Almost drowned out by the blare of daily horrors in the Middle East, the world's first elected woman prime minister, Sirima Bandaranaike, died last week in Sri Lanka aged 84. Fittingly, she died on the way home from casting her vote in an election called by her daughter, the country's current president. It was also fitting that the main issue of the election was how to stop the civil war "Mrs. B" had done so much to start.

Back in the 1950s, there was still a widespread belief that women were too indecisive for the exercise of power. Later, in the 1960s, there was a theory that women in power would somehow be wiser and gentler than men. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was a living refutation of both propositions. She was fearsomely decisive, and profoundly unwise. Her legacy was a civil war.

At the moment, Sri Lankan citizens are killing one another in industrial quantities in the Jaffna Peninsula in the north of the country. This region is home to most of the Tamil-speaking minority, a group so alienated by Bandaranaike's policies that it eventually fell under the thrall of rebels devoted to the creation of a separate Tamil state called Eelam. At least 60,000 people have already died in the brutal 17-year civil war.