As you know, I have great respect for your views on this matter. I think we have “on the one hand/on the other hand”. On the one hand, it is a judgment call as to the role of Mr. Prabhakaran. My judgment, based on long observation, is that he remains committed to his goals and his people remain loyal to him. So as long as he has operational control...if he can be elevated to a figurehead or be sent abroad to write some brilliant books on tactics or in other ways be removed from the scene, it would change the equation, because no other leader in his movement, I believe, has the glue that he can provide.
On the other side of it, though, I think one of the concerns that we perhaps have a role in addressing is—how can I put this gently in open forum?—Sinhalese triumphalism. There has been an educational process in the Sinhalese community over the years. I, too, have used this joke about the F-word. In 1983, I was being vetted—this is absurd—as one of three wise men who was supposed to go to Sri Lanka and tell them about Canada. I was told never to use the word “federalism”, just tell them all about it. It was very tricky.
The current mood—and Ken Bush can indeed jump in on this—on the Sinhalese side may be in the triumphalist mode, but my feeling is this: everybody is sick and tired on all sides of this war. There's a demand and a desire for peace. If proposals can be put forward that have, as I said earlier, equitable components, all the leaders will be forced to come to some terms on this.