G L Peiris

The Sri Lankan government’s chief peace negotiator, Professor G L Peiris, may have had contradictory policies while handling key cabinet portfolios under governments run by the country's two rival political parties, but his quest for peace has been unwavering.

''Whether the UNP (United National Party that was in the opposition at the time) is delaying the process is not at all an issue,’’ Peiris told reporters while serving as minister of justice and constitutional affairs during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s 199-2001 government. ‘’What is more important is that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) must play a role and without its participation, it is very difficult to bring peace,'' he said.

The well-respected academic and law professor is pursuing the peace option with equal vigour these days, only this time he is the chief negotiator of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government, whose ruling United National Front is led by the UNP.

''GL (as he is popularly known) is articulate, good at conceptualising, has a good legal background and knows the ground realities,'' notes Dr Lloyd Fernando, a retired civil servant and chairman of the Marga Institute, a privately run Sri Lankan think tank.

Peiris has two able negotiators on his team, Economic Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda and the director-general of the state-run Peace secretariat, Bernard Goonatillake.

Moragoda, a U.S.-educated economist and Sri Lankan banker who made a name
for himself for urging a non-confrontational approach to politics, met the LTTE chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, twice in August to firm up dates for the peace talks.

Goonatillake is a diplomat who has served in Geneva and New York and is known in the United Nations for his negotiating skills.

Peiris currently holds the government portfolio of minister of enterprise development, industrial policy and investment promotion.

As cabinet spokesman since Wickremesinghe's UNF United National Front swept the polls at parliamentary elections in December, Peiris has been consistent in his view that involving the LTTE in the peace talks is necessary if a durable solution to the conflict is to be found.

''There is no option other than to talk to the (Tamil) Tigers and this is also the prime minister's view,'' Peiris has declared at various public forums.

Unlike the previous leader of the government delegation for the 1995 peace talks, Peiris is a key policy man in government with practical suggestions and is likely to be flexible in meeting rebel demands.

H W Jayewardene, a top Sri Lankan lawyer and brother of former President Junius Jayewardene, led the government delegation in 1995 with a team composed entirely of the nation's top legal eagles.

Political analysts believe that one of the reasons for the failure of the talks was that the government team lacked political thinkers and was too heavily stacked with hard-nosed legal experts, who were not prepared to budge from preset positions when it mattered.

Peiris read for his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Oxford, 1971, and the University of Colombo, 1974, completing both at the relatively young age of 28.

He was professor of law, dean of the faculty of law and later vice chancellor of the University of Colombo before entering parliament through the People's Alliance list of nominated MPs in 1994, as a part of a programme to infuse academics and the intelligentsia into the Cabinet of ministers.

As constitutional affairs minister during the Kumaratunga-led government, Peiris played a major role in drafting the new constitution and in trying to get it through parliament -- only to be stalled by Wickremesinghe's UNF party, to which he now belongs.

In mid-2001, Peiris -- unhappy with internal strife in Kumaratunga's party and an economy that was in tatters -- quit the government ranks with a group of disgruntled alliance ministers and crossed over to the opposition.

When the UNF won at the polls last year, Peiris said the country had wholeheartedly endorsed the peace process. ''Sri Lanka has never seen a victory of this magnitude for any political party,'' he told reporters.