The announcement made by Norwegian Minister for
International Development Cooperation and Special Peace Envoy, Erik Solheim
today that the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) have agreed to hold talks in Switzerland is welcome. Solheim
has been on a visit to Sri Lanka since 23 January 2006 to salvage the
deadlocked peace process. On 24 January 2006, Solheim met Sri Lankan
President Mahinda Rajapakse. He met LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran today
in Kilinochchi.
No talk has been held between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE since
the 6th round of the peace talks held in Japan from 18-21 March 2003. In
April 2003, the LTTE walked away complain�ing not enough was being done to
rebuild the war-ravaged north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. Although there
have been occasional meetings between the officials of the Sri Lankan
security forces and the LTTE to keep the ceasefire going, the peace talks
could not be resumed.
The eastern and northern parts of Sri Lanka have been facing an undeclared
war with killings, abduction, explosions and clay mine attacks. The
ceasefire agreement might not have broken down but there has been an
alarming level of lawlessness and unrestrained violence. In Trincomalee
alone, the Tigers have been allegedly attacking at will. The Sri Lankan
military personnel have been accused of extra-judicial killing five young
Tamil students on 2 January 2006. The ceasefire monitors reported that the
deceased were shot through the head in execution-style killings. At least
120 people - including about 80 soldiers and sailors and many civilians -
have died in the upsurge of violence since early December 2005.
Both the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE have failed to show requisite
sincerity to carry the peace process forward. The United National Party�s
Milinda Moragoda, one of the negotiators who represented his government in
the talks with the LTTE between September 2002 and March 2003, claimed in an
interview to The Daily Mirror on 8 November 2005 the credit for engineering
a split within the LTTE. Sri Lankan Government�s support to the anti-LTTE
armed group led by Col. Karuna has also been confirmed by
spokesperson of the Sri Lanka
Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Helen Olafsdottir in an interview to The
Sunday Leader, a Colombo weekly.
She said, �The [Sri Lanka] government claimed that it
had nothing to do with this [Karuna] group and was not aware of their
existence. But when we visited the spot in the east and asked the Sri
Lankan army where we could find Karuna, they told us where to go. So it
was clear that the local army knew where he was.�
Comment by Newswatch:
It is, perhaps, not without interest that it has taken 2
years after Karuna was given refuge by Sri Lanka (helped by a UNP
Parliamentarian to get to Colombo and Karuna's aides housed in a safe
house by Sri Lanka intelligence agencies) for the SLMM to publicly
question Sri Lanka's claims of ignorance of the activity of para
military groups. In July 2004, the US based think tank Stratfor reported
that
Colombo was
promoting Karuna to destroy the LTTE with the tacit approval of US
and said:
"...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." Was all this not known to
the SLMM? In any case, for how long has the SLMM known about Sri Lanka's
use of para military groups in violation of the Ceasefire Agreement? And
was it because the Sri Lanka plan to weaken the LTTE had failed
and because the LTTE had responded in kind that there is now, at long
last, a 'public outing' by the Co-Chairs and the SLMM of Sri
Lanka's use of paramilitary groups?
The proxy war that Sri Lanka initiated with Col Karuna
finally culminated into the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman
Kadiragamar on 12 August 2005, an allegation denied by the LTTE but held by
majority in the international community.
Since the killing of LTTE's political wing leader of Batticaloa and Amparai
E. Kousalyan and former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian
Ariyanayagam Chandra Nehru on 7 February 2005 by the government backed
para-military groups, there has been an escalation of violence.
Many LTTE cadres have also been killed by unidentified assailants while
traveling in the government-controlled territories. On 15 July 2005, the
LTTE warned that they might have to use their own armed escorts for
guerrilla representatives traveling through government-held areas. The LTTE
had earlier given the dateline up to 14 July 2005 to improve security for
its members traveling through government-held areas or risk a return to
civil war. The government offered to conditionally increase their security.
But the LTTE rejected the offer as inadequate and stated that they would
have to start carrying arms in government territory unless the issue is
resolved immediately. The 2002 cease-fire agreement allows rebels to enter
government-controlled areas for political activity as long as they are
unarmed.
While the acts of violence by the LTTE must be unequivocally condemned, the
Tamils of Sri Lanka have �legitimate grievances� as stated by the United
States' Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns during his
recent visit to Sri Lanka. [1] Mr. Burns while condemning violence by the
LTTE, urged the Sri Lankan Government to address the legitimate grievances
of the Tamils. [2]
Yet, Sri Lankan Government�s whole focus has been only to focus terrorism of
the LTTE and not address the �legitimate grievances� of the Tamil
minorities. Asian Centre for Human Rights firmly believes that ethnic Tamil
minorities still do not have fair and equal access to justice in Sri Lanka.
The failure of the Sri Lankan government to release the Presidential
Commission of Inquiry into Bindunuwewa massacre of 25 October 2000 and the
inability to prosecute any of the accused responsible for the death of 28
innocent and unarmed Tamil youths in the custody of the State in that
massacre is a clear example.
In fact, the present judicial system has been an obstacle to the peace
process of Sri Lanka. Asian Centre for Human Rights in its Briefing Paper,
Constitutional Coup in Sri Lanka on 6 November 2003, one day after then Sri
Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared emergency stated,
�A cursory analysis of the attempts to undermine each
other by President and Prime Minister shows that rather than the LTTE
proposals, the decision of the ruling United National Party (UNP) to put
the motion to impeach controversial Supreme Court Chief Justice Sarath N
Silva in the parliament on 6 November 2003 might have prompted the
President to take such drastic steps�.
During the hearing on then Defense Minister�s regulations of
retiring the commissioned officers at the age of 55, the bone of contention
between then President Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickresmasinghe,
Chief Justice N Silva criticised the government's conduct and indirectly
tried to cast aspersions on the Government-LTTE ceasefire agreement. [3]
The failure of the
Post-Tsunami Operational Management Systems can be attributed to
Chief Justice Sarath N
Silva. On 15 July 2005, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court stayed the
implementation of the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Systems (P-TOMS)
signed by the Sri Lanka Government and the Tamil Tiger rebels on 24 June
2005. The court ruled that implementation of certain clauses of the
agreement between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the government be
suspended until a final court determination, stopping short of declaring the
agreement illegal. By transgressing into the ambit of the Executive, the
judiciary in Sri Lanka has further eroded the faith of the Tamil minorities.
Many of the ongoing killings have been tough posturing by the warring
parties. The venue of the talks should not have been an issue of dispute.
Talks have been held in Thailand and Japan in Asia and in Norway and Germany
in Europe.
The critical issue has been the commitment that both the Government of Sri
Lanka and the LTTE will have to bring in once they sit across the table,
especially in the light of violations of the Ceasefire Agreement in the last
three years. Nor the proposals of the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE
are an issue at the moment. The most important issue is finding mechanisms
to enforce the Ceasefire Agreement to create conducive atmosphere to discuss
the proposals. It requires amendments of the mandate of the Sri Lankan
Monitoring Mission, if necessary, for enforcement of the cease-fire
agreement through the deployment of the UN Peace Keeping Forces.
But is the deployment of the blue helmets an issue the warring parties and
the superpowers including India willing to consider? If not, other
mechanisms must be found.
