COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The 30-year-old ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka may well end this year. Thousands of people have been killed, and political leaders, including India's young and charismatic Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated in the war between majority Sinhala-speaking Buddhists and the largely Christian Tamils.
The Tamils, led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's Vellupillai Prabhakaran, have demanded a separate home in the north and east of the island nation. This now seems like a dream gone sour. The fall of Kilinochchi, the Tigers' political and administrative headquarters, to the forces of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government last week is seen as a decisive turn.
Cynics may point out that Kilinochchi fell before and was recaptured by the Tigers in 1998, but the situation on the ground is quite different today from what it was a decade ago. There has been an almost historic change in Colombo's approach to the strife. Government troops are fully equipped and right on top of rebel attacks. For the first time, the army, navy and air force are working together to overcome hostile terrain (where the Tigers had used guerrilla tactics to their advantage), monsoon conditions and man-made obstacles.