Endgame in Sri Lanka Ajit Kumar Singh*
Endgame in Sri Lanka Ajit Kumar Singh* If we do not end war – war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything. – H.G. Wells 1 The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse finally ended the Eelam War2 in May 2009 – though, perhaps, not in the manner many would desire. So determined was the President that he had told Roland Buerk of the BBC in an interview published on February 21, 2007, “I don't want to pass this problem on to the next generation.”3 Though the final phase of open war4 began on January 16, 2008, following the January 2 unilateral withdrawal of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) from the Norway-brokered * Ajit Kumar Singh, Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management 1 Things to Come (The film story), Part III, adapted from his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, spoken by the character John Cabal. 2 The civil war in Sri Lanka can be divided into four phases: Eelam War I between 1983 and 1987, Eelam War II between 1990-1994, Eelam War III between 1995-2001, and Eelam War IV between 2006-2009. See Muttukrishna Sarvananthaa in “Economy of the Conflict Region in Sri Lanka: From Embargo to Repression”, Policy Studies 44, East-West Centre, http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/ps044.pdf. 3 “No end in sight to Sri Lanka conflict”, February 21, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6382787.stm. 4 Amantha Perera, “Sri Lanka: Open War”, South Asia Intelligence Review, Volume 6, No.28, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/6_28.htm#assessment1.
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