With overwhelming superiority in terms of troops, weapons, military capability, international support and legitimacy, the Sri Lankan state is most likely to crush the remaining LTTE resistance. Even then, the LTTE's war might not end. It might take a new character, that of a long drawn-out guerrilla war.

So, the answer to the first question is that the military defeat of the LTTE is not likely to end the civil war, although it will certainly end the LTTE's capacity to conduct the war in the form of conventional war. Nor will it resolve the ethnic conflict which is based on Tamil aspirations for political equality.

What will the LTTE expect to achieve from a long drawn-out guerrilla war? Judging by the nature and history of the LTTE as an entity seriously committed to its secessionist goal, one can speculate that it might wait until the conditions become favourable to its eventual return through a combination of war and political maneuvering. Some key components of the LTTE's long-term strategy would be (a) changes in the global conditions when the U.S. war against terror runs out of steam, (b) weakening of the international support which the Sri Lankan government seems to command at present, (c) impact of the global economic crisis on Sri Lankan making it difficult for the government to continue its high-cost war, and (d) inability of the present Sri Lankan government to come up with a political solution to the ethnic conflict in the aftermath of military success.

The LTTE is an organisation that can perhaps wait for several more years before bouncing back, even after losing the conventional defensive war so disastrously. Only the events in the coming years will tell us whether this scenario will work or not in favour of the LTTE's long-term strategic objectives. In the meantime, the LTTE's goal of creating a new nation-state in South Asia will remain a hugely problematic task. Unless the LTTE gives up its secessionist goal and the armed struggle, it is unlikely to regain any legitimate political space in Sri Lanka or South Asia, however much the Sri Lankan state would draw international displeasure for any of its misdeeds. 
It would also be extremely difficult for the LTTE to re-emerge as a significant military or political force in the next few years to come. In Sri Lanka's Tamil polity there are a number of Tamil political parties, totally opposed to the LTTE, waiting to occupy the political space created by the militant entity. Most of them enjoy the backing of the Sinhalese political establishment. The continuing alliance between the Sinhalese political establishment and the anti-LTTE Tamil parties will define the nature of post-LTTE politics in the Sri Lankan Tamil society. Large numbers of war-weary Tamils might also support this alliance that has promised normalisation and economic development for the north.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka's defence and political establishments appear to be getting ready to face a prolonged threat from a possible guerrilla challenge from the LTTE. The new development initiatives being planned for the north seem to combine both 'post-conflict' economic development with long-term counter-insurgency objectives. Judging by media reports of the government's plans for resettling Tamil civilians in the Northern Province, one can surmise that the north is likely to be subjected to a process of re-militarisation in which security and development would be given priority as pre-conditions for peace. A measure reportedly being discussed among policy circles in Colombo is that of resettling Tamil civilians in large 'safety zones' controlled by the military with the support of Tamil paramilitaries. Some policy advisers have already begun to advocate the need to alter the ethnic demography in the Northern Province on the argument that the Tamil mono-ethnic character of the region needs to be changed to prevent future rebellions.

Even assuming that the war with the LTTE comes to an end, the central question that will occupy the world attention concerning Sri Lanka is: will there be a political solution to the ethnic conflict in the aftermath of the government's military success over secession? Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse has repeatedly emphasised that once the LTTE is defeated, his government would introduce a political solution. However, moving in that direction will not be an easy proposition. A one-sided military victory in an ethnic civil war is not likely to open up new political space for the government to initiate political reforms giving the ethnic minorities any measure of self-rule which had dominated the agenda of the defeated rebellion. Branding the LTTE insurgency as terrorism and crushing that 'terrorism' should not obviate the fact that the secessionist rebellion, despite its defeat, represented Tamil political aspirations for equality and autonomy.
Making the prospects for early political reforms weak is the influence exercised by the hard-line Sinhalese nationalist parties and groups on the policy agenda of the Rajapakse administration. In their thinking, Sri Lanka does not have an 'ethnic problem' as such. What exists is a terrorist problem, spearheaded by the 'terrorist' and 'fascist' LTTE. In their argument, the military victory over the LTTE is adequate to resolve that problem. But very few outside Sri Lanka are convinced of this reading of the island's prolonged civil war, although major world powers have backed Rajapakse's own 'war against terrorism.' International actors, from India to the United States, seem to be very keen that Rajapakse moves quickly to politically consolidate the military gains by offering a 'devolution package' to the Tamils. Events in the coming weeks and months will show the extent to which Rajapakse can open up a new political process to lay the foundation for a new polity in which the majority as well as the minority communities can live in dignity, equality and coexistence.    

Inter-community reconciliation is the other complex challenge.  The war and violence has pulled the three main ethnic communities — the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims — apart. It has also intensely ethnicised visions of political imagination. In the intensity of the conflict, driven forward by violence and more violence, strong arguments had developed in all sides to the conflict for unilateral, zero-sum solutions which only a military victory could ensure. Peace was seen as the outcome of war alone. Negotiated peace through compromise, although tried out a number of times, ultimately became a proposition both undesirable and illegitimate. These are positions shared in both Sinhalese and Tamil societies. Politicians, ideologues and the media thrived on reinforcing politics of polarisation and hatred. Now the state has achieved a unilateral military victory.

The challenge faced by President Rajapakse and his government is to inaugurate a new phase in the island's political life, based on the principles of pluralism, inter-group equality and power-sharing. This requires the recognition that members of the Tamil community, even after having been caught up in an armed rebellion against the state, are citizens of the country with a right to equality and dignity.

Political reform in a framework of ethnic pluralism has not been easy in Sri Lanka. Political parties have never forged a consensus on reforms. Undermining reforms has been a part of the inter-party political competition. In a way, the war and military solution are the direct outcomes of the unwillingness of the Sinhalese political establishment to initiate meaningful state reforms to resolve the ethnic problem. Can an unreformed political system be reformed when the internal pressure for reform is no longer there, or in a backdrop where reforms had been resisted even when a secessionist insurgency had made state reform an urgent historical necessity?

That probably is the question to which India and the international actors should be keen to find a satisfying answer. In the backdrop of the failure of the 2002-2003 peace initiative and the LTTE's agenda of returning to war, the international actors seem to have decided to back the Sri Lankan government's strategy of defeating the LTTE militarily as a necessary first step towards creating a new 'post-conflict' situation in Sri Lanka. Unlike in the past, the LTTE this time around faced a formidable international alliance that backed the Sri Lankan government. The thinking among the international actors seems to be that the LTTE had become the main obstacle to peace, security and development in Sri Lanka. This was a decisive shift from their strategy in the 2002-2003 peace process in which they acted on the assumption that the LTTE should be made a co-partner in peace-building. From the perspective of international actors, Sri Lanka will now offer a new model of post-conflict peace-building and development achieved by means of a military victory by the state.

But many international actors, including India, would want to link post-conflict development assistance to political reforms to ensure devolution for the Tamil minority. In the backdrop of regenerated nationalism after the military victory over the LTTE, the Sinhalese nationalist forces will carefully monitor the actions of the international actors in Sri Lanka. Can the external actors play a role in reforming the Sri Lankan state through post-conflict economic assistance? The answer is not yet clear. But what is somewhat clear is that external involvement in state reform can provoke Sinhalese nationalist resistance. In the mid-1980s, the Indian initiative for devolution in Sri Lanka was ceased by the radical nationalists to launch a 'patriotic' insurgency. 

As this backdrop clearly suggests, the question of political solution to the ethnic problem will certainly be approached by the government from the perspective of state security and the unitary state. Thus, in the emerging framework political configuration in post-LTTE Sri Lanka, the government will give utmost priority to the goal of politically consolidating the military gains against the LTTE. The government's strategy would be to ensure that the administrations of the northern and eastern provincial councils would remain in the hands of Tamil political groups that are loyal to, and controlled by, the Sinhalese political establishment.  Therefore, in the short run it is difficult to envisage a situation where the government could give priority to any extension of the existing devolution framework towards greater regional autonomy. Usually, one sided military victories do not follow major political reforms. However, in the long run, the Sinhalese political establishment might learn that regional self-rule under unarmed, non-secessionist and integrationist Tamil political parties might not be a bad idea altogether.

While the armed forces of the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE are engaged in what appears to be the last stage of the open war, two distinct political outcomes of the war need to be noted. The first is the immense historical setback which the Sri Lankan Tamil people as a community are now compelled to accept as the only major gain of the twenty-five years of armed struggle and suffering, the trajectories of which have been largely defined by the LTTE. The second is the reassertion of the unreformed Sri Lankan state with unprecedented strength and global legitimacy, an outcome made possible in the post-9/11 world. Sri Lanka's ethnic minorities as well those who are committed to multi-ethnic democracy and pluralism in the island need to reckon with the implications of these two developments before launching any new minority rights campaign. 

Jayadeva Uyangoda is professor and head, Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

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