posted November 05, 2003 07:52 PM            

I travelled last year to Vanni, the primitive jungle region in northern Sri Lanka that's been a stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebel movement for two decades. It was a powerful experience. In a region the size of Prince Edward Island, there was hardly a building more than a single storey high.

Most of the roads were little more than dirt paths. People got around on bicycles, or occasionally on motorbikes adapted for kerosene fuel. They depended largely on the Red Cross and aid agencies for medical supplies.

Control by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was evident everywhere. (LTTE escorts accompanied me during my three-day tour.) Residents of Vanni, who number somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000, could do business with the Bank of Tamil Eelam (the word means homeland). Accused wrongdoers were judged in the Tamil Eelam courts. Schools were overseen by LTTE cadres. Sri Lankan government posts, such as they were, were held by Tamils at least outwardly friendly to the rebels.

So, if Tamil control is a fact of life, why is Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga making it the latest battleground in her long-running political war with her archrival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe?

Choosing a moment when Mr. Wickremesinghe was out of the country, Mrs. Kumaratunga suspended parliament yesterday and assumed direct control of three government ministries. She said the Prime Minister and his colleagues were making too many concessions to the LTTE, which waged war on the government for more than two decades before declaring a ceasefire late in 2001, and which has been in off-again, on-again peace talks for more than a year.

What precipitated Mrs. Kumaratunga's action was the Tigers' return to peace negotiations after a six-month absence. On Saturday, they unveiled a sweeping blue-sky proposal that would formally establish an LTTE-dominated interim government in Vanni with control over taxes, finances, land use, trade, and security -- as well as relief and reconstruction efforts, which the government has already conceded.

Mrs. Kumaratunga says the Tigers have been encouraged to believe they can win all that, or something close to it, without taking major steps toward giving up the arsenal they amassed under their ruthless leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. She clearly believes this is the moment to embarrass Mr. Wickremesinghe, who wrested control of parliament from the President and her allies in elections two years ago and has won international acclaim for the peace process.

It might all seem plausible if Mrs. Kumaratunga did not represent a political current that has never been sympathetic to converting Sri Lanka from a unitary to a federal state with substantial political rights for minorities.

Her father and mother, Solomon and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, both served as prime minister. The family prospered in politics by fanning the nationalist grievances of the majority Sinhalese population -- traceable in part to the British colonial administration, which favoured Tamils for bureaucratic posts.

One of the things that struck me in Vanni was the poverty of opportunity for young Tamils, and the sense of a birthright betrayed. Their parents and grandparents grew up in a colony, and then a country, where higher education and advancement were relatively easy for talented Tamils who made the effort.

Their prospects weakened under the Bandaranaikes. For better or worse, life under the dynasty convinced many Tamils that equal opportunity in a unitary state would always be vulnerable to the whims of the majority. They concluded that political autonomy within a well-defined territory was the best way to assure their rights and their prospects.

Some tried to achieve it peacefully; as time went on, some chose the path of violence. Once the war started, only by leaving Vanni could the sons and daughters of the region hope for a better life. (Of course, they could also join the Tigers, and court a martyr's death.)

Now the horse of autonomy is out of the barn. The Tigers fought the Sri Lankan government to a stalemate, and Vanni has been a de facto self-governing state for years. Any enduring peace settlement will have to recognize what's there.

Mrs. Kumaratunga is within her rights to raise questions about the terms of autonomy, the pace of negotiations and the Tigers' willingness to disarm. But given her background, many will suspect that yesterday's extraordinary move is a desperate attempt to stave off the prospect of an autonomous Tamil homeland.

If so, it's doomed.