebel and now Sri Lankan member of parliament) Karuna also has to be elected by Tamil constituents later.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse says there will be elections in the Northern Province and there will be a Tamil chief minister. But having a Tamil chief minister without powers is a joke.
There is also a sizeable Muslim segment, which speaks Tamil, and they are politically aware. They are also watching this. They know what happens to Tamils today will happen to them tomorrow.
You mean the end result of 30 years of war is nothing?
After 30 years of struggle, nearly 70,000 Tamils have died, and there is no achievement.
I don't think the Sri Lankan government will allow the LTTE to come up. Militarily they have succeeded. Now it is for the Sri Lankans to sort out their problems. The Sinhalese have to accommodate the Tamils. Otherwise, there will be war again, and war is costly for both.
It has proved that only an arms struggle by the Tamils has not proved beneficial to Tamils. Conversely, only a military solution will not prove beneficial. The country has to politically solve the problem. A prolonged arms struggle has a life period unlike a prolonged political struggle.
Had the LTTE stuck to the India-Sri Lanka accord without fighting India, I feel probably they would have achieved better results.
Image: Displaced Tamils collect temporary identity cards issued by the Sri Lankan police at the Aryampathy refugee camp in Batticaloa. Photograph: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Reuters.
Also see: 'Unless you sacrifice, you can't fight terror'
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