LTTE-govt relations strained: Cease fire enters fourth year
By Frances Bulathsinghala
COLOMBO: The military has decided to call a spade a spade as the government-LTTE cease fire entered into its fourth year.
With most peace activists, including politicians waxing eloquent on the 'positive aspects' of the truce signed on Feb 22, 2002, the Army headquarters says that 181 persons, mainly members of the security forces, police personnel including anti-LTTE Tamils, had been, "sacrificed on the altar of the cease fire agreement".
Added to these assassinations are a string of abductions that total, according to military statistics, to 1122. Extortions, car jacking, harassment to civilians and acts of provocation's against the military are a few of the accusations levelled against the rebels.
However, to opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who signed the peace agreement with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in his then capacity as the prime minister, nothing seems to be wrong except that he feels that "those with certain vested interests" are trying to provoke a war.
As to who these people with vested interests that the opposition leader is referring to no one is really certain, but there are indeed many who seem to be acting as if they want a war - with the LTTE topping the list.
The key battle of the Tamil Tigers these days seems to be with their former military leader Karuna, a fact accepted by peace activists in Colombo - who also agree that most of the ceasefire violations are carried out by the LTTE.
Their statements are based on the statistics of the Scandinavian truce monitors, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which had received a total of 5,459 complaints against the Tigers up to December 31, 2004.
Meanwhile, the Government Peace Secretariat chief Jayantha Dhanapala, speaking at a ceremony to mark the 3rd anniversary of the peace process, said that the government was ready to start talking with the LTTE based on its controversial Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA), which was once described by Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar as a blueprint for a separate Tamil state.
However, the discussions that the peace secretariat chief was referring to is presumed to be largely on a workable humanitarian mechanism between the government and the LTTE for tsunami rehabilitation in the disaster struck areas of north-east.
"How the government will co-ordinate with the LTTE on relief work in tsunami-hit areas of the north-east will have an impact on the peace process," says political analyst, Dr Jehan Perera, the Media Director of the National Peace Council.
Perera maintains that the past three years of peace has been seriously 'flawed' with human rights violations carried out by the LTTE. Meanwhile, the LTTE's breakaway leader, Karuna, has managed to upset the apple cart of the LTTE.
The LTTE's strategy is to characterize the assassinations carried out by the breakaway group as the work of the government on the grounds that they occur in government-controlled areas.
"Karuna is definitely a complication to the peace process, that is likely to slow any reverting to discussions between the LTTE and the government", adds Dr Pakiasothy Saravanamuthu, head of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based organization which specifically deals with issues related to the ethnic conflict.
Dr Saravanamuthu wonders what may prevent the LTTE from carrying out blatant cease fire violations. He admits that the 'naming and shaming strategy' followed by the Scandanavian truce monitors has not seen much success.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, (SLMM) chief, Hagrup Haukland, has said that the continued killings are jeopardizing the cease fire agreement. Maintaining that the lack of peace talks is putting a strain on the cease fire, the truce monitoring chief described as "a dangerous uncertainty", the present no-war, no-peace syndrome the country is plagued with.
The LTTE in a press conference in northern Killinochchi, however, has warned the government not to force the Tamil Tigers to abrogate the peace process. "If this present situation continues, there will be serious repercussions for the peace process", LTTE Political Wing head, S. P. Thamilchelvam, told Newsmen on Tuesday following a meeting between LTTE leaders and visiting Norwegian Special envoy, Erik Solheim.
