For a number of years after it achieved independence, Sri Lanka was viewed as the most promising country in South Asia. It had the highest literacy rate, the highest GNP per capita and was the most favorable destination in the region for tourists and investors alike. That all ended with an upsurge of ethnic unrest in 1977 involving the majority Sinhalese and the 3.2 million-strong Tamil minority, who clamored for a separate "Eelam" (independent country) or "Tamil homeland" in the north. The insurgency led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that started in 1983 is now 17 years old, has claimed nearly 63,000 lives and has destroyed hopes for the achievement of a peaceful Sri Lanka.

It seems ironic that South Asian states like Bangladesh and India are sending peacekeeping forces to Sierra Leone in the international struggle against rebels there, but apparently feel unable to help their own neighbor preserve its integrity against domestic insurgents.

In the wake of the LTTE's recent stunning successes, Colombo made overtures to India to act as a go-between and/or to render support to help overcome the current situation. But India, the region's pre-eminent power, has no desire to be drawn into Sri Lanka's predicament, having already tried diverse strategies in Sri Lanka's theater of conflict. Toward the beginning of the insurgency, the Tamils were known to have benefited from India's strategy of indirection, receiving arms and sanctuary. When that policy was reversed in 1987, following the achievement of an understanding with Colombo, Delhi tried to serve as a go-between, or a kind of peacekeeper, to help contain the conflict. India's reversal enraged the LTTE and it targeted Indian forces: Nearly 1,500 of them died and over 3,000 were wounded. The LTTE is also blamed for the assassination of former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi, who reached the Indo-Sri Lankan understanding in 1987.