LTTE has no reason to avoid talks - Hindustan Times
INDIA : If Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer manages to
shepherd the sulking Tigers to the negotiating table, Sri Lanka may be
saved what looks like an encore of its 20-year civil war, The Hindustan
Times said yesterday in an editorial.
The editorial said: "Hanssen-Bauer's discussions with the Sri Lankan
Government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders yesterday
followed the rebels' threat to reject the next round of peace talks in
Geneva indefinitely.
There's been increasing violence in the island nation since the
Government and the LTTE met for the first time in three years in Geneva
last February and agreed to strengthen the fragile four-year-old
ceasefire.
The two sides apparently decided to prevent intimidation, acts of
violence, abductions or killings. But hardly had the ink dried when
sporadic violence broke out again, killing scores of people in several
landmine explosions.
The Government and the LTTE must stop the blame game to prevent
rising tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamils spiralling out of
control.
The LTTE abandoned peace parleys saying that its cadres in the North
of the island had to first meet their commanders in the East, which
involves crossing Government-controlled turf.
But now that the Government seems willing to let them be ferried
across in helicopters, the rebels no longer have any plausible reason to
avoid the Geneva talks.
Unless, of course, they fear that the negotiations could lead to a
settlement they don't want. For before the ceasefire, they had been
fighting for a separate state for Tamils.
As peace talks progressed, they dropped their demand for independence
and opted for regional autonomy.So now if the Geneva talks were to grant
them autonomy, it will only be in the areas they control now, which
would seal the borders and delete the idea of a larger Tamil homeland." |