Sri Lanka

Via BBC, Sri Lanka leader urges truce review

Sri Lanka's new President Mahinda Rajapakse has demanded a review of a ceasefire deal with Tamil Tiger rebels.

He said the country needed a new peace process that would not tolerate "terrorism" - but added that he was ready for talks.

Mr Rajapakse said a solution to the long-running conflict would be found in a unitary state, rejecting Tigers' demand for an independent homeland.

The Tamil dream of secession -- or absent that, a federal autonomy -- is dying. The reason for this is one man and his terrorist machine.

As long as Pirbhakaran runs Killinochi, India will have little sympathy for the underlying cause of Sri Lankan Tamils. Without Indian support, the latter are unlikely to make any political advance. They are deluding themselves if they think Indians will ever make peace with the murderer of Rajiv Gandhi. In fact, in this singular act, he alienated Indians in general, and Indian Tamils in particular.

Pirbhakaran is like Arafat -- destroying the welfare of his own people to pursue his megalomania. We reiterate our call for Sri Lanka's brave Tamil people to overturn his terrorist tyranny and hand him over in order for justice to be meted out to him. Absent this revolutionary step, Sri Lanka's Tamils will increasingly be seen as South Asia's Palestinians -- a people with enormous potential but trapped in their self-constructed political wilderness.

If Pirbhakaran wanted further war, he's now engineered himself a new rationale for it. Hopefully, this will be the final bloody chapter in this third-rate terrorist's life.