COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will seek to amend the ceasefire agreement with Tamil Tiger rebels during negotiations in Geneva later this month despite opposition from the guerillas, official sources said on Wednesday.
President Mahinda Rajapakse told his negotiators to ensure that promises in his election manifesto titled ‘Mahinda Chinthana’, or Mahinda philosophy, are followed in dealing with the rebels.
“Everyone should take action in accordance with the Mahinda Chinthana which was put forward before the people,” state television quoted the president as saying while addressing a two-day workshop for his negotiators.
Tamil Tiger rebels on Tuesday ruled out discussing a political solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict during talks in Geneva later this month and said only their faltering truce should be on the agenda.
But a politician at Rajapakse’s meeting in Colombo on Tuesday said the president was keen for the truce deal to be revisited in a bid to strengthen it and halt violence.
Rajapakse came to power in November promising a new approach to the island’s Norwegian-brokered peace process which has remained deadlocked since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pulled out of face-to-face talks in April 2003.
The impasse was lifted when the Tigers and Colombo agreed to meet in Geneva for two days starting February 22 to discuss implementing their troubled truce, which went into effect on February 23, 2002.
“The ceasefire agreement will be amended so as to ensure that acts of terrorism would not be permitted in any way,” according to Rajapakse’s election manifesto.
“The ceasefire monitoring mechanism would also be reviewed and new steps taken.”
The Tigers have said that they will only attend the Geneva talks to discuss the ceasefire and not a political settlement to decades of ethnic bloodshed that has claimed over 60,000 lives.
“The only way to avoid war and create a peaceful environment in the Tamil homeland is to implement the ceasefire agreement in full,” the LTTE said.
“The key to peace talks in the present context is the full implementation of the ceasefire.”
The rebels have accused the government of supporting a breakaway rebel faction to carry out attacks against the mainstream guerillas.
At least 153 people were killed in a new wave of fighting after Rajapakse came to power and many of the killings have been blamed on the Tigers who in turn accuse ‘paramilitary units’ of stirring up trouble.
Four previous peace attempts have ended in failure and led to more bloodshed.
DEFECTION: Local opposition politicians joined Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition on Wednesday, saying they wanted to strengthen the president’s hand to negotiate peace with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.
The politicians, who are members of regional councils, defected from the main opposition United National Party to join the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance, led by President Mahinda Rajapakse.
“We all must place the country before self. We must leave all our petty differences to a side and join together to bring peace and development to the country,” Rajapakse said after a formal acceptance ceremony for the politicians.
“We want to strengthen the hand of the president so that he can bring peace to the country,” the group’s spokesman, Gunaratne Banda said. He did not elaborate.
The defection will not affect party positions in the 225-member Parliament, where Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party and its coalition partners remain a minority with 108 seats, against the opposition with 117 seats.—Agencies
