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By Ranjit J. PereraSri Lanka’s peace process seems to be gaining more critics even though the Government and the LTTE concluded the first round of direct talks in seven years to work out a peaceful settlement of a conflict that has drawn blood over the past nineteen years. The state-owned Sunday Observer on September 22 ran a banner headline saying, ‘Sattahip peace negotiations: Talks success boosts economy.’ With a prominent photograph of Premier Ranil Wickremasinghe in earnest conversation with former US President Bill Clinton, the story began thus: ‘Sri Lanka's economy looks set to consolidate on the peace dividend as the country's business leadership last week showed consensus on the success of the peace talks in Sattahip, Thailand. The record upturn in the stock market was only the first indication of the potential upswing in economic dynamism that was indicated by the positive response by the business community to the results of the talks.’ The widely read Sunday Times (also of September 22) boldly said, ‘Govt. – LTTE to raise funds jointly.’ The story said, ‘The LTTE and the Sri Lankan government will jointly carry out an international campaign to raise funds for the redevelopment of the war-ravaged north and eastern provinces.’ ‘According to LTTE Chief negotiator Anton Balasingham, LTTE representatives will go with Sri Lankan government delegations to foreign countries to negotiate aid adding that the LTTE will be very much involved with the government in seeking massive foreign assistance required to rebuild the north and east.’ ‘There was no immediate confirmation from the government about the joint exercise, but both sides at the first round of talks in Thailand had agreed that the joint Task Force to be established between the two sides would have the responsibility of identifying, financing, and monitoring of urgent humanitarian and reconstruction activities in the north and east.’ The photograph accompanying the story was of the passing out parade of a Tiger guerilla artillery unit. The caption seemed to express the fears in the minds of most people: ‘This was a scene on Thursday, September 19, at the grounds of the Chenaiyoor Central College in Mutur, on the outskirts of Trincomalee - just the day after the first round of peace talks between the government and the LTTE. It was a passing-out parade of a Tiger guerrilla artillery unit. Printed invitations were sent out both to residents of the area and the media. Paduman, Trinco's military wing leader is seen reviewing a parade of the newly passed out units. Is the recruitment, training and re-arming, part of LTTE plans to increase its bargaining powers at the talks, or be ready for war?’
“But has there been a change of heart on the part of Prabhakaran, a Pauline paradigm shift, post-9/11? If one wants to know whether the LTTE has abandoned the notion of Thamil Eelam as a separate state, one only has to travel to the north-east or check out the pictorial evidence coming in from there. The map of Thamileelam is up there for all to see, on street-corners and highways. And these aren’t faded old maps; they are graphics that are put up every day. If some fellow-traveller wants us to believe that Thamileelam denotes but an autonomous northern and eastern province, one only has to note that the area denoted, aptly enough, in blood-red, far exceeds those two provinces.”
“Nor is the evidence pure art or a nostalgic ‘blast from the past’. On the ground, the institutions proliferate; the Thamil Eelam courts, where the judges sit with portraits of a camouflage-clad Prabhakaran behind them, and practise ‘traditional Thamil law’, as an interviewee told the BBC’s Frances Harrison. There is the Thamil Eelam Police force, an armed militia, with its own IGP, who takes the salute at passing out parades with the huge Thamileelam map looming behind him (and in front of us). Frances Harrison’s own narrative for BBC’s Asia Today special segments accompanying the Thai talks, used the phrases ‘would-be state’ ‘parallel administration’, and ‘all the trappings of nationhood’, while the newscaster herself used the term ‘separate administration’ in her introductory remarks.” D.B.S. Jeyaraj, a regular columnist writing in the Sunday Leader calls the bluff; “Every dark cloud has a silver lining. True, but then, only the foolhardy optimist would strive to elongate that lining excessively to cover the darkness of the entire cloud. The desire by sections of the national and international media to paint a rosy picture of the preliminary round of talks between the United National Front (UNF) government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Thailand has led to sunshine stories of a colossal scale about Sattahip’s outcome.” “While the Sattahip parley certainly proved satisfactory, nothing sensational occurred. Everything went off predictably well because both sides scrupulously avoided deep discussions about contentious issues.” “Chief among the sunshine stories from Sattahip is the one about the Tigers giving up the Tamil Eelam demand. Different organs have outlined that aspect differently using terms like ‘scaled down,’ ‘toned down,’ etc. The point however, is unmistakably clear. The LTTE apparently is not keen on a separate state — Tamil Eelam — for which dream thousands of youths laid down their lives and paid countless sacrifices. It seems highly unlikely that a movement like the LTTE after waging a relentless struggle for decades and establishing a position of strength in the politico - military sphere is now prepared to jettison its secessionist demand at this premature stage.” Facilitator Norway, as well as the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka have taken pains to point out that Sattahip was only a first step. First step towards what? That seems to be a question on the minds of many Sri Lankans. The Norwegian Government in a press release at the conclusion of the first round of talks in Sattahip said, “The parties affirmed their determination to continue upholding the Ceasefire Agreement and expanding the range of confidence-building measures over the period ahead. Building on the achievements of the Ceasefire Agreement, the parties agreed to establish promptly a Joint Committee to deal with the issues relating to High Security Zones, with the aim of enabling the return of larger numbers of displaced persons to their areas of origin, thereby facilitating the restoration of normalcy. This Joint Committee will consist of senior representatives of both sides, including military personnel.”
“The parties discussed in depth the urgent need to address
the difficult humanitarian situation in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
To this effect, the parties agreed to establish a Joint Task Force for
Humanitarian and Reconstruction Activities. The Joint Task Force will
constitute a partnership between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE,
and will have responsibility for the identification, financing and
monitoring of urgent humanitarian and reconstruction activities in the
north and east. The task force will operate with due participation of
Muslims, and its work will benefit all ethnic communities of the North and
East. The details relating to the mandate and structure of the Joint Task
Force will rapidly be finalized between the parties with the assistance of
the Norwegian facilitators. The two immediate priorities of the parties
are It was in 1987 that India stepped in to force a solution on both the Sri Lanka Government and the LTTE with the Indo-Lanka Agreement. Of the 70,000 strong Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which came to Sri Lanka to monitor the ceasefire and left in March 1990, 1,200 Indian soldiers sacrificed their lives and more than 3,000 were wounded. Jayatilaka who was a member of the merged North-East Provincial Council set up under this agreement to administer the Northern and Eastern Provinces says, “The pedagogical/propaganda efforts undertaken everyday in the North-East, indoctrinate the masses, especially and most insidiously the school-children, in the glorious destiny of an independent Thamileelam, and uses as the favourite teaching tool, the videos of Tiger assaults on army camps and Katunayake airport; snuff-videos which make the Al Quaeda training videos look like a Walt Disney production. Our American friends must remember that these Tiger videos are distributed and shown all over the world, and the LTTE’s non-Islamic character is as irrelevant to any terrorist viewer/learner, as the religious affiliations of one scientist would be to another when studying, absorbing and being inspired by the other’s work!” Addressing a Press Conference at the end of the talks in Sattahip Anton Balasingham, LTTE’s Chief Negotiator said, “There is no question of disarmament at this early stage of the discussions. You know very well that both parties - the Sri Lankan Government as well as the LTTE - have two standing Armies and also two standing Navies and that it is the first time a stable ceasefire has been established. The Question of disarming will not arise until we reach a permanent settlement that will satisfy the aspirations of the Tamil people. So I think it is very premature on your part to raise this question of disarmament at this stage.” US ambassador to Thailand Darrel Jackson was reported in the Sunday Island saying that peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and LTTE had not changed his country’s classification of the LTTE as a terrorist organization. Jackson who was one of the invitees for the Sri Lanka government and LTTE peace talks opening ceremony at the Ambassador City Jomtien Hotel in Pattaya,Thailand last week told "The Island" that he was present merely as an observer. The American Government’s stand seems to be confirmed by a report in the Daily News of September 25, which says that the US State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Francis X. Taylor would be visiting Sri Lanka this month. A recent survey conducted by Prof. Y. Ashiwa, of Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo in collaboration with the National Peace Council and the University of Colombo, and funded by the Toyota Foundation has this to say on Transparency and Accountability of Government and LTTE: ‘There is much fear and anxiety in the North, East, and South among all the different ethnic communities regarding the future. However, we have to understand that peace making is a long-term process. A significant sign we found is that even in remote places persons are keen to gather information about the peace process from newspaper, radio, and television. Therefore interpretation, transparency and good explanations are very much demanded not only from the Sri Lanka government but also from the LTTE. The citizenry especially desire greater transparency and accountability on the part of the LTTE because of their expectation that the LTTE will play an important role in future administration.’ The people, in whom the sovereignty rests, must be told the truth. Sunshine stories can only make a solution more difficult.
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Although
several of the mainstream media in Sri Lanka were loudly hailing the talks
as a success, political analyst Dayan Jayatilaka didn’t mince his words in
a feature in the privately owned
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