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Home truths on peace

Continuing his welcome and sound policy of keeping the country informed of how the peace process is shaping up, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made a special and comprehensive statement in parliament on Monday on some salient aspects of this great endeavour facing us.

As is usually the case when the Prime Minister focuses on this subject, reference was made to the onerous nature of forging ahead with the peace process. One should expect pitfalls and drawbacks in this exacting enterprise and it is best that the decision makers of this country constantly draw our attention to these grim features of the road ahead.

Nevertheless, the biggest plus in the current situation is that an agreement to cease hostilities is in place between the principal parties to the conflict. Much remains to be achieved but this refreshing respite from the fighting enables hostile attitudes and animosities to abate and lays the basis for building of goodwill. As the Prime Minister reminded us, the ceasefire agreement "takes us half-way down the road", and in the Lankan context, this is a good distance.

As should be expected, the cessation of hostilities agreement has raised some doubts and misgivings in some quarters. The Prime Minister clarified some of these in the course of his speech and we hope his observations were scrutinized by those raising queries about the agreement.

The Norwegian facilitators, for instance, would be demarcating areas of control in the North-East between the Lankan security forces and the LTTE, in close consultation with the relevant authorities on both sides, and not arbitrarily, as was erroneously opined in some quarters. Thus, the Norwegians will remain facilitators and not mediators.

As for demarcation of areas of control - this is nothing to be agitated over because it is public knowledge that the LTTE did control some regions of the North-East; the 'uncleared areas', in the language of defence analysts.

The tendency to raise such issues in some quarters, smacks of efforts to indulge in political opportunism at the cost of the country. The Prime Minister did right to pinpoint to the disturbing consequences of such narrow parochialism and we hope his request to refrain from engaging in these tendencies would be heeded.

We, indeed, have a long way to go. While the Ceasefire Agreement is only an initial step on the road to peace, there are the "talks about talks" and the substantive negotiations on the gut issues in the conflict, which are yet to be undertaken. The completion of these exacting tasks demands patience, understanding and above all, magnanimity and statesmanship.

It is the people and not government who benefit from peace. We were reminded of this stark fact by the Prime Minister himself recently. The people have spoken, and they want peace. Politicians have no choice but to oblige them. Any conduct to the contrary by politicians would be a violation of the people's trust.

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