Thank you for the question. But perhaps there is another side to that issue.
You used the word “self-determination”; we believe the situation has gone beyond an internal situation. The nations of the world, the diaspora around the world...many people have an interest in what the future of this country is going to look like. Having said that, we believe there will have to be moves toward a decentralized form of government.
I know that some members of this committee have previously suggested alternatives around federalism, how you engage different peoples. I hope this committee, through your work over the next while in looking at the situation, could look at the political question here as to how peoples can live together in the future.
Whether ethnic or religious, there are a number of different dividing factors in the current country. There are so many issues here. It's birth rates in one part of the country compared to others and people feeling they're going to be overwhelmed. There are issues of rural versus urban. There are issues of prosperity in some regions and not in others. All of these are going to have to come together in terms of a lasting solution or any one of them could unravel it.
Perhaps on the political solution side it's a question of how we move people from 26 years of warfare to trying to work together for the betterment of their country. That's why I said moderate groups on both sides probably have the key to the future.
I can't say which form of government that should take. I was ambassador in Indonesia when East Timor, Timor-Leste, happened. You could see a country emerging but deciding that they were going to take a different path than anybody else in the region. It may well be that Sri Lanka will choose a path that looks different from the one we would necessarily choose or that others in the region would hope to impose upon them.
You raise a fundamental question, which has to be answered by the Sri Lankans before they can move forward.