Sri Lanka’s intermittent war between successive governments and the secessionist movement by the Tamil Tigers has been going on for nearly a quarter century and has taken 65,000 lives. It is one of the most vicious and intractable conflicts in the world, but receives less attention than other wars that involve American interests more directly.

Episodes of gruesome bloodletting on both sides this fall demonstrate that a 2002 ceasefire survives only on paper. At the same time, Pakistani arms deliveries to the government and a consequent expectation that India will provide military aid to the Tamils threatens to transform Sri Lanka’s civil war into a proxy war.

To demonstrate Washington’s seriousness about a permanent peace that provides for Tamil self-government and human rights in a confederal Sri Lanka, the administration ought to prevail on the central government to withdraw its armed forces from the Tamil areas. The Sri Lankan government should also be told that as a humanitarian gesture, it should open the road to Jaffna, the sole main artery connecting the Tamil areas to the rest of the country.

Peace in Sri Lanka must be accompanied by justice for the island’s Tamil minority. That justice and that peace should be seen as building blocks for the security in Asia.