The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have conceded defeat, but the root causes of the conflict, which led to the formation of the LTTE in the first place is alive and needs to be addressed. The public acknowledgement by the Sri Lankan president Rajapaksa of the necessity that “the political solutions they need should be brought to them,” and which “should be acceptable to all communities,” is a clear indication that even after the bloodbath, the death of Prabhakaran and the defeat of the LTTE, a political process is still crucial. The military victory of Sri Lanka has only reaffirmed the growing realization that a political settlement is still the only answer to political conflicts around the world.
Could the bloodbath have been avoided, or was the bloodbath a deliberate part of the strategy of the government to achieve its objective will remain a matter of debate. But what is quite obvious is that the government did more than just militarily defeat the LTTE, it caused serious and irreparable damage to the foundation of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and forced a serious situation of humanitarian crisis. By doing so, it will take years for the Tamils to rebuild and their negotiating powers have drastically been weakened; and because no other strong political alternative to the LTTE was allowed to be openly nurtured, the political vacuum created has increased the possibility of an imbalanced solution.
The outcome of any full scale military engagement between the state and the rebel is a foregone conclusion and the military defeat of the LTTE has only proven the obvious imbalance. The military engagement between a regular army and a guerilla force has never been along conventional lines and their motives and objectives are different but the consequences on innocent civilians are far reaching. This has been clearly demonstrated by the military operations in Sri Lanka. The loss of human life and the displacement of Tamils from their own home will have adverse effect on their future and will only increase their sense of collective loss; and the trauma the civilians have endured will take generations to heal.
History has shown that collective trauma of this magnitude has the potential to arouse and intensify the confrontation in future. But for now, the Tamils will have to prioritize their response to the catastrophe they are undergoing and focus on rebuilding their society and land. In the absence of Prabhakaran, they have a fine opportunity to forge a united front in pursuing the rights of their people and to ensure that the international community actively intervenes in facilitating and enabling a negotiated settlement, which safeguards the rights of the Tamils in Sri Lanka
