So, the Co-chairs must adopt a new approach; a stick-and-stick approach. The party that violates the truce—be it the government or the LTTE—and slaps roadblocks on the path to peace should be belaboured with a stick to be specially designed, until the culprit falls in line.

The problem is not so much reviving talks but directing them according to a timeframe. A peace process must move forward and not backward. The vicissitudes in the EU and international pressure may be too compelling for the LTTE to avoid talks further. It may come for talks but resort to dilatory tactics in the hope that the situation will improve internationally. It is quite adept at making negotiations go round in circles. When the present peace process began under the UNF, the LTTE agreed to discuss a solution but slapped a roadblock after the Oslo Declaration, which envisaged federalism: it demanded an ISGA, derailed the talks and walked away. In Geneva a few months ago, it discussed neither federalism nor ISGA but the truce which it systematically rendered fragile through unbridled violence. Now it is indicating willingness to discuss issues related to the SLMM. Thus, it could be seen that the LTTE will discuss anything under the sun but a solution to the conflict. While in other countries peace processes graduate from peripheral issues to core issues, here we have a situation where talks move in the opposite direction.

The Co-chairs have called upon the government to address the legitimate grievances of Tamils. The government must heed that call. But the Co-chairs find themselves in a contradiction. The EU has categorically dismissed the claim that the LTTE is the sole representative of Tamils. The US and Japan, too, we believe, subscribe to the EU position. If so, how could the government address the grievances of those Tamils whom the LTTE doesn’t represent, through negotiations with only the LTTE? Isn’t it rather undemocratic for anyone to even suggest that? If that is justifiable, then by the same token Saddam Hussein did nothing wrong by running Iraq without any other parties and the military junta in Myanmar, should be allowed to make decisions for the people without the participation of the Opposition or Aung San Suu Kyi, who is, in a way, much luckier than the democratic Tamil leaders here, as she at least has the right to life. Above all, nothing is more undemocratic than allowing an outfit sans representation in any democratic institution to stand in the way of finding a solution aimed at redressing the grievances of a minority community.

As the LTTE is obviously blocking the progress of the peace process with a view to furthering its own interests, it behoves the Co-chairs to insist that the government broad-base the talks and find a solution with the help of other stakeholders including democratic Tamil politicians with or without the LTTE. If the solution is acceptable to all but the LTTE then it must be made to fall in line. Else, the Co-chairs and the other members of the international community will go on calling for a solution until they are blue in the face but the solution will be light years away.