The Tsunami offered no opportunity to re-think the purpose of nationhood,

Mid June now and peace seems further way following the chaos of the Oslo meetings last week. Or non- meetings as the media portrays it this weekend. Of course as ever each sides blames the other and no one accepts responsibility which is true of the recent spate of horrific massacres, Alaipiddy, Welikanda and now Vankalai.

The LTTE could clearly have said before arriving in Oslo, for what they now say they saw as bi-lateral talks with Norway and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission countries, that they were not prepared to meet the Sr Lankan Government delegation face to face. They left this to the first day of the meetings. What an enormous gamble wth destiny and what a colossal waste of time. Now who pays for all this waste? And in demanding that the SLMM monitors from EU countries now withdraw from the SLMM as a consequence of the formal banning of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation in Europe, who is supposed to pay for the new monitors? Surely not the LTTE! And why should it be paid for by the much pilloried Norwegians? It is of course the civilians who finally pay with their lives.

The SLMM also choose last week to release their latest report on the Cease Fire Agreement and its findings are fairly damning of both the LTTE and the Government. It makes dismal reading but the Government response shows absolutely no sign of culpability. With such a low level of confidence from both parties how can the SLMM continue? Most observers here feel the CFA is now only honoured in the breach. With seemingly all avenues now exhausted to get compliance to the ceasefire we all wait in dread for the wholesale reversion to war and the tremendous loss of life and development opportunity, which Sri Lanka will almost certainly suffer.

The tragedy of the Tsunami offered no opportunity to re-think the purpose of nationhood, turning it to uniting and not dividing peoples. It seems at the beginning of this week that the real and lasting monument to the many 10s of thousands who died in both the war and the Tsunami, will not be The Peace as we had all hoped, prayed and worked for.