The biggest change in Colombo visible since last year is the absence of military checkpoints. The sandbag bunkers have vanished from the crossroads.

At the full moon Perhera fesitval, tourists mingle freely again with the pilgrims as 150 elephants and over 5,000 dancers go in procession through the hill town of Kandy. The sheer numbers say a lot about what the peace deal has returned back to the people of Sri Lanka in the last year. Tourists returning from the north of the island say that even the migratory birds are back in Jaffna this winter. Housewives have started planting flowers in old tins that a year ago could have held explosives.

But the peace is still fragile. As in Kathmandu, many are cautious this might just be another interlude to a renewed LTTE campaign against the Colombo government. Fear of the peace process breaking down looms among the general public. The latest survey by the Centre for Policy Alternatives found that popular confidence in the peace process has declined significantly compared to last September. Scepticism is beginning to creep in. "This decline of public confidence is a manifestation of the general public feeling left out of the process," says Sanjana Hattotiva, a research associate with the Centre. Says Sanjaya Senanyake, who works in television, "Conflicts need to be demystified first. The majority of Sri Lankans do not understand the nature of the conflict we have been facing, let alone what might be a viable solution."

Nepal's former home minister, Khadga Prasad Oli, is currently in Colombo to 'create' international solidarity against US policies on North Korea, but there are a few pointers he could take home from Serendib on how to keep the peace. Says Jehan Perera, a Colombo-based human rights activist, "An inclusive negotiation process will boost everyone's confidence."

One problem is who guides the discourse. Sri Lanka's majority community, the Sinhala, tend to dominate discussion on vital issues of political reform, through the medium of the main political parties in Colombo. The all-important vernacular media is fractured: Tamil media is upbeat but lacks analysis, while the more influential Sinhala media tends to be hawkish.

If there is one lesson for Nepal from Sri Lanka's experience, it is of course that minorities should not be overlooked in the modernising process. While the island's demography, made up of two large communities arrayed against each other, is quite different from Nepal's multiplicity of communities, the response of those who feel excluded from the political process will still be the same. The young in particular then become easily roused by ideologues to pick up the gun.

Sri Lankan scholars are quick to point out to the visiting Nepali journalist that while there may be some similarities in the peace processes of Nepal and Sri Lanka, the Maoists are to be compared not to the Tamil Tigers (who are fighting an identity-led war) but to the Janatha Vimukti Perumana. Much like the Maobadi, the JVP was made up of disaffected Sinhala youth who proposed a class war and carried out a violent campaign against the state in the 1980s. They were subdued violently , but are today above-ground as an extreme but potent political force.

Both Nepal and Sri Lanka made mistakes in the way they handled their respective conflicts. The first was to ignore the problem until too late, the case of ethnic assertion on the one hand and economic deprivation on the other. Chandrika Kumaratunga's "war for peace" which began in April 1995 and Sher Bahadur Deuba's "war against terrorism" of November 2001 also seem to be of a piece, according to one Colombo scholar.

As the peace process begins, the negativism of the Sinhala hawks in Colombo against the peace process may find reflection among the Kathmandu hawks. The tendency to put the political parties' interest before that of the nation is a problem that has affected both the Colombo opposition and ruling coalition, and is not an alien phenomenon in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, the Maoists have a credibility problem for the cynicism with which they have approached talks in the past, and this is something that finds reflection in how Velupillai Prabakaran is perceived in Colombo.

Today, peace and potential resolution are finely balanced in Colombo and Kathmandu. For the moment, the rebels are showing restraint in both countries. The response from Maoist supremo Prachanda to the alleged forceful extortions from his party cadres earlier this week resembles the concerns shown by LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakaran about human rights violation allegations. Both gestures indicate that the rebels are, for now, serious about peace.

"What we have seen from Sri Lanka's experience is that formal talks cannot succeed unless there is adequate homework and a series of informal talks," said Shyam Shrestha, editor of pro-left Mulyankan monthly, who too was in Colombo to study the peace process. "Both sides should be committed and adequately prepared for peaceful resolution. The mediator should not be a propagandist, and must promote quiet diplomacy."
In both countries, the questions loom: will rebels used to resolving issues with the gun be willing to lay down their arms? And will those who lay down their arms willingly put their shoulders to the yoke again? For the moment, both Prabakaran and Prachanda hold on to their rifles.