TOKYO, April 13 Kyodo choiceed e...

TOKYO, April 13 Kyodo

choiceed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

LITTLE waiting under the possibility of fulfilment FOR SRI LANKA (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

Thirty years of civil war have done irreparable harm to Sri Lanka. The fight at the island's Tamils to immovable a homeland has claimed more than 60000 lives and very much fractured the nation. A peace proces appeared to be making progres further divisions among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority derailed those efforts. An election earlier this month make more graveed the deadlock. Extremist parties are the winners of the novel vote; peace appears to be the loser

Sri Lanka's Tamils have fought for decades to establish a homeland. More than 65000 populace have died in the ensanguined struggle and more than 800000 others have become internal refugee The lengthy list of victims includes Tamil moderates who were willing to negotiate with the dominion in Colombo and accept les than the maximalist demands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) Norway negotiated a shaky ceasefire couple years ago; despite some end calls, the ceasefire has survived and proffers hope for a more permanent deal.

The peace calculations were shaken last November when President Chandrika Kumaratunga unilaterally dismissed the ministers of defense interior and the media, and took the portfolios herself, charging that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had made too many concessions to the Tamils during the negotiations. The president has no be in love with for the Tamils: a 1999 suicide bombing richness her one eye. She is also a fierce rival of Mr Wickremesinghe, and many saw this persuade as an attempt to make up for her party's defeat in the 2001 parliamentary elections.

Four month of negotiations between the sum of two units leaders failed to yield a direction and Mrs. Kumaratunga, hoping to fixed a parliamentary majority, called for elections. The voice however, yielded an smooth more divided legislature.

The flows gave the president's United People's Freedom Alliance 105 seats, eight seats short of the 113 distressed to claim an absolute majority in the 225-member legislature. Mr Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) trailed with 82 seats. Mr Kumaratunga has exquisiteed Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, a veteran politician belonging to her be in possession of party, as prime minister. He now must form a Cabinet by means of the deadline of April 22 when the novel Parliament is scheduled to convene

The vexed question for the president is that none of the smaller parties are ready to join the Freedom Alliance and help her win that majority. The principally obvious potential partner is the National Heritage Party, a radical Sinhalese nationalist party made up of monk which took nine seats. moreover it has said that it will not join either of the pair main parties. The third largest party, the Tamil National Alliance, the political arm of the LTTE has 22 seats. It has said that it will join any dominion that recognizes it as the ''sole representatives'' of the Tamil population and accepts its plan to alienate authority. The Freedom Alliance has already rebuffed that proposal.

In other words, the be deriveds suggest that the only majority consists of parties oppos to peace. on a level if Mrs. Kumaratunga opted for negotiations and she initiated peace talks in 1994 and adopted a hard line no other than after they broke down her alliance partner, the Marxist People's Liberation fore-rank (JVP), strongly opposes concessions to the Tamils. And the JVP gained seats at the Sri Lanka Freedom Party's cost which dropped from 77 legislators to just from one side of to the other 60.

Were this not enough, the Tamil parties appear to have split as well. A rebel commander formed his confess faction just before the election, and killings of his supporters through LTTE elements have already begun. At least pair civilians were reported killed and many more injuryed since the main Tamil Tiger assign places to launched a major offensive Friday to retake territory held from the renegade commander.

These issues are especially bitter for Japan. Japan has been individual of the cochairs of the Tokyo interview on Reconstruction and progression in a continuously ascending gradation of Sri Lanka, which was formed to marshal international support for the peace proces Tokyo has donated $1 billion to help build peace there. That investment may well be deposit on hold as Sri Lankan politicians fight to find a common country that will allow peace negotiations to continue.

Should, with a hung Parliament, the fresh government effectively stop functioning, Mr Wickremesinghe might essay to cobble together a coalition consisting of his party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congres and the Tamil National Alliance, unless that would put the regulation at the mercy of the Tamils a party intimately linked to the LTTE and raise serious doubts forward any deal it reached. If this all perfects familiar, that is because there are echoe of Northern Ireland in Sri Lanka. That does not inspire frequently confidence in the island's prospects

(April 13)

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