Deep Scars From Bitter Ethnic Fight : Sri Lanka’s Peace Hopes Hinge on Autonomy Offer

In this part of Sri Lanka, a tranquil place with green peaks jutting through the mists, a serene lake and old colonial buildings, it is difficult to believe that this island nation is racked by a bloody civil war.

Yet for a decade Sri Lanka, positioned like a teardrop off the southern tip of India, has been involved in an ethnic conflict between a government dominated by the majority Sinhalese population and the minority Tamils.

The northern and eastern provinces, where the Tamils are concentrated, are scarred by the war that elements of the Tamil community touched off in 1983 in pursuit of their goal of creating an independent state. Roads are pocked with bomb craters, and where villages once stood, there is only charred ground. Soldiers and policemen peer out at visitors through narrow slots in sandbag barriers.

Even in Colombo, the capital on the west coast of the island, the war is evident. In May, the city was struck by a series of terrorist bombs. One of them, at the airport, killed a dozen foreign tourists.

Since then, roadblocks have been thrown up at key installations in Colombo. Guards check the contents of parcels at the entrances to most buildings.

Stripped of plastic explosives and modern weaponry, the Sri Lanka conflict could easily fit into some ancient Asian epic. Since a state of emergency was declared in 1983, more than 4,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which seems to consist of a one massacre after another.

“A vicious circle of retaliation and counterretaliation,” Robert N. Kearney, a political scientist at Syracuse University, has called it.

But Kandy, along with the rest of the Sinhalese heartland in the south, has been spared for the most part. And since Sri Lanka’s political life is dominated by the Sinhalese majority, this presents a problem for President Junius R. Jayewardene and other leaders seeking a solution to the conflict.

Jayewardene’s recent peace proposal, which would grant greater autonomy to the minority Tamils by establishing provincial governing councils, has been greeted enthusiastically by some moderate Tamil leaders.

‘Significant Advance’

“These proposals are qualitatively different than the type of language they were using last year,” Tamil attorney Neelan Tiruchelvam, a spokesman for the Tamil United Liberation Front, said in Colombo. “In my view, the proposals represent a significant advance.”

Diplomats and foreign businessmen here have reacted even more positively. “I am impressed by the proposals in their flexible and imaginative qualities,” U.S. Ambassador James W. Spain said.

The representative of a foreign bank said: “It is about as far as this government can go and still maintain a unitary state. I hope it flies.”

Tamil United Liberation Front leaders in Madras, across the Palk Strait in India, have agreed to meet with Jayewardene in Colombo on Tuesday. Although there has been no such offer from more militant groups, none of them has publicly rejected the proposal so far, even after Sri Lanka military forces claimed to have killed more rebels near Trincomalee this week.

Must Convince Sinhalese

But if the president’s bold peace initiative is to succeed, he must first sell it to his Sinhalese constituency, and in the past the majority has been unwilling to grant concessions to the Tamil minority.

Sri Lanka has a population estimated at 16 million. Sinhalese, predominantly Buddhist, account for about 12 million, and Tamils, mostly Hindu and Christian, about 3 million. The rest are largely Muslim Moors and Christian Burghers.

Last week 71 Jayewardene delivered his peace proposal to important Buddhist priests in the Sinhalese areas for their consideration. In August, he plans to present it to Parliament, which is dominated by his United National Party.

The proposal goes much further than any previous government offer. For the first time since the beginning of the conflict a decade ago, Jayewardene talks of “sharing power” with the Tamils. The role of the provincial councils would be greatly expanded to include some tax and police powers.

Provincial Cooperation

Additionally, the proposal calls for some governmental cooperation between provinces with mutual interests, such as the critical northern and eastern provinces with their large Tamil populations. Tamil demands have consistently called for the consolidation of the two provinces into one state, to be called Eelam, with a majority Tamil population.

But support from Sinhalese interest groups, particularly the powerful Sinhalese organizations in the south, is by no means certain.

“We have two questions,” Tiruchelvam, the Tamil spokesman, said. “First, is the government willing to settle? And, secondly, are the Sinhalese people willing to settle?”

Even with the new proposal, the prospects for peace on this troubled island are remote.

“Don’t talk about lights at the end of the tunnel,” said Indian Ambassador J.N. Dixit, a key figure in organizing the talks between the government and the Tamil rebels. “Just say we are trying to find our way out of a situation of uncertainty and ferment.”

Rebels Hardest to Convince

Ultimately, the most difficult element in the peace process may be to persuade the several active Tamil rebel groups, particularly the strong Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam group, the most active proponents of independence, to consider a settlement.

As a Western diplomat here said, “These are some very young men with guns and storehouses of weapons whose brothers may have been killed.”

But even before dealing with the young men with guns, the government must achieve a consensus among the Sinhalese majority. Already Sri Lanka’s opposition parties are positioned to take advantage in the event of failure by Jayewardene, a political master who at age 79 shows some signs of slowing down.

“I don’t think he will be able to get a Sinhalese consensus on these proposals,” said Prof. Viswa Warnapala, an opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party supporter who teaches at Kandy’s Peradeniya University.

Gamble by Jayewardene

Jayewardene is gambling that the war has had enough of an impact, even in places like Kandy, that the Sinhalese majority will be willing to make some concessions to the Tamils simply to end the strife.

Despite its surface calm, Kandy has felt ripples from the national conflict. After the bombings in Colombo, only three hours’ drive from Kandy, many people kept their children home from school, apparently fearing terrorist attacks. And private schools assessed parents extra fees for “added security.”

The city’s many hotels, two years ago fully booked with tourists, are mostly empty now. Tourism has declined precipitously all over the island. The old Queens Hotel has closed its main dining room, where white-gloved waiters used to serve a five-course lunch.

Guarding Buddha’s Tooth

Perhaps the most dramatic change of all has come at the famous Temple of the Tooth. Nearly four centuries ago, a Sinhalese king brought what people here believe is a tooth of Lord Buddha to Kandy for safekeeping. To the Sinhalese, the tooth is the most sacred relic in all Buddhism.

For generations, the tooth and the Temple of the Tooth and the bull elephant that parades through the streets every year with the tooth in a solid-gold casket represented the strength and continuity of the Sinhalese culture. Kandy, built on the shore of a tranquil lake in the Udawattelkellary jungle, represented the undisturbed heart of sinhala, “land of the lions” in the Sinhalese language.

Now, though, there are signs that the increasingly bitter civil war between the government and Tamil rebels has even reached this Sinhalese bastion in the hills.

In February, a traditional public viewing of the Sacred Tooth of Lord Buddha was canceled by the temple custodian because of fears it might be attacked by Tamil terrorists.

Fear of Bloodshed

“What I was worried about,” said Neranjan Wijeyratne, the temple’s chief lay custodian, “was that if something happened, no army, no government could control the bloodshed.”

Since the display of the tooth is a form of public reassurance--an affirmation that all is well at the center of Sinhalese life--the cancellation had the effect of unnerving the community.

The tooth, already locked in the smallest of seven successively larger gold caskets, was placed in a container of bullet-proof glass donated by Japanese Buddhists. Elite Sri Lanka troops were stationed under the giant mango and mahogany trees on the temple grounds. Uniformed Buddhist security guards were placed inside the temple itself.

Typically, any offensive mounted by government troops against Tamil positions in the northern or eastern provinces will be answered by Tamil rebel attacks on Sinhalese civilian settlers. A Tamil attack, similarly, invites retaliation by Sinhalese.

Attack, Retaliation

Thus, in early June, a four-day government offensive in the Jaffna peninsula, which resulted in at least 30 Tamil deaths, was followed by a Tamil guerrilla raid on a civilian Sinhalese settlement in Siripura, in the eastern province, in which at least 12 were killed.

The attacks on the Sinhalese settlements are another indirect way the Sinhalese centers in the south have begun to feel the effects of the war.

Kekulawl Dharmapala, 68, is a village leader and justice of the peace in the small village of Hindagala near Kandy. He is so respected that in his village he is called rajuruwo-- “king.”

As the political leader, Dharmapala helped several dozen Sinhalese families join government resettlement programs in the north. He also helped young men join the armed forces and the police. At the time, these were considered political triumphs. Now, because of the war, they have returned to haunt him.

A young police inspector he recruited has been kidnaped in the north by Tamil guerrillas and is presumed dead. Six of the families he placed in the controversial government resettlement programs have been forced by the violence there to return to the village. He said 15 other families have been “stranded” by the fighting.

Now he is one of those in the Sinhalese heartland here who support President Jayewardene’s peace proposal.

“The government has put forth proposals in a most reasonable way,” he said. “I am for peace and believe in living in amity with all communities.”