Sri Lanka's Tamils left to wonder what comes next

Sri Lanka -- Riding high on his battlefield victory against the Tamil Tiger rebels and his landslide re-election, Sri Lanka's president appears under little pressure to tackle the deep ethnic tensions that fueled a generation of conflict here.

Any effort to empower the marginalized Tamil-speaking minority could only anger Sinhalese nationalists, and many observers fear that an opportunity to bring a real peace to this country will be squandered.

With general elections coming later this year, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has indicated he will wait until the next parliament is in place to deal with Tamil demands for greater rights and self-rule in areas where they form a majority.

Analysts warn that without addressing the minority's fear of domination by the Sinhalese, the conflict will be forced underground from where it could potentially spark renewed violence.

"Now that the (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is no more, there is no justification of terrorism for the postponement of the political process," said Sakthivel Balakrishnan, an analyst with the research group Center for Development Alternatives.

For more than a quarter-century, this Indian Ocean island nation was consumed by the conflict between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the ethnic Tamil separatists who were fighting for an independent state in the jungles of the north and east.

Last year, the rebels were defeated in a massive government military offensive, bringing peace to the country and glory to Rajapaksa, who last week was re-elected in a landslide victory.But for those living in former rebel-held areas, the war brought death, destruction and misery. The U.N. says 7,000 people perished in the final months of the fighting. More than a quarter-million Tamil's were interned into government-run camps, where some 100,000 still remain. More than 11,000 are being held on suspicion of rebel links.

The results of last week's presidential election underscored the great ethnic gulf that remains between the country's Sinhalese majority and its Tamil minority. Despite a resounding victory across much of the country, Rajapaksa lost in areas hit hard by war and where Tamil's constitute a majority.

"He should resist the temptation to feel that he was elected by the Sinhala Buddhist majority and can therefore overlook the aspirations of the minorities who did not vote for him," The Island newspaper wrote Saturday.

Suresh Premachandran, an ethnic Tamil lawmaker said that Rajapaksa must understand that the Tamils voting against him was a rejection of his policies.

"The Tamils have said that they are a different people and that they need a political solution," Premachandran said. "They must be prepared to share power with Tamils."