Last week’s ending of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) saw the predictably brutal response from the LTTE as evidenced by the Buttala massacre when not only was a overloaded SLTB bus attacked with a roadside explosive device, but also those passengers who survived the blast were cold bloodedly shot thereafter. Since that incident on Wednesday, followed the same day by the killing of some chena cultivators in the area, presumably by the group responsible for the bus bomb, ten bodies of Sinhala civilians were found in Tanamalwila on Thursday and Friday. The military has blamed this incident too on the Tigers although there has yet been no clear explanation why a group, some riding brand new motorcycles, had come there in the first place. The vast majority of ordinary people naturally believe that it is only the LTTE that is capable of such horror. While that remains a probable explanation, it need not necessarily be the case and it is to be hoped that the country will soon be told what really happened in the second instance and why.

The Buttala killings saw the issue of many statements, both at home and abroad, condemning the violence. While some of these clearly pointed their finger at the Tigers, with the US saying that the incident bears ``all the hallmarks of the LTTE,’’ others were less explicit. The European Union, which like the US has banned the Tigers, in a first statement from its Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner condemned the incident but stopped short of naming the LTTE. Either some diplomatic activity or, more hopefully self-realization, resulted in a second statement from the EU’s Colombo office where it was stated that ``this attack has all the characteristics of the LTTE’s modus operandi.’’ It added that no support can ever be gained in the EU through such acts of ``barbaric terrorist violence.’’

Notwithstanding the issue of statements, the world outside our shores is largely disinterested in the goings on in this small Indian Ocean Island as indicated by the television pictures on last week’s Commons debate on Sri Lanka. What would have struck viewers most would have been the expanse of empty benches. Few, very few, British MPs are interested in our problem. Body counts, of course, as in all sensational events worldwide, would command media attention and result in cancelled holidays by tourists opting for a safer destination. But the way we set about finding a solution to our National Question will not interest a multitude of people beyond our shores. They would leave us to our lunacy of killing each other.

In this issue of the Sunday Island we are running differing points of view about the abrogation of the CFA. As has been stated ad nauseam in the media and elsewhere, it was a dead letter for over a year when it was breached with impunity and served no useful purpose. Both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE did as they wished regardless of the CFA, the first largely engaging in legitimate military action while the LTTE, as it always has, lavishly added a ruthless terrorist dimension. It would be futile to claim that the government played the game totally according to the Queensberry rules. That would have been as good as lying down and dying at the hands of a brutal enemy who observes no rules whatever and has no paucity of fanatical suicide killers to do the bidding of the Sun God holed out in the Vanni.

Although the CFA served no useful purpose and was being observed mostly in the breach, why did the Sri Lanka Government decide to use its provisions of withdrawing from the agreement with formal two weeks notice to the Royal Norwegian Government well knowing the international flak such action would attract? The government, as much as the LTTE, did exactly as it wished notwithstanding the CFA and that status quo could have been maintained. It obviously decided to pull out to ensure that the JVP will not join the opposition in denying the incumbent administration a majority in parliament and toppling the government at the first opportunity. Now that President Rajapaksa has caved into the demand of abrogating the CFA he kept alive for a longer period than Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe remember, is he also giving into the demand that Norway be booted out of its role of facilitator and the All Party Representative Committee dissolved? Hopefully not, but would the JVP, having drawn blood in the first instance, ratchet up the pressure?

Even if they do, the president has the dissolution option. He also knows, and so also the JVP, that without an electoral arrangement with the SLFP-led People’s Alliance, both sides will be the losers to the advantage of the UNP. The JVP will pay the higher price winning fewer seats than they did at the last election. Given the intensive international pressure that the government has faced in the wake of its decision to withdraw from the CFA, it is unlikely to add to its problems to please the JVP.

In any case, Rajapaksa has convinced the larger segment of the domestic constituency that he has to seize the opportunity of finishing off a weakened LTTE. If the gods are smiling down on him, he will be able to weather the government’s unpopularity on the cost of living which thinking people know is largely outside his control at least until he can deliver a decisive military success. While he admittedly can do little to ease the people’s burdens from externally determined rising prices, he can certainly do much to rein galloping inflation and improve his sorry record of governance. Corruption remains rampant and the likes of Mervyn Silva, though keeping their heads down for now, have not been exterminated.

The president and his government have also done little to convince the Tamils that their problems are being generously addressed. The APRC has for too long been dragging its feet although we are now assured that its final proposals will be presented by the end of this month. But there have been reports that there is an effort to push the committee towards a formula favoured by the top. Does the government intend to stay with the 13th amendment or go beyond it? The answers will be forthcoming very shortly if the assurances that have been freely handed out in the last few days are to be believed. The main weakness of the APRC is that its very title is a misnomer. It is nowhere near ``All Party’’ as claimed and Mr. Douglas Devananada, no less than Velupillai Prabhakaran, cannot be anointed as the sole representative of the Tamil people.

The military thrust will mean bloodshed and not only of fighters on both sides. There will also be a terrorist counter by the LTTE where innocents will pay a heavy price. Should we say with the poet Spencer ``Is not short Payne, well borne that brings long ease.....’’ and take what comes in the coming months or stop the blood letting and let the LTTE re-arm, re-group and live to fight another day?