Norway should be neutral - TULF

COLOMBO: Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) President V. Anandasangaree has criticised Norway, saying the country should not mar its neutral role as a facilitator by entertaining the LTTE team in Oslo after their presence in Geneva.

"What is puzzling me is can the umpire in a cricket match entertain one team during the tea interval ?," the TULF chief asked.

Anandasangaree making his observations on the aftermath of the talks in Geneva between the Government and the LTTE states that the visit of the LTTE team to Oslo after talks in Geneva creates a lot of suspicion in the minds of the people.

He said: "This act amounts to be a challenge for both the Government of Sri Lanka and to the 25 member countries of the European Union, which imposed a travel ban and decided not to receive any LTTE delegation officially. The Government also will take it as a betrayal of the trust it placed on the Norwegian facilitators.

The gift of some powerful transmitter by Norway to the LTTE earlier and a regular monthly payment of a fantastic amount to the LTTE's Peace Secretariat, have already prejudiced the minds of the people against Norway's facilitators.

The LTTE is notorious for misusing privileges.To what extent the customs regulations will be violated and at what risk the security of the country will be never known.

Everyone is full of praise for the LTTE for their agreeing to release the children who are under 18. A child 14 or 15 years in 2002 at the time of signing the CFA would be 18 or 19 today.

On the whole, out of the 1,700 children only a handful may be released as an eyewash to the International Community which is very much concerned about the recruitment of children.

Surely the LTTE that has records of people living in countries like Canada and Germany must be having all details of their arrests, detections etc.

The Government should have demanded the release of all such people with details of all persons abducted and the facilitator had a moral obligation to have supported that demand.

With over 3,000 CFA violations against 176 of the Sri Lankan Forces, the Government Team at the Geneva talks had enough ammunition to fire at the LTTE.

In fact, the team leader took off well to be silenced by the threat of walkout by Anton Balasingham, the only English speaking Member in that team as claimed by him. These are the usual tactics of the LTTE.

The LTTE team before leaving for Geneva said that they will only discuss the proper implementation of the CFA and nothing else.

With the thousands of CFA violations complained of by the SLMM against the LTTE, it is the Government that should have made this demand and not the LTTE. This is where the Government made a mistake.

Another important factor is the absence of provision in the CFA to empower the SLMM to take countermeasures for any violations of the CFA.

Such a provision is absolutely necessary for proper implementation of the CFA, a serious lapse in the original draft, not noticed by any one.

The LTTE should have been told that their cadre was admitted into the Government controlled area in batches of 50 and 100 during the first and second month and any number after that, only to do political work.

Organising anti-government demonstrations, hartals, Ponguthamil programs with communal bias, hoisting the Tiger flag, throwing bombs at checkpoints, hacking of Police Officers to death and putting the blame on the innocent civilians, planting of claymore mines, training youths in warfare, compelling elders to undergo training in warfare, disrupting the education of children and University students, deliberately lowering the standard of education and such other similar activities, do not fall under the category of political work.

Even before the LTTE team returned to base, the so called political workers have gone back to their respective places.

The people in the North and East whether they are in the Government or uncleared areas feel that their bondage to the LTTE had been renewed by the Geneva talks. While both parties claim that they had won, the real losers are the people.

I am of the view that the International Community and the Co-Chairs should pressurise both parties to agree for suitable amendments to rectify the flaws in the Agreement, which neither party can rightfully object to.