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by Selliah Ranjan

Negotiations between the PA and the LTTE

Yes, we promised to bring peace to this country and were prepared to talk to the LTTE. This we did, soon after we came to power in 1994. We initiated negotiation with the LTTE. We know that the people in this country from all communities long for peace and prosperity.

We were realistic enough to understand that the LTTE, being an armed group, had difficulties in coming to terms with new realities. In spite of all these, we sought all possible means to bring them to political discussion. The political aspect is to resolve the issues that are the root cause of the ethnic problem.

What the LTTE's conduct has revealed, is that their agenda was not to find a political solution, but to use peace talks to buy time, to tighten their stranglehold on the people of the North-East and to carry out their murderous politics.

They broke off the negotiation and attacked the security forces, when we insisted on them for serious negotiations.

We were forced to counter their threat militarily as any sovereign state is duty bound to.

Negotiations and LTTE's dilemma

In order to remove their hold on the Tamil people and to bring peace, we had to pursue the war. The war was forced on us. Of course, we were very much aware that it is not possible to solve the ethnic problem purely through the military means alone. Besides, we were also faced with two obstacles in achieving peace via a political solution.

(1) The LTTE, which is a unique ruthless movement that mastered suicidal attacks, had no concern for civilians including the Tamils.

They are terrorists determined to achieve a separate state, over its own people's grave and are prepared to destabilise any move toward achieving peace via a political solution.

(2) The need to have a 2/3 majority to pass the desired reforms in parliament is the chief constraint.

We tried to form a broad alliance with the minority parties and worked tirelessly drafting the new constitution with the intention of getting support from the UNP. The UNP dragged on, purely for narrow political ends and forced us to delay the whole process. It is history and we do not want to repeat it.

The LTTE even sent a suicide bomber to kill Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam who played a crucial role in drafting the new political package. UNP did everything to sabotage the political package and had never shown any interest in formulating the package which would have given confidence to the Tamils and Muslims to bring them back to National politics.

PA's attempt through Foreign Party Mediation

We sought foreign facilitation to bring the LTTE to negotiations and had invited Norway to play that crucial role. Past experiences and failures in carrying out peace talks together with the nature of the LTTE warned us to be cautious in dealing with them.

We are clear that we can't achieve peace by subordinating the interest of all peace loving Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims to the LTTE's agenda as it is based on total destruction of each and every human norm.

Nature of the LTTE

Still, we thought that the international intervention would force the LTTE to reflect on their people's interests and to continue to pursue them to have peace talks without any pre condition. Although in the beginning it appeared that the LTTE was agreeable to have peace talks without any preconditions, later it put forward conditions one after the other, as they had been doing in the past.

We very well knew that if we had begun to accommodate those conditions without discussing the crucial issues for a political solution, eventually we would be cornered like it had happened in 1990 or 1995, and would play into their hands. Of course, in the negotiation process we wee prepared to respond to their demands if they showed their genuine bona fides in reaching a negotiated solution. It is a rational response to an irrational movement.

We never said that we won't negotiate with them or that we would hunt them and kill them, as many Western governments do in dealing with terrorism. Well, they may say that they are fighting a different type of terrorism. The only difference is that international terrorists target Western governments, especially America. To achieve it, they also plan and execute massive, inhuman things. But the LTTE's notion of people and use of terror with its nature of suicidal attacks, killing of civilians, political leaders including the Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi and many from this country and the attempted murder of the President, all have the same hallmark of terrorism with a pan Tamil agenda spilling over to other regions.

The LTTE's involvement in a murder plot to kill the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Mujibur Rahman, was exposed in the newspaper Today an Indian sister paper of India Today. The LTTE acquiring Singer (?) missiles from Afghanistan and its links with international networks in Afghanistan may not be a concern for many at this juncture. But we have seen the destruction unleashed by this group, its international network, its efficiency and ruthlessness. Although this government managed to bring the international community about the dangers of LTTE's politics and its acts of terrorism, we are aware that it is a long way to go for them to realize the true nature of our problem.

But as a responsible government which although aware of the brutal terrorist nature of the LTTE, it is aware of the root causes and environment which allow it to grow and grip the Tamil community. As the President herself said on the aftermath of the September 11th attack in WTC in a speech given at addressing the first year commemoration have the late Minister and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress founder-leader M.H.M. Ashraff at the BMICH:

"It was not sufficient to hunt down terrorists and perpetrators of terrorism, but it was also essential to understand the deep-rooted causes of this most dehumanizing phenomenon of the 21st century.

"Perceived injustices if allowed to persist will get transformed firstly into Terrorism and thereafter into violence. It is not sufficient to seek the perpetrators of terrorism and merely deal with them. It is equally important to understand the deep rooted causes that lead to terrorism and to resolve them as the only effective means of eliminating terrorism,"

Unfortunately our country with its meagre economic resources was forced to continue this war. It had a very adverse impact on the whole social fabric of this country.

There is only one way to achieve long-term peace, that is by bringing genuine constitutional reform with devolution of power, which would reflect the multi-ethnic multi-cultural, and multi-religious nature of our country. It is only a precondition, but not sufficient.

It could be achieved in two ways:

1) If the UNP is genuinely caring about the country's interest it could have supported us in achieving the primary goal. This process also could involve negotiating with LTTE if they show some interest by changing their cause of Eelam and are prepared to discuss a political solution with a proper time frame or work. Then we are prepared to engage in negotiation. We do not want to negotiate on the basis of the LTTE usurping the democratic rights of the Tamil and Muslim people. If they believe they are the sole representatives, it is up to them to come to the democratic process and negotiate a dignified solution for the Tamil people, and prove their strength, democratically. We can't accept their demands of sole representative purely on the basis of their total destructive power. It is neither in the interests of the Tamil people nor in the interest of the Muslim or Sinhalese people. It defies all the democratic norms when its domination is achieved through pure terror alone.

2) If the LTTE is determined to achieve its goal of Eelam as indicated by the ongoing conscription of children and continuing suicidal attacks, the challenge of restoring peace becomes enormous. It requires the necessary political power and support from all the peace loving people to implement constitutional reform and to take the necessary steps to isolate the LTTE politically and militarily. We also need international support and understanding to achieve our task.

We will not succumb to political expediency or try to appease the LTTE and work according to their own agenda.

Many Tamils also would understand the futility of continuing to ignore the LTTE's true nature and its real agenda. The onus is on the LTTE to prove its genuineness in achieving a peaceful solution by at least discarding its petty demands and past methods and think of the greater welfare of its people and come for negotiation for a political solution without any precondition.

The interim administration as part of the peace process could arise only in two ways:

1) If the LTTE comes for negotiation and accepts a political solution then implementing that solution needs a process and we may have to go through an interim administration taking into account the devastation of the two decades of war and destruction of democratic political life in the North-East. There the LTTE could accept the democratic process and play an important role, but within a democratic framework.

2) If the LTTE is totally opposed to a solution and we have managed to change the constitution granting further with devolution of power, then to implement it in the face of disruption by the LTTE, we need to think about an interim administration with whatever democratic elements left over in the Tamil society.

Our government would not contemplate an interim administration under the LTTE hegemony without guaranteeing the democratic rights of the Tamil and Muslim people in the North-East as the UNP tried to do during the Premadasa period, and is now intending to do under Ranil Wickremesinghe's leadership.

It could only happen if a real institutional framework is set up and the LTTE's guns are removed in the North East. We are not going to accept the call by the TNA or other groups to accept the LTTE as the sole representative. We are aware of the guns behind their heads and treat them as captives. We are prepared to take their interests also into account, but are not prepared to accept their demands which are basically dictated by the gun. If we start legitimising total terror as a means to achieve peace, then we will betray the people of this country and we are not prepared to do that as the UNP is preparing to do.

We appeal to the people to give us the necessary votes to have a 2/3rd majority to implement our programmes to achieve genuine peace.

The UNP may have a short memory and many in the UNP may be so hungry for power as to be prepared to whitewash the LTTE and play the same deadly games which they did earlier by giving arms to the LTTE and later allowing them to run the North-East without hindrance.

Did they achieve peace? Now they play games allowing LTTE stooges to enter parliament through the UNP ticket. How much can they guarantee that LTTE won't plant its suicide bombers all over the South with the connivance of the UNP. Have they forgotten the Babu saga?

How was he moving along with President Premadasa's close associates and finally took his life?

We appeal to UNP members who still have the concern for the people in this country and have national interests at heart to question the present leadership's opportunistic politics and support the future PA Government to achieve peace in this country based on rights of the minorities, democratic principles and the interest of the majority.

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