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Home > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Sri Lanka's Broken Pacts & Evasive Proposals > Chandrika - LTTE Talks: 1994/95 > LTTE leader to Sri Lanka Deputy Defence Minister, 8 December 1994
LTTE leader to
Sri Lanka Deputy Defence Minister
8 December 1994
Col. Anuruddha Ratwaffe,
Minister for Irrigation and Power,
Deputy Minister for Defence,
Sri Lanka
Dear Col. Ratwatte,
I am pleased to receive your letter dated 7th December 1994.
Your letter explains in some detail the position of your government with regard
to the peace process and sets out certain specifications on the question of
cessation of hostilities and negotiations.
We do appreciate the manner in which your government faced and withstood the
challenges posed by racist elements to undermine the process of peace
negotiations. In spite of the malicious disinformation campaign launched against
the LTTE, we are pleased to note that the wider sections of the Sinhala people
opted for peace and have given your Government an overwhelming mandate to carry
forward the process of negotiations and to seek a solution to the ethnic
conflict by peaceful means.
You will appreciate that from the outset the LTTE has been
insisting that the initial stages of the negotiations should be given primacy to
the immediate and urgent problems faced by our people. In the first round of
talks, our delegation has specified these issues, which are mostly creations
resulting from the military approach advanced by the previous regime. Though the
government delegation pledged 'to alleviate the hardships of daily life
presently experienced by the people', no action has been taken so far to redress
the grievances of our people.
The urgent problems of our people cannot be reduced to 'some reconstruction and
repair works'. There are far more pressing problems which have to be resolved to
create genuine conditions of peace and normalisation of civilian life in the war
torn areas.
Even though your government is fully aware of these urgent issues, and has
absolute authority to resolve these problems, there seems to be a reluctance to
make any positive moves in this direction. We can attribute this to the
Government's unwillingness to act contrary in anyway to the overall strategic
interests and designs of the military. This approach of giving primacy to
military interests over and above the existential concerns of a civilian
population, I wish to point out, will pose serious obstacles when tackling the
immediate and urgent issues faced by the Tamil people. This is already evidenced
by the reluctance shown in lifting the economic embargo fully, in opening the
Sangupitty causeway, in lifting the ban on the fishing zone etc.
I do not wish to elaborate these issues, since these matters will be brought to
the negotiating table by our delegation when the second round of talks resumes
in the near future. I should emphasise that the day to day problems of our
people are of paramount importance and need urgent solutions and should be a
prelude to discussions on basic issues underlying the Tamil national conflict.
In your letter, you have called for clarifications on certain issues, some
of which, you will appreciate, have to be dealt with through direct dialogue. In
our earlier communications, we referred to ceased re to mean total cessation of
armed hostilities. Yet, you have explained cessation of hostilities as a process
leading to ceased re or rather, the former should be a prelude to the latter.
Without entering into a conceptual debate, we have decided to proceed on the
basis of your distinction.
The LTTE agrees in principle to a cessation of hostilities. If the Government
makes an official declaration of a cessation of hostilities for an initial
period of two weeks, as you have proposed, the LTTE will reciprocate by
observing the same. The modalities and effective implementation of the cessation
of hostilities should be discussed and agreed upon at the negotiating table. We
have always insisted that a condition of peace should be a prelude to peace
negotiations.
We are committed to peace and we fervently hope that the process of negotiations
will lead to a permanent peace and to the resolution of the ethnic conflict.
Thanking you. With kind Regards.
Yours Sincerely.
(V.Pirabaharan)
Leader Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam