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Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in an interview with French newsmagazine “Le Point” has said she will seek peace at any cost for the war-torn island nation. However Kumaratunga reiterated her government’s stance that any settlement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that involved the division of the island would be unacceptable. Asked about her government’s conditions for reaching a settlement in the 17-year war with the LTTE, Kumaratunga said she would not agree to any division of the state or to any unconditional withdrawal of troops prior to achieving a political solution. She said the two issues were non-negotiable. Kumaratunga said that the political solution the government would be offering the LTTE was close to federal state but without the name, and would include strong devolution of power to the Tamils. However, she stressed that the Tamils in all areas of the country must receive their equal rights. Kumaratunga told “Le Point” that her government was not fighting against the Tamil people, and that aside from the few thousands of Tamils who make up the LTTE, the majority of Sri Lankan Tamils want to see an end to the war. However, the perennial distrust of each party for the other continues to loom as a factor that may undermine possible talks between the two sides. Kumaratunga said she believed Prabakaran was not interested in peace, and that the Tigers were only attempting to “gain time” by showing their current interest in peace talks. She said that she believes the LTTE’s ultimate aim would be to derail any peace talks. Meanwhile, both Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his political advisor Anton Balainsgham have also continued to voice their scepticism of the government’s sincerity in wanting to solve the Tamil people’s problems. President Kumaratunga told “Le Point” that she had first met Prabhakaran in Madras in 1984, and had received 43 letters from him during the ill-fated negotiations she initiated with the LTTE in 1994. The negotiations broke down and the war resumed after four Tigers infiltrated the strategic port of Trincomalee and blasted two navy craft, killing themselves and 12 sailors in April 1995. Kumaratunga said that although she believed Prabhakaran may have been a product of earlier discrimination, he had “gone on for too long.” She said that discrimination in Sri Lanka had occurred mainly in respect of public sector postings and education, but had never achieved anything like the dimensions of apartheid in South Africa or segregation in the United States. Kumaratunga said that Prabhakaran had the “mentality of Hitler,” and that she believed he was deriving pleasure from the death and destruction that his forces are causing. She said Prabhakaran was responsible for killing many of his own people, including his cadres and many moderate Tamil politicians. President Kumaratunga said that she was experiencing certain difficulties with the main opposition United National Party and “some extremist elements” within her own party in pursuing her constitutional agenda. However, Kumaratunga said that the Opposition was not required to effect the constitutional changes. Kumaratunga told “Le Point” that advice from Sri Lankan and foreign constitutional experts indicated that, having won last year’s presidential election with a clear mandate to achieve peace, the proposed constitutional changes could be forcibly implemented if necessary, and would be difficult even for the Supreme Court to oppose.
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