If This Is Peace . . .

By EDWARD W. DESMOND

As Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi emerged from the President's House in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo last week, he had reason to smile. The previous day the Prime Minister had signed an agreement with Sri Lankan President Junius R. Jayewardene that promised to end a brutal civil war. But as Gandhi passed the white-uniformed men of a Sri Lankan naval honor guard, one of the sailors broke ranks and swung at Gandhi with the butt of his rifle. The Prime Minister caught a glancing blow in the back and stumbled. Guards quickly hustled Gandhi away and hauled off the bellicose sailor.

As it turned out, Rajiv Gandhi was not injured. Nonetheless, the attack was a painful reminder to the Prime Minister of how much strife and distrust had been aroused by the pact he had just initialed -- and how uncertain were its chances of success. For four years Sri Lanka, a teardrop of an island off India's southern coast, has been plagued by a vicious battle that has claimed more than 6,000 lives. Pitting the Sinhalese majority against the minority Tamils, the conflict has not only imperiled Jayewardene's government but threatened to drag New Delhi further into a war that it wanted to see end.

The agreement was worked out during three weeks of secret talks between New Delhi and Colombo. Its centerpiece was Jayewardene's concession of local rule in two provinces heavily populated by Tamils, who make up one-eighth of the country's 16 million people. In exchange Gandhi, whose country is home to about 50 million Tamils and who has provided refuge and arms to Tamil insurgents fighting the Colombo government, promised to ensure that the rebels would lay down their arms.

The day after the signing ceremony, some 3,000 Indian troops landed on the Tamil-dominated Jaffna peninsula in the north of the island. Their task: to disarm the guerrillas and take up peacekeeping duties. Those efforts promised + to be tricky; the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the largest and most militant of five rebel groups, insisted that they would not consider disarming until New Delhi released their leader, Vellupillai Prabakaran. He had been under house arrest in New Delhi after calling the pact a "stab in the back, but early this week Prabakaran was released and returned to Jaffna after pledging that he would ask his commanders to disarm.

Jayewardene had already announced a request for "military assistance" from the U.S., Britain, Pakistan and China to help "suppress a revolt against the democratically elected government." U.S. officials indicated that some "logistical support" might be forthcoming but that there would be no direct military aid.

For their part, Sinhalese protesters took to the streets even before the agreement was signed. Columns of black smoke rose over the capital as police and soldiers resorted to rifle fire to contain the rioting. By week's end at least 70 people were dead. In the protesters' eyes, Jayewardene had caved in to rebel demands and Indian pressure. Admitted a government official: "Ninety percent of the Sinhalese people are against us."

For all the controversy it has aroused, the accord offers benefits to both countries -- if it holds up. For Sri Lanka, peace would bring stability and a return to more prosperous times. For India, success would promote the country's coveted image as a regional superpower and repair Gandhi's battered reputation. Said U.S. State Department Spokesman Charles Redman: "We applaud the statesmanlike efforts and perseverance of these courageous leaders in achieving this accord."

Nonetheless Jayewardene, 80, is taking the biggest gamble in his nine years as President. The accord has angered his party and strained the loyalty of the 45,000-strong armed forces. The opposition parties and Buddhist monks, who are an influential force in Sinhalese society, were in the vanguard of the demonstrations. Said Madihe Pannanseeha, chief priest of the Amarapura Chapter of Buddhists: "India's aim is the total subjugation of Sri Lanka."

Sinhalese distrust of India runs deep. Over two millenniums, Sri Lanka's Buddhist majority has fought back periodic invasions from Hindu India. Sri Lanka's Tamils are Hindus too, and the Sinhalese tend to regard them as India's natural allies. The current round of Tamil-Sinhalese conflict goes back to 1956, when the Sinhalese-dominated government made Sinhala the sole official language and restricted job and educational opportunities for minorities, effectively reducing the Tamils to second-class citizens.

Though Jayewardene eased those laws in 1977, hard feelings lingered. Tamil resentment erupted into sporadic violence. In July 1983 one of those incidents catapulted the country into war: after Tamil terrorists ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers, enraged Sinhalese stampeded through Colombo and killed at least 600 Tamils.

The rebels, dominated by the 3,500-man Tigers, demand a unified, independent state of "Eelam" (homeland) for Tamils in the island's northern and eastern provinces. Outnumbered by the Sri Lankan military and poorly armed, the insurgents would not have gone far without assistance from India. Just 22 miles across the Palk Strait from northern Sri Lanka lies India's Tamil Nadu state, where the rebels maintain training camps. Despite this support, New Delhi did not endorse the Tigers' demand for independence, insisting instead that Colombo grant the Tamil regions local rule.

Jayewardene refused, but in recent months he became convinced that India was determined to stop Colombo's efforts to defeat the Tamil rebels. In June secret talks began through diplomatic intermediaries. Colombo agreed to Tamil self-rule, while India acceded to Jayewardene's request that it impose the settlement on the rebels -- by force if need be. Asked at a news conference last week why he had not made those concessions before, Jayewardene drew gasps when he replied, "Lack of courage on my part, lack of intelligence on my part, lack of foresight on my part."

At the heart of the agreement is Colombo's promise to create a single, locally ruled Tamil province in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. By the end of the year, residents of the new region would elect a governor, chief minister and a cabinet. Since Tamils make up 92% of the northern area's residents but only 40% in the eastern region, easterners would decide by referendum next year whether to remain in the unified province. That provision is unacceptable to the Tamils, who fear that the easterners will pull out.

Gandhi tried to persuade the Tigers to sign the pact, but to no avail. An Indian air force helicopter picked up Tiger Chief Prabakaran in Jaffna two weeks ago and brought him to India. During three days of discussions in New Delhi, including a meeting with Gandhi, the Tiger leader refused to go along, arguing that his fighters would not be safe without their weapons once Indian forces departed. Watched by paramilitary guards, Prabakaran remained confined to his room at the government-owned Ashok Hotel while the treaty was being initialed in Colombo. The Tiger leadership and several smaller rebel groups declared that they would not even consider laying down their arms until Prabakaran returned safely to Jaffna.

As the violence in Colombo's streets indicated, Jayewardene still faces serious obstacles in persuading the Sinhalese majority to accept the pact. On the day of the signing, the government declared a curfew in the capital and deployed soldiers to keep demonstrators from approaching the presidential residence. Senior police and military officers also had their hands full trying to keep their own unhappy forces in line. Said an enlisted man: "I have been wearing this uniform for four days. But what use is it? I am unable to support my own people." Obviously, though, dissent was not far from the surface: the sailor who attacked Gandhi was a Sinhalese.

While the ceremony took place, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa was busy giving alms of yellow rice, curd, fruit and cake to Buddhist monks. "I asked them not to sign this, even yesterday," he told the monks. "There is terrorism in Sri Lanka only because India is backing it." Since many of Jayewardene's ruling United National Party members feel no different, the agreement stands a slim chance of winning ratification in Parliament. Mere identification with the document appeared to be dangerous: late in the week a U.N.P. deputy who had attended the signing ceremony was assassinated by a group of Sinhalese men. Jayewardene has vowed to dissolve Parliament and call new elections if there is no ratification. That threat may keep his party in line: given the Sinhalese anger at Jayewardene, elections would probably be a disaster for U.N.P. deputies.

If the fighting stops and the rebels are disarmed, Jayewardene could regain some support. But as India's 3,000 troops arrived in the Jaffna area last week, J.N. Dixit, the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, heightened Sinhalese fears that India might be aiming at more than a temporary stay. When the troop deployment was announced, Colombo promised that the units would be under Sri Lankan command. Sounding a bit like a proconsul, Dixit told a Colombo news conference that the troops would answer to him. The next day Dixit retreated, saying the Indian troops were ultimately under Jayewardene's authority.

Even if the Indians plan to stay only long enough to disarm the Tigers, that may take more time than New Delhi or Colombo ever anticipated. By week's end the Indian peacekeeping brigade had yet to collect a single rifle from the Tamil Tigers. At the air base in Palali, on the Jaffna peninsula, Indian planes and helicopters were arriving around the clock with crates of ammunition, mortars and heavy equipment. To all appearances, the Indian force had come to stay for a while.

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Colombo and K.K. Sharma/New Delhi