COLOMBO: 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 snipers at his Colombo residence on Aug.12. The Sri Lankan government has blamed the Tigers for the killing.
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 per cent is Sinahlese while the Tamils who mostly follow Hinduism form 18 per cent.
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.” —Dawn/Inter-Press Service
