NAKHON PATHOM (Thailand), Jan 7: Tamil Tiger rebels on Tuesday pulled out of a panel responsible for a major part of winding down Sri Lanka’s separatist war, but insisted that the Norwegian-backed peace bid was still on course.
The unexpected pull-out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from a sub-committee of peace negotiators meeting here marked the first major hiccup for Norway’s attempts to broker peace in Sri Lanka.
LTTE’s chief negotiator Anton Balasingham said the Tigers were withdrawing from the Sub Committee on De-escalation and Normalisation to protest “unreasonable and unacceptable demands” by Sri Lankan security forces.
The Tigers were also boycotting a meeting scheduled for January 14 by Scandinavian truce monitors in a bid to thrash out the differences between the rebels and the security forces, Balasingham said.
However, Balasingham said they would remain in the peace talks brokered by Norway and hosted by Thailand.
The SDN was entrusted with working out ways of de-escalating the military conflict and normalising life in areas of the island’s northeast ravaged by three decades of ethnic bloodshed which have left more than 60,000 dead.
A Sri Lankan army general and member of the panel Sarath Fonseka had proposed that the Tigers de-commission their long-range weapons in exchange for the resettlement of refugees near military camps.
“General Sarath Fonseka has imposed conditions which are unreasonable and unfair.. The SDN is now suspended... We are being very frank with you, we have allowed it to be defunct,” Balasingham said.
He added that the Tigers would not give up their weapons until a final settlement was reached.
“But at the same time... the peace talks are going very well. There is no crisis. There is no problem and both parties are still engaged in constructive dialogue,” he said.
Earlier in the day, both the LTTE and the government side-stepped another thorny issue of resettling thousands of refugees in areas currently occupied by the security forces in Jaffna.
As a compromise, the two sides agreed to undertake the resettlement of refugees who do not have to be settled in the disputed areas. Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator G. L. Peiris said the government and the LTTE agreed to focus current talks on non-controversial human rights issues such as the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of refugees away from military installations.
The two sides also agreed to set up a committee on women to address the problems of children and widows affected by the conflict, Peiris said.
He said the formation of the committee, which is to have four women each representing the two sides, will be announced at the end of the latest round of talks on Thursday.
“It will look at all issues relating to women and children... including child soldiers,” Peiris said. “We have no desire to sweep it under the carpet. However volatile and emotional the matter, it will be taken up.”
He said under the human rights deal both sides will receive expertise from Ian Martin, the former boss of London-based Amnesty International, on improving rights conditions by both sides.
The government wants human rights strengthened in its police and prisons while seeking the same for the “police” and “prisons” run by the Tiger guerrillas in areas of the island’s northeast dominated by them.
“There was an agreement by both parties that this matter will be relevant not only to the final settlement between the parties, but there is a very definite role for human rights while the negotiating process is moving forward,” Peiris said.—AFP