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| Saturday, 26 February 2005 |
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Ceasefire violations and LTTE intentions Three years ago with the signing of the MoU between the Government and the LTTE, many were made to believe it would be the path to an early peace. Although these expectations were unfounded, it must be agreed that the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) has brought about a large measure of peace in the country, in the absence of open conflict, although a genuine and lasting peace seems a long distance away. It is to the credit of the leaders who were critical of certain seriously questionable aspects of the CFA that they did not abandon it after being elected to power defeating the UNP government that signed it. Although President Kumaratunga, the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief, had not been consulted or shown the details of the MoU till after it was signed, did not make her rush into the cheap politics of abandoning the CFA after April 2004. Instead she has stood by what is clearly a flawed document and pressed ahead with efforts to resume negotiations abandoned by the LTTE, when the UNF was in office. That acceptance of ground reality demonstrated a high degree of the qualities of a Statesperson. The President remained committed to the Peace Process, initiated by her, despite the inevitable, even strong rumblings within the ruling UPFA coalition, in a situation in which the LTTE, with its obstinacy over the ISGA, is not making things any easier for her. Incredible Thamilchelvan It is in this context that one has to judge the comments by S. P. Thamilchelvan, the LTTE's political wing leader, on the anniversary of the CFA, which reveal the LTTE's intentions. He has told the Norwegian Special Envoy that the Tamil Tigers were at the end of their patience. The biggest irony is that Thamilchelvan had the gumption to express the LTTE's strongest objections to the ceasefire violations on the part of the Government. He even warns that: "If events proceed in this fashion, we will have to do a serious rethink about the whole situation. We are at the end of tethered patience." When it comes to jokes it appears that Thamilchelvan is hard to beat, especially when he refers to the LTTE impatience over the Government's violation of the CFA. Earlier this week it was revealed that from February 2003, the Sri Lanka forces and police have lodged 5,459 formal complaints of LTTE violations of the CFA with the SLMM, whereas the number of LTTE complaints against government forces and the police was 1,012. The whole basis of Thamilchelvan's credibility collapses when one notes that from number of complaints by either side from February 2003 to December 2004, the SLMM has ruled that LTTE had violated the CFA 2,668 times against 115 violations by the Security Forces and Police. And Thamilchelvan speaks of the LTTE's "tethered patience"! He has also said that, "the dastardly and cowardly act of killing our colleague Kausalyan and our friend Chandra Nehru has dragged us to the brink of war". He accuses the Sri Lanka Army of active connivance and participation with groups of renegade paramilitary forces. He says that "Sri Lanka's claim that its army did not know about the incident until it was too late is a cruel joke". This is more tragic farce than cruel joke as he says it. He discounts completely the fact that Kausalyan did not inform the Army of his movements, despite being his being warned by the Army of threats to his life. The joke, if it is so, is even worse when having accused the Sri Lankan Armed Forces of killing Kausalyan, Thamilchelvan and his fellow armed cadres seek transport and protection from the same security forces it denounces. To add to the farce, the MPs of the TNA who thunder in parliament echoing the LTTE's charges, are now seeking greater security from the same Government's forces after receiving a warning from a source believed to be close to the Karuna faction, demanding that they should all resign their seats in parliament. Relief and the LTTE Former US President Bill Clinton is reported to have recommended that the Government work together with the LTTE on tsunami relief. He sees in this a better chance of understanding between the two groups in the larger pursuit of peace. What Bill Clinton has said is what most persons serious about relief and reconstruction in the North & East have said, including President Kumaratunga. It must be plain to anyone who takes the matter seriously that the LTTE cannot be kept off the entire process, especially in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi. It is an entirely different issue whether the LTTE should be given the commanding role it seeks in relief and rehabilitation in all of the North & East. Apart from their lack of organization in areas which do not come under the control of their guns, it can be questioned as to how one can entrust relief work, including funds and goods to an organization that has been illegally taxing and extorting money from people; abducting children and adults, and is not answerable to anyone, not even the international community, especially when it comes to the recruitment of child soldiers? It is best that the LTTE lowers its rhetoric on this if it expects a reduction in the decibels of opposition from the South for its role in post tsunami relief. As for those in the South, including the JVP and JHU who are most vocal in their protests, one must only remind them that at a time when there was open hostility, there were several occasions when the Government and LTTE reached understanding over immunization of children against polio. If such agreements can be reached even in the midst of major hostilities, why cannot it be done when a CFA, however fragile, is still in place? Looking at it hypothetically and with hindsight, had there been a major cholera outbreak in the Tissamaharama and Hambantota Districts during the JVP uprising in 1988/89, would the JVP have refused to cooperate with the Government to bring it under control, or would it have been wrong to have asked the JVP for such cooperation? Tsunami - an Indian diary The pages of newspapers today are full of stories of tsunami experiences. Some are credible others not. Some are just kitsch, while a few stand out as exemplary. About the most touching piece on the tsunami is that titled "A tsunami diary", in "The Hindu" of February 19. The writer, Nirupama Menon Rao, brought all the pathos of the tsunami through the heart-rending tragedy and travails of a family from India that was the victim of the tsunami in Sri Lanka. One knew the writer to be a good diplomat and a person of deep sensitivity. But this single piece of writing has shown the present Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, to be an excellent writer whose touch of phrase and mastery of language is combined with a scholarly understanding of history and an overarching view of the progress of civilizations. Would there be more diplomats in that cast! |
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