By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, May 3 2000 (IPS)

A series of stunning battle wins by Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels have put on hold a Norway-brokered bid for a political solution to one of the world’s longest running internal conflicts.

The biggest military upset for government troops in the 17-year- old ethnic war is seen to have crippled chances of holding the talks, for which both sides had agreed to meet in Oslo in May or June.

Some 40,000 Sri Lankan soldiers are bottled up in the northern Jaffna peninsula after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) overran the region’s only land link with the country and began advancing toward Jaffna city, from where they were ejected by the army five years ago.

Newspapers and television channels reported that Sri Lanka was seeking northern neighbour India’s military help to help evacuate the troops trapped in the peninsula.

However, some analysts believe that the Tigers, who are fighting for an independent homeland for the minority Tamils in the Indian Ocean island nation, had planned their offensive to gain the upper hand in the proposed peace talks.

“I wish they would pursue the peace option but the fact remains that peace is once again becoming an elusive commodity,” Tamil leader and member of Parliament Joseph Pararajasingham told IPS.

Joseph, however, added that the rebels could come to the negotiating table from a position of strength.

“Peace has gone to pieces,” said prominent Tamil political leader Douglas Devananda, who once headed a former Tamil rebel group.

Prospects of a peaceful solution to the violent conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and been a big drain on the national exchequer, were revived in February. At the time, Norway offered to bring the government and the Tigers back to the negotiating table.

The two sides had last met in April 1995, but soon went back to war. The year, however, saw big wins for the government with troops capturing the the rebel stronghold Jaffna. The city of half a million people, the Tamil cultural capital of Sri Lanka, is now the army’s northern headquarters.

Tamils make up less than a fifth of the about 19 million people in Sinhala- majority Sri Lanka. The Tigers justify their demand for freedom by accusing the majority of denying the Tamils their due place in Sri Lanka.

Following the Norwegian initiative, President Chandrika Kumaratunga and main opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe had held consultations to tide over political differences in their approach to the insurgency.

The opposition has so far set its face against Kumaratunga’s bold peace initiative, which was unveiled a few years ago and would confer sweeping autonomy on the provinces.

Many observers of the ethnic war believe that the Norway- mediated peace talks are off, at least for the time being, as the Colombo government tries to get its act together in the face of severe military setbacks.

“The proposed peace talks are off for a while. The government is now more concerned about how to evacuate the 40,000-odd soldiers trapped in Jaffna,” said a newspaper editorial, echoing general media opinion.

However, not all think so. “I think there is too much anxiety over Jaffna. Even when the rebels held Jaffna, they came to the negotiating table. I believe that would still be the case,” said Lakshman Gunasekera, associate editor at the state-run ‘Sunday Observer’.

Other media commentators advised the government to seek foreign military assistance to take on the rebels before talking with the Tigers.

The independent ‘Island’ newspaper urged the President or a senior government minister to travel to neighbouring countries and seek their help to save Jaffna.

“It is obvious that the government should now appeal for foreign assistance that is urgently needed. If the terrorists possess arms which the government forces cannot match, then such arms should flow in from neighbouring countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh,” it said in a front-page editorial last week.

On Tuesday, the newspaper, said the Sri Lankan government should seek the help also of Pakistan, China or even the United States to fight the rebels.

The state-run ‘Daily News’ noted it was not enough to defeat the Tigers on the battlefield. “The Sri Lankan army may defeat the LTTE tomorrow but if the just grievances of the minorities are not resolved politically, peace is not likely to be established in Sri Lanka,” it said in an editorial.

The military setback in Jaffna is also seen by some as leading to a possible involvement by Sri Lanka’s giant neighbour in the insurgency.

The influential Buddhist clergy, which had once opposed the presence of Indian troops invited by Colombo to disarm the rebels in the late 1980s, is now demanding Indian intervention in Jaffna.

Over the weekend, Buddhist monks met the Indian envoy to Colombo and appealed for Indian air force and naval help. However, both Colombo and New Delhi have so far declined to confirm that Sri Lanka is seeking Indian help.

India’s more than 50 million Tamils, most of them in the southern coastal state of Tamil Nadu have close links with their ethnic kin in northeastern Sri Lanka.

The military setback is also seen as having given a fillip to hardline Sinhalese political groups. Last week’s launch of a new hardline Sinhalese group, the Sinhala Urumaya (SU), meaning Sinhalese Heritage Party, is not seen as helping the cause of peace.

“That is my worry. This party can further polarise the majority Sinhalese and the Tamils and can whip up anti-Tamil sentiments,” said Rohan Edirisinha, a constitutional expert who teaches law at the Colombo University.

“They may preach the politics of hate and demand, as they are now doing, that the rebels should be completely eliminated before offering a peace solution to the Tamils,” he added.

The SU, comprising prominent Sinhalese politicians, has rejected peace talks altogether and viewed Norway’s involvement with suspicion. The party’s leaders have accused Norway of being among some Western nations that are secretly helping the Tigers.

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