Prospects for peace in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankans have been fighting a war for 30 years and as such, they have faced the terrible atrocities of war. The LTTE, under the facade of a liberation struggle, fought a war against the Sri Lankans for a separate state for the Tamils. But, finally, the war has come to an end after freeing the country from the extremists and we have all been able to shed our differences and attain peace for Sri Lanka.

When considering the possibilities for peace for Sri Lanka, one must first delve into the root causes of the war waged between the two factions. Many people believe the struggle started with the adoption of the Sinhala – Only Policy in 1956, which priviledged the Sinhala language from Tamil as well as English and made it the official language of Sri Lanka. This was quite unfair for the Tamils as they sensed that they were been left-out and deprived of their rights to use speak their own language in their own motherland. This was the cause for the severing of ties between the Tamils and Sinhalese which led to riots killing thousands of people in this country. Prabakaran, believing himself to be the sole saviour of the Tamil people, made up an extremist group which held extremist views and demanded a separate state for the Tamils which led to the massive destruction in this country.

But, now, since the gates of peace have been opened up for the Sri Lankans, after so many years, one must begin to consider the future of Sri Lanka and how to prevent such a conflict occurring again. A massive rebuilding of infrastructure in the North should be undertaken, but most importantly, a rebuilding of the minds of the Sri Lankans should happen. All ethnicities comprising of Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher should be given equal status in every strata.

One prospect for peace in Sri Lanka is to eliminate the words majority and minority from the Sri Lankan dictionary. As long as the Sinhalese are considered as the the majority and Tamils, Muslims and Burghers as minorities, they will be tension among these factions. All ethnic groups should unite and build a country sans differences. Sri Lanka should solve their problems on their own, with minimum support of the international community and only get help, if it is really necessary. As we have seen, during the past couple of years, there have been many international organizations and NGOs as well as people holding extremist views, which have tried to meddled in our countries affairs, and tried to win a separate state for the Tamils. For the international community, who only view this problem from one angle, it is a liberation struggle, who see the war as a genocide of Tamil civilians in the North.

I believe that the real prospects for peace will only appear, not with a separate state for any ethnic group, but if all nationalities unite under one flag and live under one state. The main government body of Sri Lanka should consider this great opportunity to win the hearts of all Sri Lankan citizens and give them the freedom to mingle with each other. The election of members of parliament should be undertaken with caution and with equal representation of all ethnicities. Now that the North and East is no longer a mono-ethnic hell hole of the LTTE, the government has the responsibility to take steps to rebuild and rehabilitate people in an effective way taking the South of Sri Lanka, as an example for how peacefully all ethnicities co-exist. All political parties should have equal representation of all ethnicities and most importantly, all schools and public sectors should encourage teaching and learning the tamil language so that all schools and universities will have representation from all ethnic groups.

Finally, the international community should be made aware of the true nature of the situation in Sri Lanka and now that Sri Lanka is free of guerilla warfare, this is a great opportunity to show them, how we, as Sri Lankans, have united and solved the problems on our own and we should tell them not to make a cursory glance at one sided stories and literature published by anti-Sri Lankan campaigners when arriving at conclusions about the country. If all ethnicities unite under one flag, we will have finally won the real freedom and build a peaceful Sri Lanka.
