For repetition local television programs on the conflict are hard to beat. In how many ways can the same question be asked? " "Is it correct that the LTTE is preparing to attack after making the maximum out of the ceasefire?'' "Is it correct that the LTTE is buying time?'' " Is it correct that the LTTE is seeking to re-arm and re-group?''
This is television dialogue by proxy. The real debate will be a televised face-off between Ranil Wickremesinghe and Velupillai Prabhakaran. That may not be the most organizable event. But the mediators (nay the facilitators) Norway could do that.

There is no point in talking about conflict resolution in Oslo and Upssala while keeping to the beaten track in peacemaking. Conflict resolution is an overworked word, which has currency in seminar rooms mostly. In reality, those who employ methods of conflict resolution have mostly done so on paper, and in fact these methods have so far been vast abstractions at least in the main. Refer Palestine and Israel. After conflict resolution led to a generous distribution of Nobel prizes all round, the chief actors of the conflict have gone back in time. They are now more determined than they used to be, to blow each other up.

Therefore conflict resolution needs to be retreaded. Conflict resolution cannot take place in the thickets of Thailand - or in the beaches of Phuket. At least not exclusively in those places. One reason is that the public does not know sufficiently well what happens at these venues. Now we are seeing Bradman Weerakon write after many many moons about the Premadasa-LTTE peace process. But, that amounts only to being a good history lesson. If conflict resolution is done in the public domain, there is no need to depend on the hindsight acquired through previous failed peace processes.

It is therefore a reasonable proposition for the two sides to the conflict in Sri Lanka to bring the whole issue into the public domain in its most straightforward palatable and credible form. Get rid of the Pakiasothys, get rid of the Uyangodas the Nalins the Abeynayakes and Samaranayakes who analyze this conflict to a frazzle. Get rid of the Jayatillekes the Wickremabahus the Tilak Karunaratnes who with considerable difficulty keep from coming to blows on television. Get rid of expert opinions by Paul Harris. Get rid of expert opinions all the way from Upsala, or opinions hatched in Oslo and delivered in Colombo by Kumar Rupesinghe. Get rid of wild prognostications by diplomats sitting in Colombo and indulging in a little conflict-savvy before the next posting in Seychelles.

Get Prabhakaran and Ranil Wickremesinghe to debate this issue on screen live and in person. If the two current players are too bogged down in the detail and the minutiae of this conflict, at least make a start by getting Anton Balasingham to take on Chandrika Kumaratunga on the tube.

Sounds satiric? Not necessarily. The Norwegians can shore up their credibility which has been subject to question time and again, by getting this conflict into the public domain in the most powerful and effective way that is available within the ambit of a ceasefire.

This will not be a Wanni press conference in which Prabhakaran faced the media, and delivered the particular message that he wanted heard in April. This will not be Rupavahini showing a Wickremesinghe speech. This will be a chance for Prabhakaran to prove that he is the authentic representative of the Tamil people, that Tamil homelands are not a figment of recent imagination, that the LTTE is not a terrorist organization in the way that the Sri Lankan South or the world sees it. It will be a chance for Ranil Wickremesinghe to prove that he is not dragging his feet on the MoU, and that he is not losing faith in the peace process.

But to truly land this whole issue in the public domain, the TV truth-telling must take the form of the town meeting. Town meeting style communications was perhaps first introduced by Bill Clinton and the Democrats in the US. If Ranil Wickremesinghe debates Prabhakaran, the audience should comprise of, say, Wickremabahu Karunaratne, Nalin De Silva, Anton Balasingham, G. L. Peiris, Mahinda Rajapakse and some others who could be guaranteed to participate from the floor and blow this conflict out of its present cast iron compartment in a way that its entrails will be in full view of the Lankan public.

Of course it is another matter why they will pay the Institute of this and that, or the Center for Policy that or the other many millions to set up study groups on conflict resolution and seminars on peacemaking, but will not treat an idea like this as a serious proposition in conflict resolution. If the Sri Lankan government does not want to take up the issue of a televised LTTE/government debate with the Norwegians, the LTTE should. The Norwegians will definitely listen up.

It is also a chance for the peace makers and agenda setters of the West to shore up their credibility. The Western take on conflicts such as those in Sri Lanka is that the people are not sufficiently involved in the process of conflict resolution. The people can be involved, if they have full knowledge of the issues and the respective stands being taken up by the chief actors in the conflict. A televised debate is the only way they can know who is really fudging or who is not during a conflict interim-instead of having to rely on each party's own version and accusations aimed at the other. All the so called "stakeholders" (a conflict resolution word if ever there was one) such as the Sinhala people the Tamil people, the Western interests which feel that the conflict is in various ways spreading its tentacles towards their own domain (by way of refugees, etc.,) could know the exact implications of this conflict, and where the brittle points are in these so called negotiations and peacemaking processes which have now been put in place.

As an added plus, it will beat the Prabhakaran press conference hollow in terms of worldwide ratings. Rupert Murdoch will die for it. But even if he doesn't, many people in Sri Lanka will be able to decide who is really keeping who in the dark, and it will be a form of absolution that will take this conflict closer to resolution by means other than outright hostilities. Twenty years from now, when the head of the Palestinian Authority debates the Israeli Prime Minister, they will say the Sri Lankans started this process of civilized enemy engagement.

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