Let Slip the Dogs of War

All armed conflicts share elements of atrocity and tragedy, but civil wars can be the most uncivil. Often, such hostilities involve rival ethnic groups, each wanting its own identity and space and, often, these disputes are the most emotional and intractable. So it is with Sri Lanka. Colombo's decision to officially pull out of a 2002 cease-fire agreement with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.) was just a confirmation of what Sri Lankans have known for months — war has returned to the strife-torn Indian Ocean island nation.

It never really went away, of course: the feud between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils, which has killed some 70,000 people since 1983, merely settled to a low simmer, with hundreds dying in skirmishes over the years and full-fledged battles breaking out in 2006 and continuing into 2007. But the abandonment of a political solution has burst whatever remained of the dam that held Sri Lanka's bloodshed in check. In the first days of this new year, fighting has killed more than 150 combatants on both sides, including the Tigers' head of military intelligence. On Jan. 8, a roadside bomb outside Colombo killed D.M. Dassanayake, Sri Lanka's Minister for Nation-Building.

The government has portrayed the war as eminently winnable, publishing daily updates on the number of Tigers killed and pushing the idea that the insurgency is on its last legs. It's a risky strategy; L.T.T.E. forces in the North are digging in, and some military officials have warned the conflict is likely to be bloody and long.

It's no surprise that a society constantly under the threat of war unravels. Several hundred thousand civilians have been displaced by the conflict; Sri Lanka has high rates of domestic violence and alcoholism, and the suicide rate is among the worst in Asia. Reacting to the end of the cease-fire, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged Sri Lankans to find an end to the conflict "through a political solution." Alas, in a society where politics turns on religion and identity, such a solution has proved impossible — as two and a half decades of broken plans attest.