SRI LANKA: Tigers’ Demands Show Room for Revival of Peace Talks

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, May 22 2003 (IPS) - The Tamil Tigers’ renewal Thursday of their demand of a rebel-led interim administration in Sri Lanka’s north-east, in return for resuming peace talks, is a welcome move that keeps the door open to continued negotiations, analysts here say.

Diplomats also said it was reassuring that at a press conference Thursday, S P Tamilchelvan, head of the Tigers’ political wing, expressed the group’s commitment to peace and said that a military solution was not being considered despite the suspension of the talks for a month now.

”That’s reassuring – the fact that they are keeping the door open for negotiations despite the current breakdown,” said one diplomat based here.

But Tamilchelvan said they would boycott a donors’ meeting in Tokyo on Jun. 9 – 10 unless the government gives a guarantee – through Norwegian facilitators – that it would create the interim administrative mechanism for the north-east, the region most ravaged by the nearly 20-year-old ethnic conflict.

Many, including Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, were hoping the rebels would reverse their decision not to attend the Tokyo summit.

The uncertainty in the peace process could not have come at a worst time for Wickremesinghe’s 17-month old government, which has in the past week been battling the worst floods in half a century and a political crisis due to differences with President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Flash floods have killed at least 300 people and rendered homeless hundreds of families in the south-west and southern parts of this South Asian island nation.

On top of that, the government has been fighting Kumaratunga’s sudden takeover of a government department, fearing that it would pave the way for more departments or ministries to come under the president’s wing.

Kumaratunga, from the opposition People’s Alliance party, has been involved in a shaky cohabitation arrangement with the United National Party-led cabinet of Wickremesinghe since the UNP won parliamentary polls in December 2001.

There were hopes Thursday that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as the Tigers are formally called, would at least decide to send a low-level delegation to the Tokyo meeting instead of boycotting it. There, donor governments and institutions are expected to pledge 3 billion U.S. dollars worth of loans and grants to Sri Lanka.

Jehan Perera, media director at the National Peace Council (NPC), a non-government peace group, says the LTTE’s demand for an interim administration in the north-east is actually not unreasonable.

”They feel there hasn’t been any development taking place in the (war-torn) north-east region during the past six months of peace talks,” he explained. ”To that extent they are justified in asking for a more authoritative structure that would get more money and do some work.”

The rebels temporarily suspended peace talks on Apr. 21, protesting their exclusion from a donors’ meeting in Washington organised by the U.S. government earlier last month.

The LTTE also expressed concern that the past year has seen little development in the north-east region in terms of rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement of more than 500,000 displaced minority Tamils.

The rebels’ firm demand of an interim administrative structure came in a letter sent by its chief negotiator Anton Balasingham to Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen on Wednesday.

Balasingham said the creation of this unit would help rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ”take a crucial decision on the resumption of peace talks and participation at the (Tokyo) donor conference”.

Balasingham rejected a Sri Lankan government proposal, sent through Norwegian facilitators, to create a new model where local government institutions would be involved in development and reconstruction activities in the region.

”The powers and functions vested with local government bodies are extremely limited and confined only to particular subjects and therefore cannot be considered an effective administrative mechanism to undertake the immense tasks of rehabilitation and reconstruction,” he said.

The LTTE wants a legal administrative structure with more powers that can take care of massive aid flows from the Tokyo meeting.

It has also been playing hardball by projecting a hardline image to visiting foreign mediators from Norway and Japan by reducing Balasingham’s role in this process.

Balasingham, considered more amenable to peace talks, was reported to have been sidelined by the leadership and sent back suddenly to London on medical grounds while Prabhakaran, ringed by his political chief and military commanders, met foreign dignitaries.

”I think Balasingham not being there is part of a LTTE strategy to show the international community that they mean business,” said Kethesh Loganathan, director of the peace unit at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a think tank.

He said that the rebels were unclear on whether the interim administration would just handle development work or act as a political mechanism. ”If it is for rehabilitation and reconstruction, then I think the government would find a way of responding. The problem is if the Tigers want the structure to be a political one too,” he pointed out.

Loganathan said it was clear from Balasingham’s statement that the rebels want to run the administrative set-up without government involvement, unlike the Subcommittee on Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs located in the rebel-held Kilinochchi district, which has representatives from the LTTE and the government.

NPC’s Perera says the ball is now in the government’s court. He said the rebels were smart to recall Wickremesinghe’s pre-election statements, where he agreed to an LTTE proposal for an interim administration until a political solution is worked out to end the conflict that has cost at least 64,000 lives.

”Disappointed with the slow process of development, the LTTE wants the prime minister to implement that promised structure with more financial powers (to the rebels),” he added.

Perera expects another round of bargaining between the two sides through Norwegian facilitators.

Meantime, donor agencies said it would be disappointing if the Tokyo meeting was postponed. ‘The Japanese are already furious and feel humiliated because the LTTE is boycotting the meeting despite extensive arrangements that have gone toward organising it,” said the head of a foreign relief non-government group here.