President says peace process irreversible

The core of the peace process is irreversible, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has told The Hindu in an exclusive interview.

"But it could be temporarily changed. The historian, the political historian, the political scientist, the philosopher, and the practical politician in me tell me that it cannot be changed. The course cannot be changed permanently. There could be temporary deformations," President Kumaratunga told interviewer V.S. Sambandan.

The President said that no one has so far come up with a more feasible, viable-looking alternative to a federal type of solution. "At the moment nobody has been able to give anything other than what we have proposed, apart from war."

Asked as to what her message was to Sri Lankans on the eve of a major election, she replied: "Please stay the course.

They will have to have a lot of perspicacity, a lot of insight. Not to get misled by the cacophony of the extremists." When the interviewer asked to her to describe her "one legacy' for Sri Lanka, the President said she was able to bring back to the country a sense of purpose. "The main thing we did was that when we took over the Government the country was floating about without a purpose, without any dreams, without any goals, and certainly without any decency. We were able to bring back to the country a sense of purpose, objectives."

She recalled that in 1994 Sri Lanka was a killing field. The Government was practising state terror against those who were their democratic opponents as well as some violent organisations. It was like a police state. "I think the biggest thing we did was that they were able to breathe freely under our regime, which means everything."