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Monday, June 02, 2008 - 07.20 GMT |
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Negotiations still possible but after
demilitarization- Ambassador Jayatilleka |
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 Dayan
Jayatilleka Sri Lanka's Permanent
Representative to the UN in Geneva said in
an interview that a negotiated settlement to
Sri Lanka's conflict is still possible but
not before the LTTE is "verifiably
demilitarised and democratized".
He said that the conflict would only end
when Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),
gets "demilitarised one way or another".
Referring in some detail to the 1991
assassination of former Indian Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide
bomber, Jayatilleka said of Prabhakaran:
"With him there can be no peace."
With respect to the ongoing military
offensive, he said, "It will all end the way
it all ended in Angola after decades of
conflict when (rebel leader) Jonas Savimbi
was killed by the Angolan Armed Forces.
"It will all end the way it did in Chechnya
when the Russian Army got Djokar Dudayev,
defeated the Chechen separatist militia in
fierce combined arms warfare Angola and
Chechnya are peaceful and prosperous now.
"It cannot end while Prabhakaran has not
been demilitarised one way or another."
Claiming that Sri Lanka's "human rights
record, our record of civilian casualties,
compares favourably with that of the West in
theatres where its Armed Forces" operate, he
said the West's use of human rights as an
instrument was "most disturbing".
"The issue of Kosovo (and the de facto
separate status of Iraqi Kurdistan) reveal
that the West is not averse to the
splintering of existing states and the
carving out of new ones."
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