POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Hopes, Fears High on Peace Talks with Tigers

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Sep 9 2002 (IPS) - Sri Lanka’s two main ethnic communities have high hopes that next week’s peace talks with Tamil Tiger rebels, but the country’s Muslims, though supportive, are also worried they could end up a “minority within a minority” after the negotiations.

“We want peace and the talks are good. But we don’t know what would happen. We could end up under the Tiger rebels,” says Mohamed Ali, principal of Zahira Muslim College in the eastern town of Trincomalee.

For instance, he says, he is concerned by the continuing extortion by the rebels from Muslim fishermen and traders.

The Muslims are the third largest community after the majority Sinhalese, who make up 74 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, and the Tamils who make up 18 percent.

Ali says the Muslims are worried about being marginalised in discussion of possible solutions to the ethnic conflict, which had also led to the displacement of Muslim communities in the nineties.

Thus, if Tamils are provided extensive devolution of power in these two regions — where most of their community lives — the Muslims say they want a separate council in the east to enable them to administer the areas where they predominate.

The Muslims’ worries show the complexity of concerns involved in the Sep. 16-18 peace talks in Thailand, peace discussions that follow earlier attempts at peace in 1985, 1987, 1990 or 1995.

Close to 64,000 people have died in the conflict since 1983 when Tamil rebels, whose strength is estimated to include 3,000 to 10,000 armed cadres, stepped up their campaign for a separate homeland for minority Tamils.

The peace process has other problems as well. Extremist Sinhala groups – with different political ideologues – are banding together to campaign against the talks.

The Marxist People’s Liberation Front (JVP) says the Tigers, officially called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), are murderers and says the path to peace is only through exterminating it.

It has kept this position although the JVP itself has come to the political mainstream after two failed bloody revolts against the government, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of young people in 1971 and 1987-1991.

Nevertheless, the biggest threat to the peace process comes from the main opposition People’s Alliance led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, which is considering jumping on the JVP bandwagon and scuttling the peace process even though the alliance officially supports talks.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, worried that his political foe Kumaratunga may dissolve parliament after his government completes a year in office on Dec. 5, is planning to push through a constitutional amendment in parliament this month curbing such presidential powers.

Despite the uncertainties however, Sri Lankans are generally positive about the negotiations.

“I think the government is sincere, with the LTTE also showing some commitment this time. The whole country wants the war to end. That is the wish of the silent majority, who are people like me,” says Chitranganie Ranthilaka, a Sinhalese woman from a suburban town.

S Rajanathan, a Tamil teacher from Trincomalee, agrees: “Peace would be wonderful but we would also be happy if the government speeds up the resettlement of people who have been displaced and restoring education for children who are in refugee camps.”

Kethesh Loganathan, an analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), says Colombo and the Tigers are expected to skirt the tricky core issues during the first phase of talks and concentrate on procedural matters, including matters arising out the current ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

Both are still discussing issues like moving army camps out of heavily populated areas, schools and temples, while the government is concerned that the rebels are still recruiting teenage children for military purposes.

He says the two sides are most likely to finalise an agenda leading to a possible installation of a rebel-led interim administration to run the north and the east in the next six to eight months.

While the government’s position on the kind of political settlement to be reached with the rebels is unclear, Wickremesinghe has said he is prepared to discuss anything short of dividing the country.

Rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran says the Tigers would like to discuss “self-determination” within a united Sri Lanka.

With the peace talks coming up, “there is a strong expression of peace in the community and this is clear to whoever we talk to,” says Jehan Perera, media director of the privately-funded National Peace Council (NPC).

But the unanimous thirst for peace is also tinged with some reservation about the sincerity of the Tigers, as reflected in at least half a dozen public surveys by the NPC and other peace groups.

The latest show of support for the talks came from the newly-formed Burgher Association, which at its meeting Saturday in Colombo said it hoped the Burghers in Sri Lanka would “contribute greatly to the peace process”.

The Burghers are a small Christian group of about 35,000 whose origins are traced to English, Dutch and Portuguese ancestry when the country was ruled by colonial forces.

Some of the expectations for this round talks are actually higher because the talks have already begun, informally, and look set to continue.

Minister Milinda Moragoda, who is part of the government delegation for the peace talks, has had two meetings in London with chief rebel negotiator Anton Balasingham. There have been other government-to-rebel contacts in the past eight months.

On the ground, the peace process is being spurred by the growing number of Sinhalese travelling to Tamil-dominated areas in the north and east like Jaffna — from where sprang the rebel movement — since the ceasefire came into force in December and led to the opening of Tamil areas to passenger and vehicle movement.

“I want to take my young son to Jaffna and show him the kind of destruction that has taken place. We need to visit these places and understand the kind of suffering people have gone through in those areas,” says Mariazelle Gunatillake, a popular Sinhala singer.