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US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on
'consistency and forthrightness' - and truth?
19 November 2004
"President Kumaratunga has
been consistent and forthright in her commitment to settling outstanding
issues in the peace process in the framework of a united Sri Lanka." US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
"தூங்கிறவனை எழுப்பலாம், தூங்கிறவன் போல்
நடிக்கிறவனை எழுப்பவது கடினம்"
தமிழ் தேசிய தலைவர், வே.பிரபாகரன்
[See also
Knocking at the Door?
- President Kumaratunga Speaks to the BBC and
Peace Process? What Peace Process?
:The Words of a President
concerned to negotiate in good faith with the LTTE]
US
State Department Press Statement on the Peace Process in Sri Lanka,
Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman, Washington, DC, November 19, 2004
Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage spoke this morning with Sri
Lankan President Kumaratunga and opposition leader Wickremesinghe to express the
United States’ continued support for the peace process and to urge all parties
to work together to return to negotiations. He welcomed
President Kumaratunga’s November 17 call for a
return to negotiations as soon as possible. President Kumaratunga has
been consistent and forthright in her commitment to settling outstanding
issues in the peace process in the framework of a united Sri Lanka.
Comment:
"Consistent and forthright in her
commitment!"
An year is a long time in Politics?
: "U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli expressed concern that
President Kumaratunga’s decision to sack three government ministers, suspend
parliament, and deploy troops around the capital “could have a negative
effect on the peace process and talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam.” Speaking at a November 4 State Department briefing, Ereli urged
President Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is
currently on a visit to Washington, to work together to bolster the peace
process with the LTTE and to protect the Sri Lanka’s democratic
institutions." (US
State Department Press Release, 5 November 2003 )
"In our view, resolution of the Sinhalese political party struggle is the top
priority. This (Sinhala party)
conflict—whatever the merits of the arguments—is selfish in the short-term
and self defeating
in the long-term. The country is ready for peace. The LTTE is ready to
continue negotiations. The world cannot understand why Sri Lanka does not
move ahead
to peace. All parties need to seize this moment, honor their constituents’
faith in them,
and settle their dispute immediately. The critical next steps we explore in
this report will
go unaddressed if this issue is not resolved immediately."...
Securing Peace: An Action Strategy for Sri Lanka
- A Report Prepared by Princeton
University
for the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), June 2004
"...The international community was perhaps shocked at the decision of the
President the Hon. Chandrika Kumaratunga to dismiss key ministers and
dissolve the Parliament just at the very time when the peace process
with the Tamil LTTE was achieving results. These moves and the
subsequent elections virtually destroyed the peace process while at the
same time the LTTE or Tamil Tigers were showing a considerable openness
to seek a resolution to the conflict..."
Intervention by Charles Graves, Interfaith
International (Non Governmental Organisation with Special
Consultative Status with ECOSOC under
Agenda Item 2:Question of the Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms, 28 July 2004
"..It was the late Sathasivam Krishnakumar, the charismatic intellectual and man of action
of the LTTE, who would quote the words of his leader with a smile:
''You know, you can wake up someone who is asleep, but it is much more difficult to
wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep. "தூங்கிறவனை எழுப்பலாம்,
தூங்கிறவன் போல் நடிக்கிறவனை எழுப்பவது கடினம்"
The Tamil people, by their untiring efforts, by their strength born from their
suffering, and by their steadfast determination, can (and will) make it more and
more difficult, for those who pretend not to see, to persist in their pretence
with any degree of credibility. And there will come a time when the same real
politik that renders some 'blind' today, will press upon them the need to 'wake
up' to the justice of the Tamil cause"
The cynicism of real politick,
- Nadesan Satyendra, March 1994
Deputy Secretary Armitage praised the efforts of Norway to
facilitate these talks. The Deputy Secretary strongly condemned recent
terrorist actions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that fly in the
face of efforts by all other Sri Lankans and the international
community to bring peace to this war-torn country.
Comment:
"the efforts by all other Sri Lankans to bring peace?.."
''The
SLMM has strongly urged the government to take meaningful and
effective action to curb the activities of paramilitary groups
including that of Karuna faction and the EPDP'', Major General (retd)
Trond Furuhovde, Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission told LTTE Head
of Political Wing, S.P.Thamilchelvan
Curb
activities of paramilitaries, SLMM urges SL Government, 22 July 2004
"...The plan is to destabilize the Tigers, bait the group into
confrontation and ultimately launch an offensive aimed at destroying
the fractured Tamil movement once and for all," the analysts at
Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) said quoting unnamed sources inside
the Sri Lankan government....Colombo probably hopes a renewed
guerrilla war will be tempered by internal struggles and that, once
weakened, the Tigers can be destroyed, the US analysts
said....According to the US analysts, in the event of a renewed war
“the Tigers will likely end up weaker - perhaps no longer in a
position to make the demands for autonomy that helped cause the
internal strife in the first place.” “On the other hand, baiting a
wounded tiger could be a dangerous game," they cautioned.
Colombo promoting Karuna to destroy LTTE with tacit approval of US
says US based think tank Stratfor, 14 July 2004
The murder yesterday of an army officer, clearly
carried out by the LTTE, is only the most recent assault on the
peace process.
Comment: "not so recent assaults
and therefore do not merit mention?"
'Aiyathurai Nadesan, was
Vice-President of the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance and recipient of the
Best Journalist of 2000 Prize awarded by the Sri Lanka Editors’ Guild. He
was shot dead on 31 May 2004.... States that want to oppress a people
do so by breaking their political will to resist injustice. To do this,
oppressing states kill a societies intellectuals and journalists who speak
for the rights of their people.
Aiyathurai Nadesan,
Vice-President of the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance shot
dead , 31 May 2004
"..(In Sri Lanka) "Disappearance" appeared to be used
for two purposes: it facilitated torture without accountability and it
concealed the killing of prisoners. In the overwhelming majority of these
cases, there have been virtually no reported prosecutions or convictions.
Impunity for these crimes continues. Amnesty is calling on the Sri Lankan
government to investigate all the cases of "disappearances," to compensate
the victims or their families and to bring to justice those found
responsible for the "disappearances."
Amnesty International Calls on the Sri Lankan Government to
Prosecute Security Forces Responsible for Disappearances in Sri
Lanka - 7 October 2004
The United States calls on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
to abandon terrorism in word and deed and return to the peace table.
Comment: "It is a cruel extension of the terrorist
scourge to taunt the struggles against terrorism with the label "terrorism"
"...The peoples of the world are engaged in a fundamental series
of struggles for a just and peaceful world based on
fundamental rights now
acknowledged as sacred in a series of widely endorsed international legal
conventions. These struggles are opposed in a variety of cruel and brutal ways by the
political, economic and ideological forces associated with the main
structures of domination present in the world that spread terrorism in a
manner unknown in prior international experience...
The terrorism of modern state power and its high technology weaponry exceeds
qualitatively by many orders of magnitude the political violence relied upon
by groups aspiring to undo oppression and achieve liberation.
Let us also be clear, we favour non-violent resistance wherever possible... We condemn all
those tactics and methods of struggle that inflict violence directly upon
innocent civilians as such...but we
must insist that terrorism originates with
nuclearism, criminal regimes,
crimes of state, high-technology attacks on Third World peoples, and
systematic denials of human rights.
It is a cruel extension of the terrorist
scourge to
taunt the struggles against terrorism with the label "terrorism".
We support these struggles and call for the liberation of political language
along with the liberation of peoples.
Terrorism originates from the statist system of structural violence and
domination that denies the
right of self-determination to peoples..."
The Geneva Declaration on the Question of Terrorism, 1987
"...a
confederal system is the only constitutional basis for a final and
lasting settlement within a united Sri Lanka that ensures the national
rights of Tamils. However, despite their rhetoric about "peace",
Kumaratunga and her international backers are opposed to a confederal
system. They view Tamils as a "minority" and therefore not entitled to
collective, national
rights. Almost all foreign governments that are
sponsoring Kumaratunga are themselves busy manipulating and controlling
their own so-called "minorities". Politicians in those governments come
by and large from the respective majority nation in each country.
Their national interest
is to defend the international system of States. They are committed
to defeating any internal military challenge to any State anywhere
(except of course liberation movements they support for geopolitical
advantage). In Sri Lanka they naturally collude with the Sinhala
politicians and support the Sinhala government to crush LTTE's military
power..."
Kumaratunga Prepares to Unleash the Sinhala
Army warns
Dr.S.Sathananthan, Action Group of Tamils., 15 June 2004
"...Let us accept the fact that states have
lifecycles similar to those of human beings who created them... hardly any Member State of the United Nations has existed
within its present borders for longer than five generations.... Restrictions on
self-determination
threaten not only democracy itself but the state which seeks its legitimation
in democracy..."
Self Determination & the Future of Democracy
- Prince Hans-Adam II of
Liechtenstein, 2001
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