Shirking Middle Class

The Kilinochchi disaster in September 1998 was the exclamation mark at the end of the Sri Lankan government's failed strategy to capture the Jaffna-Vavuniya highway, help Tamil moderates establish a political beacbhead in the Jaffna peninsula, and force the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) to negotiate on its (the government's) terms. The battle resulted in thousands of casualties, mostly on the army's side, and was perhaps the costliest since US troops cornered Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. The defeat was soon followed by the government's decision to call off its "Operation Victory Assured" and, sensing its advantage, the LTTE's new offers to enter into unconditional talks which the government promptly rebuffed.

Further deepening the gloom, recent reports in the Sri Lankan press that South African President Nelson Mandela would facilitate negotiations turned out to be, in the words of the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, "idle speculation" What no one bothered to ask was why Mandela would risk his unmatched cache and credibility in attempting to reconcile two warring sides that seem so uninterested in compromise. As the new year began, the government turned its attention to the provincial council elections, while the army appeared to have changed its strategy, from forging mass formations of troops and artillery to opting for smaller fighting patrols.