ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to answer the question of why the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were unable to reach a peace agreement to resolve the country’s protracted ethnic conflict. In spite of the seemingly favourable conditions for a political settlement, both sides abandoned negotiations in favour of returning to war. The stalled peace process of 20022003 constitutes a particularly inexplicable opportunity lost, because it had all the major components of a peace process that could only end in a peace agreement to terminate the civil war. To recall the first part of the story, the United National Front (UNF) government and the LTTE signed a Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in February 2002 and held six rounds of direct negotiations. The ceasefire agreement remained quite stable for about three years, and despite facing difficulties it then survived one more year. International support and goodwill, along with a promise of substantial economic assistance for post-conflict peacebuilding, was indeed unprecedented. Although direct peace talks between the government and the LTTE, supported by major international actors, had a great deal of promise to end in a peace agreement, after March 2003, negotiations remained suspended. The new Sri Lankan government of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and the LTTE did return to the negotiation table in early 2006, but it was only as a prelude to, or an excuse for, returning to full-scale war. The formal collapse of the CFA in January 2008 marked the transition of Sri Lanka’s undeclared war to a new phase of formal and intense war and finally the military defeat of the LTTE.
