COLOMBO: With Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels pulling out of talks with the government, the peace process may falter, leading to more violence and a danger the island could revert to a ruinous two-decade civil war, analysts and diplomats said.
The Tigers said on Saturday they would not go to talks — postponed once already — that were scheduled in Geneva for April 24-25, due to problems with a requested safe-conduct transport of rebel commanders.
If making transport arrangements for a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) huddle ahead of the Geneva meeting was this hard, then the talks themselves could hardly be expected to be productive, diplomats said.
But they would at least be talking.
At least 65 people have died over the past 10 days in the worst violence since a 2002 truce, with neither the government nor the Tigers showing enough flexibility for the talks to take place in Geneva as planned, one diplomat said.
“There are various things that could be done that would not be very difficult that would allow the talks to take place,” the diplomat said. “But neither side is willing to allow them.”
Without the talks as a safety valve, ambushes against Sri Lanka’s military and ethnic riots in the island’s northeast are expected to escalate further.
Some experts fear that could even include attacks within the capital Colombo, which would wreck investor confidence in the $20 billion economy.
Opinions are divided over whether more violence would inevitably lead to a resumption of the island’s civil war, which has killed more than 64,000 people on both sides.
“The bottom line is this — for how long can the military remain restrained?” said Janes Defence Weekly analyst Iqbal Athas. “That we are just around the corner from a major confrontation is not in doubt.”
The government has repeatedly said it will not start the war with any offensive of its own. Some diplomats believe neither side could win a war and so neither side will start one.
But with both sides saying they could win if war was forced upon them, others fear that escalation could rapidly turn into a full-on conflict in the north and east that could devastate communities also hit by the 2004 tsunami.
The rebels are estimated to have some 10,000-20,000 fighters, attack boats and several light aircraft, as well as troops of suicide bombers.—Reuters
