President Rajapaksa’s predecessors spent years engaged in fruitless talks and ceasefires, during which the guerrillas remained committed to their aim of dividing the country, and making demands for political and socio-economic changes that no democracy could accept, even as they carried on killing and kidnapping. Weakening the Tigers militarily has thus always been a necessary condition for achieving a political settlement with Sri Lanka’s Tamils.
但是，打击猛虎解放组织和寻求达成和平协议从来都不是非此即彼的。即使在猛虎解放组织成员杀人和绑架的时候，拉贾帕克萨总统的前任们仍然用了多年时间来进行毫无结果的谈判和寻求停火，然而在此期间，猛虎解放组织却依旧致力于分裂国家和要求进行民主社会都无法接受的政治和社会经济改革。因此，从军事上削弱猛虎组织始终是与斯里兰卡泰米尔人达成政治和解的必要条件。