Thirty years of civil war have done irreparable harm to Sri Lanka. The fight by the island's Tamils to secure a homeland has claimed more than 60,000 lives and deeply fractured the nation. A peace process appeared to be making progress, but divisions among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority derailed those efforts. An election earlier this month deepened the deadlock. Extremist parties are the winners of the recent vote; peace appears to be the loser.

Sri Lanka's Tamils have fought for decades to establish a homeland. More than 65,000 people have died in the bloody struggle and more than 800,000 others have become internal refugees. The long list of victims includes Tamil moderates who were willing to negotiate with the government in Colombo and accept less than the maximalist demands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). Norway negotiated a shaky ceasefire two years ago; despite some close calls, the ceasefire has survived and offers hope for a more permanent deal.

The peace prospects were shaken last November when President Chandrika Kumaratunga unilaterally dismissed the ministers of defense, interior and the media, and took the portfolios herself, charging that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had made too many concessions to the Tamils during the negotiations. The president has no love for the Tamils: a 1999 suicide bombing cost her one eye. She is also a fierce rival of Mr. Wickremesinghe, and many saw this move as an attempt to make up for her party's defeat in the 2001 parliamentary elections.