Politics: Sri Lanka: Peace at last, Prez declares, but the challenges ahead are enormous--to keep the peace they claim they've got!

Here's an article by C. Bryson Hull (Reuters), a RPT-ANALYSIS under the title, War over, Sri Lanka's next fight lies ahead (May20,2k9):

COLOMBO, (Reuters) - With a quarter-century civil war in the history books, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa will now put to the test his theory of using a military victory over terrorism as the first step to tackling its root causes.

Flush with the success of victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a 25-year war once dubbed unwinnable, Rajapaksa offered compromise and reconciliation with the Tamil minority in a victory speech on Tuesday.

"At this victorious moment, it is necessary for us to state with great responsibility that we do not accept a military solution as the final solution," said the president, who is Sinhalese.

"It is necessary that we give these people the freedoms that are the right of people in all others parts of our country."

In a nation scarred and divided after one of the world's longest-running and bloody civil wars, with extremists on both sides often calling the shots, Rajapaksa, 63, now faces what may be Sri Lanka's greatest post-independence challenge.