Britain can reach out to LTTE’s ‘lower levels’: Colombo

M. R. Narayan Swamy

INDIA: Sri Lanka, bogged down by an undeclared war, feels Britain can play a larger role in the now derailed peace process by reaching out to the Tamil Tigers at “lower levels”, a top official said Monday.

Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Dr. Palitha Kohona, however, said Britain would not replace Norway, which brokered a ceasefire between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2002 but is now not in the good books of the regime of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Asked if Britain was trying to become a major actor in the Sri Lankan peace process, Kohona referred to Rajapaksa’s meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair last summer and told IANS: “Britain could play a larger role.” Kohona made it clear that Norway would continue to “have a role to play” to see if Colombo and the LTTE could return to the negotiating table.

In an oblique criticism of Norway, he said Britain was expected to have “greater understanding of and much more familiarity with Sri Lanka” because of its historic relations with the island nation.

Asked how Britain could help, Kohona, considered a confidant of President Rajapaksa, answered: “While every effort had been made in the past to reach out to the LTTE hierarchy, no effort had been made to reach out to the lower levels of LTTE support base.”

The British efforts, he underlined, would go parallel with whatever Norway does. “Norwegians have a role to play (as facilitator),” said Kohona, who also heads the Sri Lankan Government’s Peace Secretariat. He added that all countries including the US, Britain and European Union backed Norway’s facilitator role.

Kohona is here along with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama to meet Indian Government and opposition leaders. They arrived late Sunday from the US and are set to return to Colombo Tuesday evening.

This is their second visit to New Delhi in less than two months. Accompanied by Kohona, Bogollagama came to India Jan 31 soon after taking charge of the foreign ministry.

Kohana, who worked for the Australian foreign ministry before President Rajapaksa invited him to return to Sri Lanka, insisted that no country had the right to treat Colombo and LTTE at par.

“There is no room for treating the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government as equals. Sri Lanka is a sovereign State.

The LTTE is a terrorist group, operating within the Sri Lankan State. There is no room for them to be equals.”

Without naming any country, Kohana said some members of the international community overseeing Sri Lanka’s peace process had engaged in semantics. He took exception to even the description of the Tamil Tigers as “rebels”.

He denied accusations of human rights violations in the military campaign against the LTTE, insisting that Sri Lanka was “one country that has taken great care to avoid any civilian casualties”. Rights groups and Tamil activists, however, alleged large-scale civilian deaths and suffering all over Sri Lanka’s northeast.

Kohana said that “not one single civilian” died when the military seized Vakarai in the island’s east from LTTE.

The LTTE has suffered serious military reverses since last year in the east, where the breakaway Tigers group led by the group’s former commander Karuna has thrown its lot with Government forces.

Kohona said that after much of the East was “cleared” of LTTE, “we will be able to hold elections” in that region.

Indo-Asian News Service