Outlook,  Fri Mar  3 11:22:08 EST 2006

    Nineteen million Sri Lankans heaved a collective sigh of relief when the new Mahinda Rajapakse government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam agreed to hold another round of talks in Geneva between April 19 and 21, at their meeting at the same location after a three-year hiatus. Despite a four-year ceasefire, (it was signed on February 22, 2002, four years to the day when last week’s talks commenced), talks have been stalled since April 2003, when the Tigers pulled out after being shut out at a donors’ meeting in the US.

A little over a month before the latest round of talks, violence, especially in the north east had pushed the truce to its brink. Claymore mine attacks became rampant, targeting the armed forces. The Sri Lanka Navy became one of the main targets when its craft came under repeated attacks in the north eastern and north western waters. In one of the major hits, 13 sailors died and the Israeli built Dvora attack craft, in which they were patrolling the north eastern waters off Trincomalee, was sunk on January 7, in what the Navy now suspects to be an attack launched by an LTTE suicide cadre.
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- The Academic

I will also be happy, if this is a reality...

BUT LTTE will continue their ususal activity and GOSL will just be looking at it....

BUT people of Sri LAnka should be happy that both parties going overseas again for talks(?) or fund-raisings / whatever...

Nevertheless, at least for the time being, Sri Lanka has won a temporary deferment of war, and can breathe relatively easily, till the next round of talks pushes up the stakes again.


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  I like this last para: Hope the pattern will not continue. VP unilaterally breaking the truce and then blaming the GOSL.  I hope not only nation can breathe relatively easily till the next round, but after that too they should be able to breathe freely...