Tamil Tiger rebels escort the body of Tamil MP Joseph Pararajasingham, who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen as he attended Christmas mass. Photograph: AP
Whatever political goodwill that followed the tsunami a year ago has long vanished from Sri Lanka.
Unlike in Indonesia, where the disaster led to a reconciliation between the government and rebels in the breakaway province of Aceh, the government in Colombo and the Tamil Tiger rebels are once again at daggers drawn, and the 2002 truce brokered by Norway is giving way to the renewed threat of civil war.
The Tamil Tigers have fought tenaciously for two decades for a separate state in the Tamil-dominated north-east of Sri Lanka, and nearly 65,000 people have died in the conflict. In the latest upsurge of violence, 45 government soldiers have died this month in attacks Colombo has blamed on the rebels.
The latest casualty of the hostilities was Joseph Pararajasingam, a member of parliament for the Tamil National Alliance - the Tigers' political wing - who was shot at a Christmas mass. His supporters believe the army or a breakaway rebel group backed by the government was responsible.
It is a depressing turn of events and international monitors of the 2002 truce fear the worst.
"If this trend of violence is allowed to continue, war may not be far away," Hagrup Haukland, the head of the Nordic-staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said in a statement. "It is now imperative that the parties join hands to arrest the violence prevailing in the north and in the east. There is a way forward: direct dialogue."
But no talks have yet been agreed amid signs of further polarisation. The new president, Mahinda Rajapakse, who was narrowly elected last month, won on a tough platform against the Tamil Tigers.
He rejected rebel demands for Tamil autonomy, vowed to review the 2002 ceasefire and also indicated that Norway would no longer play a role as a peace broker. In another hardline move, he promised to tear up a previous agreement reached with the rebels on how to distribute international aid money to tsunami victims.
The Tigers also seem to have adopted a tougher line. Their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, ordered the 13.2 million Tamils to boycott last month's election, a move that handed victory to Mr Rajapakse over his opponent, former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who helped sign the 2002 peace deal. Most Tamils would have cast their vote for Mr Wickremesinghe had they not been intimidated into staying home.
The situation is not entirely hopeless. Despite pouring cold water on the 2002 truce, Mr Rajapakse, who held talks in Delhi yesterday, appealed for India to take a direct role in any peace talks.
The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is understandably reluctant to get involved in the Sri Lankan imbroglio – the Tamil Tigers assassinated former Indian prime minister Rajiv Ghandi in 1991. But if India does not want Sri Lanka to descend into turmoil once more, it may have no choice but to take a proactive role.
