Weekly Review
by T. Sabaratnam, September 15, 2004
Norwegian special peace envoy Erik Solheim is back in Colombo. “I’m here mainly to stabilize the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA),” he told media in Colombo.
Stabilizing the CFA was the main subject Solheim discussed in Colombo and Jaffna since his arrival on Monday night. That will be the main topic Solheim and the Norwegian ambassador in Sri Lanka Hans Brattskar will discuss with LTTE political chief S. P. Thamilchelvan in Kilinochchi and with President Chandrika Kumaratunga on Thursday.
Thursday’s top-level meeting is taking place exactly two years after Norway brokered the first face-to-face talks between the Government and the LTTE. Direct talks commenced on 16 September 2002 at Sattahip, Thailand. Talks were the outcome of the CFA signed on 23 February 2002.
“The CFA is the anchor of the peace process. If it is shaky, the peace process cannot move forward. The CFA should be strengthened if the peace talks are to start again. That is our main concern now,” Solheim told Jaffna’s civil society leaders he met.
Ways and means of firming up the CFA was the subject Solheim and Brattskar discussed with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and Jayantha Dhanapala, Director General of the Government Peace Secretariat on Tuesday. The SLMM’s head Gen. Furuhovde reported to Solheim their findings about the complaints of ceasefire violations lodged by the government and the LTTE.
Solheim told Dhanapala that both sides have committed ceasefire violations. And those violations have damaged the mutual trust Norway had helped to build over the past few years. Steps should be taken to rebuild the trust. They discussed in detail the effort that needs to be made. They also considered the procedures to restart negotiations.
Trust began to erode when the Tigers realized the inability of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to implement the agreements reached in the conference table. The Tigers pulled out of the talks in April last year and asked Wickremesinghe to complete the implementation. Karuna’s revolt of March and the role army intelligence played in it further shattered trust between the parties.
Ceasefire violations have risen in number since March. Attacks and killings have escalated. The LTTE has accused the government and the army for the attacks on LTTE cadres and the government has blamed the LTTE for killing army intelligence operatives and political opponents.
Last Wednesday’s attack on the LTTE border post at Pullumalai heightened the friction. The Tigers, in a statement, said heavily armed men suspected to be army commandos mounted the attack. It said the army commandos were assisted by some armed paramilitary cadres. It said two paramilitary cadres were killed during the counterattack and one of them was identified as Nakulan, a confidant of Karuna.
The army denied any hand in the attack and said it had taken place in an area under rebel control.
On Friday, the Tigers issued a fresh warning that their patience was running out, accusing government forces of using paramilitary groups to attack their cadres.
Norway last month warned that the CFA, which froze the war, is “melting.” It said that unless the violations are arrested the country might slide back to war. Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe also warned the country that Kumaratunga is taking the country to war.
Solheim in Jaffna
Solheim and Brattskar told the Jaffna media that, while firming up the CFA, they were also making efforts to restart the talks. “We are talking about that, too,” Solheim said.
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem, with whom Solheim held a detailed discussion on Tuesday, told the media that the Norwegian facilitator told him that ending ceasefire violations were his first concern. Ensuring that the people enjoyed the benefits of the ceasefire was the second.
Solheim and Brattskar spent the whole day today (Wednesday) in Jaffna meeting army officials, government officials and the representatives of non-governmental organizations and other humanitarian agencies in the Jaffna district to ascertain whether the people of the northeast, the party directly affected by the war, are enjoying the benefits of peace.
“We came to find out the ground situation. It has a direct impact on the peace process,” Solheim told them.
Jaffna’s civil society leaders told Solheim and Brattskar that the benefits of the ceasefire enjoyed by the people of the other provinces in the south have not flowed to the people of northeast province.
NGO officials briefed the Norwegian facilitators about the difficulties Tamil people face even after thirty months of truce. The main areas highlighted by civil society leaders were: the army’s refusal to permit resettlement in vast areas of highly productive agricultural land around the army camps and the failure to disarm paramilitary forces, especially the EPDP.
The LTTE’s Jaffna district political head C.Ilamparithi confirmed the complaint of the civil society leaders. He told Solheim that Tamil people in the Jaffna district have not benefited by the current ceasefire. “People are still undergoing immense suffering even after the ceasefire. Several thousands of internally displaced families are still languishing in welfare centres and camps,” Ilamparithi said.
Ilamparithi also complained about the delay in resuming the peace talks. He told Solheim that the long delay in working out an interim agreement was hurting the Tamils even more.
Brattskar told him continuing ceasefire violations is delaying the resumption of the talks and consequently the discussion about the interim administration. “If violations cease and trust between the parties returns, the process could be speeded up,” Brattskar said.
Solheim discussed with the army authorities the question of resettlement and ceasefire violations. He will take those up with Thamilchelvan and Kumaratunga tomorrow.
No return to war
Kumaratunga, since she returned from Britain where she spent a holiday with her children, has assured the country from public platforms that she would not allow the country to slip back to war.
Kumaratunga vowed to prevent renewed fighting with the Tigers. She told Colombo-based foreign correspondents last week, “The government is totally committed to doing all that is within its power to not allow the situation to degrade to military action.”
Kumaratunga told a mass rally at Mahiyanganaya on Monday that she would implement the truce between the government and the Tigers. Earlier she had called the truce the ‘Ranil Wickremesinghe – Pirapaharan Agreement’ and said that it needed amendments. She had criticized Wickremesinghe for entering into that agreement with the Tigers. Her deputy defence Minister Ratnasiri Wickremenayake said two weeks ago that the CFA is one sided and needs revision.
Kumaratunga said on Monday, “I am happy that the UNF Government continued our work. They entered into an agreement with the LTTE and we will follow it to the spirit of the letter.”
She said only rogues and lunatics want war and added that Norwegian peace envoys had been positive about their latest efforts to jump-start negotiations which remain suspended since April last year.
Analysts interpret her comments about ‘rogues and lunatics’ as an indirect attack on the JVP leaders.
“I don’t think the LTTE has much to gain by going back to war,” Kumaratunga said, adding that the Tigers were also concerned about an international backlash if they sparked a resumption of war.
ISGA Negotiable
If today’s Daily Mirror report from Kilinochchi is correct, the Tigers also have shown some flexibility. Thamilchelvan told a batch of Sinhala journalists who visited Kilinochchi that the LTTE’s Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) is negotiable. He said the proposals are “not rigid or final” and could be discussed at the negotiation table.
Tamilchelvan said the interim administration should have enough powers to enable the benefits of the ceasefire to reach the Tamil people.
Thamilchelvan said, “We want an interim structure that would enable the benefits of the ceasefire to go to the people and provide humanitarian assistance.”
Tamilchelvan indicated that the interim structure that would be acceptable to the LTTE should have more powers than the ones the UNP proposals contained.
Thamilchelvan reiterated the firm Tiger stand that the ISGA should be the only basis for the talks and suggested that the government should speak with one voice.
Thamilchelvan did not comment on Kumaratunga’s proposal of forming a Consultative Committee on the Peace Process. The LTTE has left the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the political party representing the Tamil people, to deal with that matter. The TNA has rejected the proposal as a delaying strategy.
The UNP and its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe have rejected the proposal. Wickremesinghe has told Kumaratunga that the government should talk to the LTTE on the basis of the ISGA and work out an acceptable interim structure for the northeast. He has pledged the UNP’s support to pass the necessary legislation in parliament to enable the government to implement the agreement.
The UNP views Kumaratunga’s consultative committee proposals as a trick and a trap. The trick is to assist the JVP to get out of the corner into which the JVP has placed itself. The JVP wants to tell the people that it agreed to permit the government to talk to the LTTE on the basis of the ISGA because the UNP was insisting on it.
It is a trap because the proposed consultative committee, which will be co-chaired by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, would be an advisory body. Kumaratunga, as president, is not bound by its decisions. Ranil Wickremesinghe would thus be pushed into a secondary position.
The JVP is still silent about the consultative committee proposal. The Ceylon Workers Congress, which promised to support the government last week, has stated rubbing it in its sore spot.
The JVP’s General Secretary Tilvin Silva, welcoming the CWC’s support, said that it should fall in line with the United People’s Freedom Front manifesto. Arumugan Thondaman, the CWE’s leader, snubbed him by saying, “No one can tell us what to do.”
The new CWC minister Muthu Sivalingam went further. He said parliament has 225 members. The majority of them want the government to talk with the LTTE on the basis of the ISGA. The JVP, which opposes talking, has only 39 MPs and should be ignored if it persists with its opposition.
Kumaratunga will be addressing the UN General Assembly on September 21st. She is anxious to announce the resumption of the peace talks with the LTTE. For that, she may be prepared to ignore the JVP.
The JVP is not keen to quit the government.
Analysts are posing this question: Is there a plan to discredit the JVP?