If there is a conspiracy of silence about discussing it in public, perhaps it is best that it is broken soon. The bottom line is that the Sri Lankan President is constitutionally empowered to dissolve parliament within a year of a government being elected and duly appointed to office. The UNF is governing under that Damocles sword resulting from what was ironically written into the constitution by the father of the modern day UNP, the late J. R. Jayewardene. The UNF can circumvent the dissolution threat, either by amending the constitution, or by opting for another general election, or by tabling an impeachment motion in parliament which constitutionally thereupon debars the President from exercising her power to dissolve parliament once the UNF coalition's year is up.

The people will certainly abhor another needlessly divisive poll in which the choice anyway will be between a PA which has notoriously under-performed in the sphere of economic management, and the UNF which is perhaps getting the economy under some sort of control while experimenting with a peace process that is solid in terms of what it seeks to achieve (which is of course a lasting peace) but shaky in terms of what it might in reality obtain.

Though the peace talks are seen to be somewhere out there, but not yet within tangible reach, the Prime Minister is leveraging the peace moves in such a way that the big powers and the big neighbourly powers, India and America notably, are cheering. But, in the event the peace moves fail, the Premier will however need more than cheers to salvage the country from a rejuvenated Tiger.

Threatened treaty
The US threatened to end all peacekeeping missions that its forces are currently engaged in, if the recently negotiated International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty did not exempt US soldiers from prosecution. In the end a compromise was reached in the UN Security Council, in which the Court has granted US peacekeepers a one-year exemption from ICC action.

The US objections to the ICC are based on the grounds that "frivolous prosecutions will be launched by enemy states against members of US peacekeeping forces.''

What the US wants is a carte blanche for its forces - peacekeeping forces or otherwise - - to do as they please in many parts of the world in which they operate, in pursuance of the American role of GloboCop or "global policeman.''

There have been several incidents of rape for instance by US forces personnel stationed in Okinawa in Japan. The groundswell of protests in Japan against these incidents forced the US to consent to some legal measures to be launched against the soldiers who were accused of rape. But it is sad, as the Canadian Ambassador to the US said, "that the UN Security Council interprets treaties that are negotiated elsewhere.'' Recently, a local NGO tried to dragoon Sri Lankan media personnel into a "media workshop'' at which a condescending busybody female NGO champion with some sort of international award under her belt was seen to try to "convert'' media personnel into educating the poor Sri Lankan masses on the ICC treaty. Thanks but no thanks. Treaties such as these, which can be circumvented and undermined by UN resolutions, may not be worth the paper they are written on. Sri Lankans can make their own judgements about the ICC treaty without the intervention of supercilious NGO operatives, who don't seem to see the ramifications of the treaty beyond their own narrow and ballyhooed objectives.

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