SATTAHIP (Thailand): Can the Tamil Tigers, the world’s most prolific suicide bombers, change their stripes?

After fighting for nearly two decades for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, they sit down on Monday for peace talks with the government with that question hanging over their heads.

“They know they have to transform. Control freaks as they may well be...I would not suggest it is impossible for them to change,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives.

Saravanamuttu said that after realizing it could not win its aim of a separate Tamil state by force, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) may adapt if that is the only way to retain control over the areas of Sri Lanka it already runs.

“Above everything else the LTTE’s objective is physical political control over a territory and it will do anything it needs to do to consolidate its control,” he said.

The Tigers say a separate state is needed because Tamils are discriminated against by the island’s majority Sinhalese, but although they control a large piece of northern Sri Lanka, 19 years of fighting has not brought them closer to their goal.

The three days of talks at a navy base in Sattahip, 260 kms southeast of Bangkok, will focus on development issues, while future talks will deal with LTTE demands for self-governance.

The government, which is sending three cabinet ministers to the talks, has said it is willing to discuss anything except a separate state.

“The idea of the peace process is to lock them into a process that will force their transformation,” Saravanamuttu said.

Since the war started in 1983, the Tigers have grown from a small band of barefoot fighters into one of the world’s most sophisticated guerrilla groups.

They not only fought the much larger Sri Lankan army to a standstill, but also drove out Indian forces who came as peacekeepers.

The Tigers also perfected the art of suicide bombing, and in more than 200 attacks have killed a former Indian prime minister, a Sri Lankan president, dozens of politicians and many Tamil leaders who did not follow their same hardline.

That history plus the fact all previous negotiated attempts at ending the war that has left 64,000 dead have ended in renewed bloodshed, leave some sceptical of any change by the LTTE.

“Don’t expect a miracle after decades of acrimony,” said Lakshman Kadirgamar, a former foreign minister involved in a failed attempt to get peace talks going last year.

“We have to hope that they will. That is the only hope for the future,” he said.—Reuters