united kingdom
& the Struggle for Tamil Eelam
Britain can play a larger role in peace
process
by reaching out to the Tamil Tigers at 'lower levels'
- Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona
M.R. Narayan Swamy, IANS
(Indo-Asian News Service, a New Delhi based wire service)
19 March 2007
[see also
M.R.Narayan Swamy - Inside an Elusive Mind - Prabhakaran,
The first and the fibbing biography on the LTTE Leader -
Sachi Sri Kantha
and
UK : �there
can be no military solution
alone to the conflict.",14 March 2007]
New Delhi, 19 March 2007
Monkey Tricks? |
Sri Lanka, bogged down by an undeclared war, feels
Britain can play a larger role in the now derailed peace process by
reaching out to the Tamil Tigers at 'lower levels', a top official
said Monday. Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona, however,
said Britain would not replace Norway, which brokered a ceasefire
between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in
2002 but is now not in the good books of the regime of President
Mahinda Rajapakse.
Asked if Britain was trying to become a major actor in the Sri
Lankan peace process, Kohona referred to Rajapakse's meeting with
British Prime Minister Tony Blair last summer and told IANS:
'Britain could play a larger role.'
Kohona made it clear that Norway would continue to 'have a role to
play' to see if Colombo and the LTTE could return to the negotiating
table.
In an oblique criticism of Norway, he said Britain
was expected to have 'greater understanding of and much more
familiarity with Sri Lanka' because of its historic relations with
the island nation. Asked how Britain could help, Kohona, considered
a confidant of President Rajapakse, answered: 'While every effort
had been made in the past to reach out to the LTTE hierarchy, no
effort had been made to reach out to the lower levels of LTTE
support base.'
Comment
by tamilnation.org
"...Sir Robert
Thompson, the British expert who studied anti-guerrilla
operations in Malaya ...felt that "there should be a proper
balance between the military and the civil effort" as
otherwise, he feared "a situation will arise in which
military operations produce no lasting results because they
are unsupported by civil follow-up actions." According to
these American and British specialists, the ideal
combination of repression and
concession was represented by the policies of President
Magsaysay, who successfully quelled the Communist-Huk
rebellion in the Philippines in the early 1950s. Famous for
his policy of "all out force
and all out friendship",
Magsaysay used 'force' in the shape of ruthless
suppression against the Communist rebels and their
landless peasant followers, and 'friendship' in the shape of
some land reforms and concessions directed towards the
middle and rich peasants and the petty bourgeoisie..."
Sumanta Banerjee in India's Simmering Revolution, 1984
The British efforts, he underlined, would go
parallel with whatever Norway does. 'Norwegians have a role to play
(as facilitator),' said Kohona, who also heads the Sri Lankan
government's Peace Secretariat. He added that all countries
including the US, Britain and European Union backed Norway's
facilitator role. Kohona is here along with Sri Lankan Foreign
Minister Rohitha Bogollagama to meet Indian government and
opposition leaders. They arrived late Sunday from the US and are set
to return to Colombo Tuesday evening.
This is their second visit to New Delhi in less than two months.
Accompanied by Kohona, Bogollagama came to India Jan 31 soon after
taking charge of the foreign ministry. Kohana, who worked for the
Australian foreign ministry before President Rajapakse invited him
to return to Sri Lanka, insisted that no country had the right to
treat Colombo and LTTE at par.
'There is no room for treating the LTTE and the Sri Lankan
government as equals. Sri Lanka is a sovereign state. The LTTE is a
terrorist group, operating within the Sri Lankan state. There is no
room for them to be equals.'
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