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President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's interview with Pakistan Television Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Interviewer: Asalamu alikum, Good Evening.

Madame President, thank you so much for joining us today and first of all let me extend our deepest sympathies on the devastation caused in the country by the tsunami in December.

Have you been satisfied with the international relief efforts that have come to your country?

President: Thank you very much for the concern. I would first like to take this opportunity to thank the government of Pakistan, the President, the Prime Minister and the people for the very deep concern they showed us and all the generous support they gave us at that time.

Some of the Pakistan's military people are still there doing medical work and clearing up. We had immense support from the international community - from all over the world, countries from near and far came immediately with a lot of support. That was for the immediate relief.

Within three days we started to plan also for the reconstruction that was required. In three weeks we began the reconstruction of houses.

We have to rebuild 65,000 houses that are completely damaged and about the same number that are partially damaged, and a lot of infrastructure - schools, roads and hospitals that have been damaged... and we have begun all that.

Some countries, international agencies and the UN agencies have come forward with offers of assistance. Some of them have already begun to be realised, the rest we will have to discuss.

We have also learnt that in the Western world a lot of international NGOs and others known and unknown - have collected millions and millions of dollars, but a lot of it we still haven't seen. So we don't know.

There is a lot of concern even from the international UN agencies about these collections. But the rest of it is going well.

Interviewer: You were expected to be attending the SAARC Summit in Dhaka. The first SAARC Summit was cancelled because of the tsunami and the second has been cancelled now. Are you disappointed?

President: Yes we are. The first one... actually we were also partly responsible for requesting for a postponement and said we were willing to come within one month but we didn't want to come in less than ten days after the tsunami and everybody understood.

We were looking forward to going to Dhaka this February but somehow it didn't happen and we are now hoping to organise a new date very early.

Interviewer: And of course one of the issues that was going to come up at the SAARC Summit was the SAFTA and hopefully for implementation by January 2006. Do you not feel that if the Summit does not happen soon that the SAFtA could be delayed?

President: Well, it will be... because the leaders of the seven countries have to agree on going forward from this stage to the next stage. It has gone forward nicely, so now the leaders have to meet to take it to the next stage.

Interviewer: Sometimes there is criticism made about the SAARC Charter itself, that any one country pulling out shoudn't scuttle the whole Summit.

Do you feel, now, that there should be some Amendment to the Charter so that other countries can continue participating... there should be more bilateral negotiations? Do you see the need to change SAARC in anyway?

President: Well, we feel the need to change the SAARC in many ways, but we will have to discuss with all the partners - because we are not a large number, we are just seven - and try to get the agreement of all.

Interviewer: Of course, there has been much criticism that Pakistan-India issue tends to overshadow SAARC issues and that Pakistan-India sometimes hijack SAARC Summit. How do you feel? Do you sometimes feel that, that just gets too much?

President: Yes. (smiles)

This problem has actually prevented SAARC from moving forward, very seriously and we have to get over that in some way. Because the bilateral problems of countries should not affect the multilateral organisation which still can continue to do some work, at even lesser level if not at the highest political levels.

Interviewer: We move to the domestic situation in Sri Lanka... You've had a ceasefire holding now for three years this month with the Tamil Tigers. But the peace process itself seems to be somewhat stalled. What are you hoping to achieve in the next few weeks or months on that front?

President: This is the seventh round of talks that any government or various governments of Sri Lanka have undertaken with the Tamil Tigers and they (the LTTE) start and they walk away, they have been doing this all the time. And one began to realise that they were not at all sincere or honest about their desire to talk - they want a separate state. But we still try to engage them as any responsible sovereign government should.

The last peace process stalled about nearly two years ago and we restarted it, trying to negotiate and some level of discussion was going on through the Norwegian facilitators, documents were exchanged and at that time tsunami came.

So now we are trying... the Government has been doing a lot of development work in the North despite what the Tigers say, with their corporation... even without any peace.

Because we believe that all people of Sri Lanka are our people, we are the Government of everybody and we have been, with the quiet co-operation of the LTTE, doing development work before tsunami.

Interviewer: So you reject allegations that Tigers have made... that aid hasn't gone to the North and the North East?

President: Completely. They have got more aid than the South from the Government. Of course, the South being more accessible to the people they get more aid from the citizens of Sri Lanka.

Some lorries of food and clothing went to the North from Sinhala people to the Tamil people, people very spontaneously collected without any interference from us, from the Government.... the Tigers turned them away because they couldn't control it as they wanted.

But now they have requested that the Government does not do any development work until we set up some... well not development, reconstruction... tsunami reconstructing work. A lot has to be done in the main stronghold of the Tigers... almost everything has been swept away by the tsunami waves.

There is a lot of work to do. We are willing to start, but they say 'No don't start anything' until they agree with the Government on some arrangement... to do the reconstruction work. A kind of institution that they want set up.

So we said alright... we're talking... but the Tigers have not agree to the structure... it is a very simple thing. Until then they don't want us to go and start doing reconstruction work and the poor people are suffering.

Interviewer: And of course we have seen reports that there is a sort of a split in the Tamil Tigers itself - a breakaway faction - and the assassination of one of those leaders just a couple of days ago. How difficult is it for you to negotiate now with two groups? Is that what is hampering the peace process?

President: No. Because the second group... well the LTTE has effectively murdered a lot of them... they have been murdering each other, but the LTTE being stronger, were able to murder most of them. The leaders of the other group... some have run away... so there is nobody, nobody important to talk with, it is only the Tigers.

You know the split came one year ago. It was the main military leader of the LTTE who broke away from Mr. Prabhakaran's group. The LTTE has murdered more Tamil civilians democratic Tamil civilians and Tamil people - more than those perished in twenty years of civil strife. They assassinate anybody who doesn't agree with them.

Interviewer: ... and taken a tremendous toll on your military as well. But the ceasefire has been holding.

President: But the tsunami, by the way, in one scoop killed half as many people as the war did in twenty years.

Interviewer: And of course Madame President, I would quite like to ask you briefly about your visit to Pakistan. You signed several agreements, MoUs... are you satisfied with the agreements that you have been able to finalise here?

President: Yes. We have been working on this FTA for six years. there were ups and downs, but finally it has been pushed by your Government, by the President and the Prime Minister and by our side.

We are very happy that we have been able to take our very good bilateral relations to a higher level with the FTA we can now corporate on the economic and trade from in a much more extensive way.

We are satisfied and now we have to operationalize it soon within the next two months that is due and it is up to our business communities to take it forward.

Interviewer: Madame President, of course you've come from a political family yourself, it has been difficult. How has the journey been so far?

President: Very difficult. But fascinating, often rewarding, because I like to work.

I am a workaholic. And we have.... I think... achieved quite a lot. We have also had many failures. But when one has a vision and one wants to do things and you see that something is happening for the people of the country, especially the under-privileged, it is very soul satisfying, but also it has been very difficult.

Interviewer: Your mother of course set the trend of women leaders in South Asia....

President: In the world!

Interviewer: Yes in the world, she was the first woman prime minister.

... and after that we have seen so many women come to the highest offices in the land across the region... all of who have had very very difficult personal life histories. What do you attribute that to?

President: I think that's a long story. We'll have to analyse that and somebody has to write a book on this. But it also has a very South Asian flavour doesn't it?

Interviewer: Absolutely!

Madame President, thank you so much for joining us right here on Pakistan Television.

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