By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Aug 22 2005 (IPS)

Although the Sri Lankan government and the separatist militant group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have agreed to hold direct talks in the wake of the Aug.12 assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, analysts are urging caution.

Any progress in negotiations, stalled since April 2003, can be expected only after the two sides undertake a huge effort to build mutual trust, they said.

”The cease fire (brokered by Norway in Feb 2002) will hold but the LTTE will continue to provoke the government,” internationally-known terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna told IPS in an interview.

Analysts like Gunaratna criticise the Tigers for using the truce as a cover to eliminate rivals, while continuing to strengthen their own military capacity. He told IPS that President Chandrika Kumaratunga herself was under threat from the Tigers following the Kadirgamar murder – which has been widely attributed to be the handiwork of the militant group.

More than 65,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the civil war which has so far resulted in a military stalemate between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan army.

Kadirgamar, credited for the campaign that got the Tigers banned in several countries including the United States and Britain, was killed by a sniper at his Colombo residence on Aug.12. Though the Sri Lankan government has blamed the Tigers, the militant group has denied responsibility.

The Tigers control the north and east of island where they want to create separate homeland for the islands ethnic Tamils but are pitted against the largely, Buddhist, majority Sinhalese.

Of the island country’s 19 million plus population, 74 percent is Sinahlese while the Tamils who mostly follow Hinduism form 18 percent.

Six days after the assassination, President Kumaratunga wrote to Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik seeking assistance to organise an urgent meeting between Colombo and the Tigers. Norway has acted as the facilitator for the talks from the beginning of the present phase of negotiations.

Kumaratunga said the meeting was necessary to discuss the implementation of the ceasefire and to find ways to end the spate of killings.

LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham expressed the organisation’s willingness to ”participate in a review of the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in order to find practical ways of ensuring full compliance by both parties”, when Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Peterssen and his deputy Vidar Helgessen met him in London on Aug. 19.

Helgessen said soon after the meeting with Balasingham that a meeting would be organised in Oslo within the next two weeks. He added that the Tigers had agreed to review the truce agreement and this was a departure from their refusal to respond to a proposal by Kumaratunga for a review, days prior to the assassination.

The upcoming meeting will be the first direct talks between the government and the Tigers since the latter pulled out of negotiations in April 2003, after being barred from a donor meeting in the United States.

But the truce that effectively halted a two-decade-old civil war came under intense strain following the defection of former Tiger military leader in the eastern region, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna to the government side in April 2004.

The internecine killings that followed the defection have hampered LTTE political work, especially in the east.

The Tigers have accused Colombo of promoting a shadow war against them by using disgruntled cadres loyal to Karuna. The Kumaratunga government and the military have steadfastly denied the charge, but the killings have eroded much of the goodwill between the two parties achieved through the truce.

There is also fear that the Kadirgamar killing will test the patience on both sides and might allow hawks in Kumaratunga’s party to take control. ”Certainly, the assassination of the Foreign Minister would have a profound negative impact on the relationship between the government and the LTTE. It is too much for the government to take,” said a Tamil academic working in the Tamil-dominated areas of the country.

Signs of the pressure were visible during the days that immediately followed the assassination. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and the next presidential candidate from Kumaratunga’s party criticised the LTTE at Kadirgamar’s funeral.

”These murders are being investigated further. There is a need for a strong legal framework. If there are problems we can discuss and solve them. But if there is no firm commitment to negotiations we would have to look at alternatives,” deputy defence minister Rathnasiri Wickremanayake told parliament last week.

The minister said that the LTTE has violated the truce on 3,006 occasions. Kumaratunga has informed the Norwegians her desire to have representatives of the Nordic- staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission too at the Oslo meeting.

”If the 2003 ceasefire was authentic, Kadirgamar would never have been killed. We have to accept that there is no truce here. Is the LTTE to benefit from war as well was from peace? We have to correct this anomaly. We have to change the environment that allows terrorism to flourish,” parliamentary group leader of the People’s Liberation Front (PLF), Wimal Weeravansha, said during the same debate.

The PLF pulled out of the government in June after Kumaratunga entered into an agreement with the LTTE to share tsunami relief and reconstruction resources.

The party is against any talks without prior conditions and a final solution based on a federal system. The LTTE indicated its willingness to enter into a power-sharing mechanism based on federalism during the negotiations.

The PLF has also drawn closer to Rajapakse, despite the fallout with Kumaratunga after the tsunami aid deal. Weeravansha and other PLF high- rankers also play an active role in the patriotic national movement, which has been agitating for tougher action against the Tigers following murders of government intelligence officers.

Weeravansha called for a national leadership that could take up the challenge if the Tigers continue to eliminate important leaders at a meeting of the movement a day after the Kadirgamar assassination.

Nevertheless, Kumaratunga has been able to press for negotiations despite such pressures due to international support for talks. ”The ceasefire is holding because of tremendous international pressure, especially from the point of the LTTE.

The LTTE is unable to resume the war, as in the past, precisely because of international pressure. That is why the LTTE is provoking the government to resume the war. Foreign Minister Kadirgamar’s assassination is the zenith of this provocation,” the Tamil source said.

Gunaratna too agreed that the Tigers have been reigned in to an extent by international pressure, but is of the opinion that the LTTE is still preparing to reach its goals through military means.

He advocates that the role of facilitator be taken over by regional power India. ”LTTE does not care about international pressure. LTTE has never stopped fighting. Norway has gravely failed as a mediator. India is the solution,” he told IPS.

India intervened once in the conflict in 1987 when it sent in an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF)under tripartite agreement among New Delhi, Colombo and the Tiger leadership.

The engagement ended with disastrous consequences, the worst of which was the May 1991 assassination of Indian leader Rajiv Gandhi by a suicide bomber sent in by the Tigers.

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