In Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese have been speaking a language with Aryan roots while the Tamils speak a Dravidian language. The Tamils and the Sinhalese have developed their own distinct cultures and for many centuries have lived as two distinct, mutually exclusive, nations. Globally, Sinhalese is spoken by the Sinhalese only in Sri Lanka but Tamil is also the language of around 50 million people in South India. The Sinhalese are a majority with a minority complex and this, coupled with the notion that Buddhism in its pristine form is preserved only in Sri Lanka, has nurtured a mindset among them that any privilege or near equal status granted to any other culture would seriously jeopardise the position of their language and religion. In their aspirations to preserve their ethno-religious identity they have been intolerant towards the aspirations of the Tamils.

The term 'Tamils', as used in this discussion, refers to the indigenous Tamils whose traditional homelands have been the North and East of Sri Lanka as distinguished from plantation workers who were brought into the country in the 19th century as indentured labour to work in the British plantations in the central hill country. Unfortunately a vast majority of these plantation workers are still an oppressed minority.

In the Sinhala psyche is also entrenched the idea that the Tamils came as invaders and that they exist at the sufferance of the Sinhalese people. The indigenous Tamils have never looked at themselves as being subsequent settlers. Their demands have always been based on the premise that they were the original settlers of Sri Lanka. The difference in the attitudes of both has had a profound effect on attempts for a negotiated settlement of this question over the years and has rendered any amicable settlement impossible.

Besides the two separate ethno-linguistic nations - the Sinhalese and the Tamils - there are the five other communities such as the Tamils of Indian origin, Sri Lankan Muslims, Indian Muslims, Burghers and Malays with four great religions namely Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam making Sri Lanka a country of heterogenous culture. This was made possible by Sri Lanka's close proximity to India, the strategic position on the east-west sea route and the invasion of European powers - first the Portuguese in 1505, then the Dutch in 1658 and finally, the British in 1796.

The Portuguese, the Dutch and, until 1833, the British ruled the Sinhalese and the Tamil areas as separate domains. It was after the Colebrook Commission in 1833 that the country was 'unified but not united'. Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, a Marxist politician and an erudite historian in his scholarly research work 'Ceylon under the British Occupation' had this to say, 'After centuries of war, disruption and disunion the country was completely pacified, politically unified and administratively consolidated under the British sceptre. A new era in the history of Ceylon had dawned'.

Origins of the Sinhalese
There is lack of clear historical evidence as to how the Sinhalese nation originated in Sri Lanka. The origin is based on legend of Vijaya. The main sources from which this history has been constructed are the Dipavamsa: a chronicle said to be written in the fourth century BC which claims to narrate the story of the island from earliest human times and Mahavamsa: the Great Dynasty written in the sixth century BC. These sources claim that Vijaya, the grandson of a petty Indian king from Bengal who was wedded to a lioness, was the actual founder of the Sinhalese race. According to the chronicles Vijaya was banished by his father, Sinhabahu and reached the shores of Sri Lanka along with 700 of his followers by boat in 543 BC, on the same day that Buddha died. It is also said that just before his death Buddha summoned his disciples and urged them to carefully protect them from danger as they had gone there to spread his religion. After having abandoned the demon queen Kuveni, whom he married upon his arrival, Vijaya is said to have taken the daughter of the Tamil Pandya King of Madurai, South India for his bride. His men married women from Madurai as well.

Emergence of Buddhism
Buddhism was introduced into Sri Lanka during the time of Asoka, the Mauryan Emperor of India who ruled between 273 BC and 232 BC. Devanampiya Tissa, the contemporary Tamil king of Sri Lanka who ruled from Anuradhapura received Asoka's emissaries led by Mahinda and himself converted from Hinduism to Buddhism. Buddhism then became the religion of the people. Mahinda also introduced the Buddhist canons which were written in Pali, an Aryan language, a derivative of Sanskrit. The Buddhist clergy had to learn Pali in order to understand and preach the doctrine of Buddhism. From amongst a Tamil Hindu population, a group of Buddhists, speaking a new language derived from Pali Sinhalese - emerged. Sinhalese is a language with the majority of the words in Pali and also containing Sanskrit and Tamil words in its vocabulary. There is no evidence of a language close to the Sinhalese anywhere in India.

Buddha, in fact, rebelled against the caste system and the worship of idols. The existence of the worship of Hindu deities and the caste system among the Sinhalese Buddhists also points towards the fact that the original Buddhists in Sri Lanka were Hindus.

Dr. A. Paranavitarana, a former Archaeological Commissioner and an authority in Sri Lankan history stated, 'Thus, the vast majority of the people who speak Sinhalese or Tamil must ultimately be descended from those autochthonous people of whom we know next to nothing'

The Sinhala language was born out of the rise of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and, hence, the identity of the Sinhalese people has been ethno-religious whereas the Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic identity has been based on their language and culture. The Sri Lankan Tamil society has been essentially a secular society and had been very tolerant to all other religions in Sri Lanka. The Tamils have never had a conflict based on religion with any other community while the Buddhists have had conflicts with the Muslims in 1915 leading to major riots and with the Catholics in the early 1960s. The majority of the Tamils are Hindus and yet their political leader from the early 1950s to the early 1970s was a Christian S.J.V Chelvanayagam, the then leader of the Federal Party.

Tamils of Sri Lanka
The Tamils of Sri Lanka are the lineal descendants of the original settlers of Sri Lanka called the Nagas, a totemistic tribe that migrated from India. They settled in the North, the South West around Kelaniya and the South East around the Walawe Ganga (river). Their totem was the cobra, the Tamil word for which is Nagam.

The Nagas belonged to more than one kingdom. The northern kingdom was called Nagadipa and the western kingdom was called Kalyani (Kelaniya). According to Paranavitarana, Nagadipa and the Jaffna peninsula were identical. The existing Tamil society was augmented by the subsequent settlers from the frequent invasions of the Pandiya, Chola and Chera kings of South India. Around 100 BC, the principal ruler of Sri Lanka was Ellala who ruled from Anuradhapura. The Mahavamsa, however, states that Ellala was a Chola king from South India who ruled from Anuradhapura for 45 years after having invaded it and that he was defeated in battle by Dutugemunu, the Sinhalese prince and son of a petty king Kavan Tissa from the deep south.

It is also said that Dutugemunu had to fight and vanquish 31 Tamil petty kings before he could finally meet Ellala in battle. This is admission by Mahavamsa itself that Tamils kings did not come only as invaders. After the defeat of Ellala, there were invading Tamil kings who intermittently ruled from Anuradhapura but, by and large, there is no continuous history of the Tamils till 1214 AD when there is evidence of the establishment of a separate Tamil kingdom with Jaffna as its capital.

Since the time of the beginning of Portuguese rule in 1505 until 1621, the Portuguese could not wrest the Kingdom of Jaffna until they finally defeated King Sankili in 1621. Even after 1621, Jaffna was ruled as a separate domain by the Portuguese followed by the Dutch.

Despite the cultural links with South India, the Tamils have maintained their separate ethnic and cultural identity. In fact, before this question came to a crisis point, the majority of the Sri Lankan Tamils were able to relate better to the Sinhalese rather than to their Indian counterparts. At no stage of their political struggle have they demonstrated a desire to confederate with South India. There is no love lost between the Sri Lankan Tamils and the Tamils of South India. On the contrary, there has been mutual suspicion. Hence, the Sinhalese fear that South India could come to the aid of the Tamils of Sri Lanka is unfounded.

British Colonial Rule
Sri Lankan politics under the British colonial rule did much to mould the national question to come. After the Colebrook Commission in 1833, for administrative convenience, the low country Sinhalese areas, the Kandyan Sinhalese areas and the Tamil areas were divided into provinces with an administrative head in charge of each province. At the time of independence there were nine provinces. The system of their provincial administration was designed not to radically upset the traditional systems of government. It must be stated that the abolition of serfdom by the Colebrook Commission did much to improve the mobility of labour and to weaken the caste system but because of their high caste and family backgrounds, the provincial administrators at the grass roots levels sought to maintain the caste system to their own advantage. Besides being traditional landowners many of them amassed more land with the patronage of their British masters.

The period also saw the encouragement of English education, the establishment of missionary schools in the principal towns, greater embracing of Christianity and indeed the adoption of western values. After 1920 the colonial government sought to 'Ceylonise' the bureaucracy and establish a public service loyal to the British.

Due to the nature of the hostility of their lands and the climate for agriculture, the Tamils came to take up English education on a serious scale and many joined the public and professional services. By the time the British left in 1948, Tamil public servants constituted 35 percent and those in the university constituted the same proportion. Combined with the rapid commercialisation of the economy there emerged a western oriented upper class. Among this class were Sinhalese and Tamils who participated in the national and professional life on an equal basis. In the upper classes, ethnic differences took a back seat while class interests were being nurtured.

In 1912, Sir P. Ramanathan, a Tamil, was elected to the Legislative Council and in 1919, Ramanathan was responsible for the founding of the Ceylon National Congress, the precursor to the present day United National Party. His brother, Sir P. Arunachalam, became president of the party. The Sinhalese-Tamil political unity suffered a setback when the colonial government introduced the system of territorially elected representatives. The Sinhalese thought in terms of numerical majority and denied nomination to Sir P. Arunachalam for the Colombo constituency. The Tamils then formed the group called the Tamil Mahajana Sabha. The leadership of the CNC passed on to the low country Sinhalese.

As far back as the early 1920s, the Kandyan Sinhalese, suspicious of the low country Sinhalese, formed the Kandyan Association and clamoured for a federal state although their claim for nationhood was much less justifiable than that of the Tamils. The Tamil politicians, in order to protect their self and vested interests in the South, believed that it was expedient to identify themselves with their Sinhalese counterparts and be part of the ruling elite. Only in 1951 did the Tamil politicians begin to portray the Tamils as a separate nation.

In 1931, the Donoughmore Constitution, which succeeded the Manning Constitution, provided for election on universal suffrage based on a territorial system. In this situation there was no political party as a rallying point but groups formed on a communal and racial basis. This, in turn, discouraged the formation of political parties and made any kind of party policy impracticable. Further, the constitution was not designed to act on the recognition that there were two nations and five communities. The question of the devolution of power on District Council basis was considered but this was dampened by the efforts of the Tamil politicians.

Sinhala-Buddhist Nationalism
The British period also saw the resurgence of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism on chauvinistic lines. The most prominent Sinhala-Buddhist revivalist of the 19th century was Anagarika Dharmapala whose writings have had a profound influence on Sinhalese cultural nationalism and especially the Buddhist clergy. He wrote in 1902:

'Two thousand, four hundred and forty six years ago a colony of Aryans from the city of Sinhapura in Bengal………..Sailed in a vessel in search of fresh pastures………..The descendants of the Aryan colonists were called Sinhala after their city Sinhapura, which was founded by Sinhabahu, the lion armed king. The lion armed descendants are the present Sinhalese'.

With fascist fervour, Dharmapala who was followed by the host followers like Munidasa Cumaratunge and E. W. Perera, stated, 'No nation in the world has a more brilliant history than ourselves …There exists no race on earth today that has had more triumphant record of victory than the Sinhalese'. He wrote further in his History of an ancient Civilisation, (1902): 'Ethnologically, the Sinhalese are a unique race, inasmuch as they boast that they have no slave blood in them, and were never conquered by either the pagan Tamils or European vandals who, for three centuries, devastated the land, destroyed ancient temples, burnt valuable libraries, and nearly annihilated this historic race. This bright, beautiful island was made into a paradise by the Aryan Sinhalese before its destruction was brought about by the barbaric vandals… For the student of ethnology the Sinhalese stand as the representatives of Aryan civilisation.'

He stated further, 'The country of the Sinhalese should be governed by the Sinhalese'. About the Tamils he wrote, 'We do not find fresh field to increase our wealth………..Tamils, Cochins (South Indian Tamils), Hambakarayas are employed in large numbers to the prejudice of the people of the islandsons of the soil……..who belong to a superior race'. Dharmapala and his protégés gave sufficient venom and ammunition for future misguided jingoists to draw on.

After Independence
In 1945 Lord Soulbury was appointed Chairman of the Constitutional Commission to examine the draft constitution prepared by the board of ministers of the Legislative Council. In November, 1945, when the State Council debated the Soulbury Constitution presented as a white paper, D S Senanayake, the leader of the State Council and the then leader of the Ceylon National Congress (later to become the first Prime Minister as leader of the United National Party), in order to allay the fears of the minority members declared, 'On behalf of the Congress and on my own behalf, I give the minority communities the sincere assurance that no harm need you fear at our hands in a free Lanka'. The subsequent events, however, speak for themselves. Lord Soulbury having served a term of office as Governor General of Independent Sri Lanka was later to admit, 'I now think it is a pity that the Commission did not also recommend the entrenchment in the constitution of guarantees of fundamental rights.'

On 4 February 1948, Sri Lanka became independent and power transferred to the Sri Lankan western-oriented elite. Black imperialists took over power from the white imperialists. The Soulbury Constitution, manipulated in its making, relegated the Tamils to a position of inferiority. Instead of eliminating representation on a racial basis, it made it inevitable. It gave the country, with a multi-national society, a unitary structure of government based on the Westminster system. The safeguards it had for minority interests, however, were ineffective as was to be evidenced after 1970.

In 1949, D.S. Senanayake, the first Prime Minister, with the support of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress led by G. G Ponnambalam, succeeded in winning a motion in Parliament disenfranchising the Indian Tamils in the plantation sector. These persons had been born in Sri Lanka at the time of Independence and they were British subjects as much as any other Sri Lankan. They had, in fact, voted in the 1947 general elections. There was no precedence for this in any other part of the world. This was aimed at hitting the weakest section of the minorities and also breaking the political power of the plantation trade union sector. In other countries where Indians were settled in a similar manner by the British such as in the Caribbean States, Fiji and British Guyana, many Indians had risen to positions of eminence. In Sri Lanka the lot of the plantation labourers remained the same for many years -exploited and oppressed.

Some members of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress broke away under the leadership of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, to become the Federal Party which was to dominate Tamil politics till the early 1970s.

Sinhala Only Regime
In 1951 S.W.R.D Bandaranaike, a Cabinet Minister in the United National Party Government, broke away to form the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) along with four other parliamentarians. In 1956 he rode to power to become the prime minister on the wave of the overwhelming popularity of the Sinhala Only policy. He, in his enthusiasm, promised the Sinhalese people to make Sinhala Only in 24 hours. The UNP also in its election campaign followed suit and promised Sinhala Only but failed to compete. Many sections of the Sinhalese people, the rabid nationalists, the Ayurvedic (native) physicians, the village school teachers, a substantial section of the peasants and many of the lower middle classes, saw Sinhala Only as liberation from the control and domination of the English educated sections.

They believed that they would have access to jobs and say in the national and political life of the country. Indeed, the Buddhist monks had a great part to play. They organised meetings, went from house to house, canvassing. In the absence of newspapers and political journals in villages, the monks provided news to the people and were also their political analysts. Anagarika Dharmapala was resurrected. The monks came to be highly politicised and have continued to play a key role in the development of the national question to this day.

This point is further illustrated by briefly analysing how the Buddhist priests wielded power during the SWRD Bandaranaike regime: On 5 June, 1956 when the Sinhala Only bill was introduced in parliament by Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, about 300 Tamils, including Tamil members of Parliament, sat down in front of Parliament House in peaceful protest against the passage of the Act performing Satyagraha, a weapon of peaceful protest. On the same day the Eksath Bhikku Peramuna (United Bhikku Front) of which the prelate Buddharakita Thero was the leader came in procession to protest against the 'reasonable use of Tamil' clause in the bill. As the procession of these holy men converged on the House, they caught sight of the Tamils performing Satyagraha. These holy men who should have been the prime advocates of the method of Satyagraha set upon the Tamils and brutally beat them up all the while being watched by the police. Some of the Satyagrahis, after being assaulted, were carried and thrown into the nearby Beira Lake.

Buddharakita Thero was the high priest of the Raja Maha Vihara (supremely great temple) of Kelaniya. Bandaranaike owed his election victory as Prime Minister in no small measure to the contribution to the election campaign by the members of the Eksath Bhikku Peramuna under the leadership of Buddharakita. Bandaranaike rewarded Buddharakita by making the monk's mistress Mrs. Vimala Wijewardena, the minister for health. Buddharakita was making overwhelming demands from Bandaranaike. Having been swept into power with the support of a loose amalgam of extreme rightists, chauvinists and petite bourgeois elements, the continuing demands made by them, made it near impossible for a vacillating prime minister to effectively run his 'Peoples' Government'.

On 26 September, 1959, Bandaranaike was assassinated. He was shot down by a Buddhist monk named Somarama Thero. In his address to the nation on the night of Bandaranaike's death, while the nation was in a state of shock, the prelate stated that having known Bandaranaike so intimately he could assure the nation that Bandaranaike would in his death take the form of a Boddhisatva (a saint or a divine being in Buddhist terms.) Not many days after he declared this prophesy, Buddharakita was arrested and charged with the murder of Bandaranaike and stood indicted as the first accused. Buddharakita did not get Bandaranaike killed because he could not wait to make him a Boddhisatva!

Effectively and incredibly the Buddhist clergy has gradually come to constitute an integral institutional component of the Sri Lankan state apparatus - a classic example of a canker in the body politic of a nation. They are now considered to constitute a Third Estate. A government elected by the people has to pander to an un-elected power group wielding power by feeding on the political ignorance of a vast section of the people. It is unfortunate that Sinhalese nationalism is tied up with Buddhism. No Tamil is a Buddhist and no Sinhalese is a Hindu but many from both nationalities are Christians and Muslims.

Young apprentice priests join the priesthood at a young age. They are nurtured on hatred, prejudice and ill-will based on the credence for Sinhala Buddhist supremacy, derived from the myths and legends invented in the chronicles of Dipavama and the Mahavamsa and the sayings of Anagarika Dharmapala. They are indoctrinated on the hatred for Tamils. The annihilation of the Tamils is justified on the ground that they are the opponents of the Sinhalese and the clergy. In some ways, the Buddhist clergy bears similarities to the Taliban.

After the passage of the Sinhala Only Act, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, the leader of the then Federal Party and the then acknowledged leader of the Tamil people, vigorously campaigned for a Federal system of government. He was branded a racist wanting to divide the Sri Lankan nation. Quite contrarily, Chelvanayakam's approach to the question of federalism was centripetal. He did not envisage the division of the country or the Sri Lankan nation. He believed in all communities comprising one nation but with constituent states, with a government at the centre, thus preserving the sovereignty of Sri Lanka and also its political integrity. The Tamil people have had to pay a big price in the form of state-engineered race riots of 1956, 1958, 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983 resulting in the loss of many lives and property, for their leaders merely asking for a federal system of government.

Chelvanayakam was even prepared to settle for a watered down version of a federal system in subscribing to the Bandaranaike-Chevanayakam Pact (B-C Pact), in an agreement entered into in 1957 with S.W.R.D Bandaranaike, the then prime minister, within one state but more political space for the. The B-C Pact had to be abrogated. Since then the Tamils were not offered anything even close to it. Perhaps J.R Jayawardena, who from the opposition led the protest marches to Kandy, demanding the abrogation of the Pact, in hindsight, regretted this when he became the president, subsequently. The Sinhalese could have got away with this version of devolution and perhaps the national question could have been resolved forever.

Origins of the Current Crisis
1970 was a fateful year for the Tamils. Having been elected with a resounding majority as prime minister, in coalition with the major Marxist parties - the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party (CP), the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike did not require Tamil support to remain in power. Tamil parliamentary representation entered an era of sterile politics, never to be reversed.

Emboldened by her success in quelling the youth insurgency, led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), during the second year of her rule by the massacre of thousands of Sinhalese youth in the South with ruthless brutality, she was in no mood to negotiate with the Tamil leaders to settle the national question. In the constitution of 1972, with claims to create a socialist state, for the first time 'Sinhala Only' was realised which had remained, hitherto, only as an Act of Parliament. Buddhism too became the religion of state. Even the few safeguards provided for the protection of the minorities in the Soulbury Constitution were removed.

The remaining hopes of the Tamils, who thought that with the influence of the so called Marxists in the government who at one time stood for equal status for the Tamils, Mrs Bandaranaike would recognise their due rights in the making of the constitution, were shattered. Mrs. Bandaranaike now sought to rule the Tamils of the North and East with a new breed of persons called 'SLFP Organisers', drawn from sycophants, political turncoats and megalomaniacs. They were of course Tamils. Despised by the people as they were, they were the intermediaries between the Tamil people and the government. The parliamentarians elected by the Tamils to represent their cause went into the political wilderness. These organisers vied with each other to catch the Madam's eye for the plums of office, while some were happy to settle for the crumbs.

Not being able to command any respect from the Tamil people to perform their tasks, they had to turn to the police and the army, who having killed the Sinhala youth in the South during the insurgency with impunity had now turned towards the Tamils. Aided and abetted by the organisers, the institutions important for the social and economic security for the Tamils were systematically destroyed with iconoclastic fervour. The co-operative sector which was of immense economic importance to the Tamils and built up over the years by voluntary effort was reduced to a subservient tool of the government. Any effort of the Tamils to become self-reliant was destroyed. The introduction of 'standardisation' for entry to universities and the closing of two leading public schools to be converted to university campuses, were some of the factors that undermined the educational base.

The army and the police struck terror into the very fabric of the Tamil society. Small farmers, petty traders, fishermen, could not go about their business without being harassed by the armed forces. Innocent people were subjected to intensive searches at check points. Youth were arrested, tortured and thrown into jails. The people felt threatened, intimidated and humiliated. It is in this atmosphere that the militant youth who had secretly vowed to create a separate state for the Tamils began to act. Thus began a national liberation movement.

A crude form of justice from an 'unseen hand' began to emerge with the assassinations of some SLFP Organisers and police officers who were seen as betrayers of Tamils. In their desperation the Tamil people began to tacitly endorse these killings. Pre-conditions for the entrance of the militants on to the political scene were now ideal.

Taking the cue from the militants, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), an amalgam of Tamil parties, in desperation decided to request the Tamil people for a mandate to campaign for separate state at the general election's of 1977. Consequently, the Tamils in the north and east overwhelmingly voted for a separate state for themselves. The Tamils, by this time, had ceased to entertain any hopes of constitutional changes.

The Jayawardene regime commenced with a riot in 1977 designed to subdue the Tamils. It made things worse for the sabre-rattling president. He believed in a military solution. The Indian government had intervened to settle the question by facilitating talks in Thimpu. At these talks the LTTE put forward their demands which were to end in a failure. This regime was the worst period for the Tamils not only for the atrocities of his government and the security forces but also because of the presence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force stationed in the north and east. Jayawardene, while clandestinely supplying arms to the LTTE, believed that the LTTE and the IPKF would fight in the end which they did.

Peace Process
The best thing that happened to the Sri Lankan national question, in decades, was the positive overture made by both the government and the LTTE for a peaceful settlement of the problem. This brought hope to both the Sinhalese and the Tamils.

The Positive Aspects of the Proposal for Peace
a) One of the most important aspects is that for the first time since 1956, a Buddhist prelate of the standing of the Head of the Asgiriya Chapter had given his blessings for the peace process as long as it did not result in the division of the country. This opened the way for other Buddhist Chapters to follow suit.
b) The positive attitude towards peace evinced by both Prime Minister Wickremasinghe and the LTTE leader. In his letter to the Norwegian Government the LTTE leader sought its help to 'find stable peace and a permanent settlement to the ethnic conflict'.
c) Support from the international community and particularly the in-principle support by the Americans.
d) The parliamentary parties, truly representative of the Tamils after nearly 35 years in the wilderness of sterile politics, have returned under one banner to acknowledge the leadership of the LTTE. There was unequivocal and overwhelming acceptance of LTTE as the representatives of the Tamils in the negotiations.
e) Both the Sinhalese and the Tamils had voted for peace at the last parliamentary elections.
f) Despite problems like the demilitarisation of the north and east and the establishment of the interim government, the LTTE and Wickremasinghe have steadfastly stood for the peace process to succeed.
g) Failure of the recent efforts of Kadirgamar to prejudice the Indian Government against the bona-fide of the LTTE

Impediments to the Impending Peace Process
a) President Kumaratunge's recent utterances and actions betray her attitude towards peace in Sri Lanka, reflecting the lack of commitment, sincerity and continuity in her own peace moves. She can abort the process by constitutionally dissolving parliament at the end of one year of its existence. Her recent actions pander to the extreme elements.
b) Unfortunately the great majority of the Indians are ignorant of the issues of the national question in Sri Lanka. The politicians, both in the north and the south of India have used the national question to their political advantage. Pro-Aryan stance and conservatism of some leaders of the ruling elite, compounded by Jayalalitha's hostility to the Tamil cause, have prompted India not to be sympathetic to the LTTE aspirations.
c) Sinhala chauvinism in Sri Lanka has been the greatest impediment to its economic and political development. Although the country has survived this for many years, the time has now come when this has the greatest potential of completely destroying the country. Sinhala Chauvinism is now manifested in the latest cry by the pseudo-Marxist Peoples Liberation Movement (JVP) and the fascist Sihala Urumaya Party against negotiations with the Tamils.
d) Ignorance of the complexities of the Tamil question on the part of the international community.
e) Mistaking the current cease-fire situation to be peace.
f) Ignorance of the concept of federalism by the majority of the Sinhalese people.
g) Reluctance to accept the concepts of the Thimpu principles as the right of self-determination, traditional homelands, territorial integrity and sovereignty as the basis for negotiation. The acceptance of these principles does not mean a division of the country. It is non acceptance that will lead to the eventual division of the country.
h) The least that the LTTE would accept and the most that the government would offer is a federation. Federalism is a centrifugal concept. Therefore, it is for the Sri Lankan Government to make overtures to the centrifugal forces to contain them within an agreed system and thus prevent a separation.
i) The temporary withdrawal of the Norwegian peace delegation.

There are other factors like the American pre-occupation with the current crisis in the Middle East and