2009   2008   2007   2006   2005   2004   2003

At stake - Future of the peace process?

Confusing and conflicting views of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarathunga and the instability of her government together have placed the peace process and the conducive environment built over time at grave risk.

Liberation Tigers have unambiguously made known to the world, the Political modalities necessary to make the peace process meaningful. This step of the LTTE was based on bitter past experience and the desire to ensure that negotiations do not get disrupted in between. This step was taken by the LTTE painstakingly and in a reasonable manner, paying meticulous attention to the drafting of the proposals.

The government has, however, not shown a positive response to the LTTE neither has it rejected the proposals in its totality. Instead, the government comes out with conflicting statements from time to time, a step we believe as a tactic to buy time. The president has, in a public meeting, said that the peace talks should be conducted on the basis of the 'package' she put out in 1994. She has further said that a consultative committee comprising of parliamentarians should be appointed to take forward the peace process.

This 'package' that the President refers to, has been already rejected by the Tamil people and packaged by them for posterity. Trying to rejuvenate it, after ten years, is not going to be of any use. It is frustrating to find that the President is trying to establish another procrastinating entity while structures already established in this context remain static and unhelpful.

Making confusion confounded is the stance of President's constituent partners in the Government, the JVP, that a referendum be held in the Sinhalese electorates. These do not augur well for the peace process and not at all conducive for the recommencement of the peace talks. On the contrary, they tend to reflect the reluctance of the government and ground reality that the government is not strong enough to take forward the peace process with sincerity and commitment.

In one meeting the President proclaims a certain view on the peace process and strange enough she refutes it in another meeting. The president's partner JVP proclaims still another view and goes at length to say that the President has accepted the JVP view. A JVP leader goes on record that the TNA legislators should be chased out of the assembly, an expression of naked racialism and supremacist thinking.

All the chauvinistic majoritarian forces working overtime, are engaged in a vicious propaganda against the ISGA proposals submitted by the LTTE. JVP takes the lead in this and the Sinhalese media too does its part in the business of racial-hatred mongering. The political landscape thus looks convoluted. The Sinhalese electorate, mostly in the rural areas, is fed with this poisonous racial-hatred by the JVP. Having rejected the LTTE stand on the peace process, the JVP has already commenced its propaganda for war. They boldly tell the people that the President has endorsed their view.

These and many similar views running contrary to the peace initiatives, circulating in the south, push the Tamil people to the fringe of frustration and compel them to conclude that their national problem cannot be resolved at all.

While procrastinating on the peace process, the government appears to be engaging itself in engineering the disintegration of Tamil nationalism utilising its military intelligence division in acts of sabotage including killings in the east.

Paradoxically, the government while lethargic in its peace initiatives and acting in bad faith when it comes to respecting the CFA, wants to portray a peace environment to the international community. For the Tamil people it is a firm NO whether it be peace, development, resettlement or rehabilitation. They are refused the right to part with their refugee status. They have no peace today neither do they have hope for tomorrow.

The Liberation Tigers do have a moral responsibility to take on board the Tamil psyche as it is today in the context of the peoples' fear and suspicion as to whether there are subtle moves on the government side to defeat Tamil national uprising by the 'peace trap', having failed to achieve same through military means.

Time is fast running out. The LTTE is prepared to wait patiently to negotiate and resolve the Tamil national question. But if the government has a hidden agenda to protract the peace process and restage a game of deception again, the Tamil people are not prepared to bear it anymore. This thinking pattern of the Tamil people, a most reasonable one at that, should be understood in the right perspective by the government and the international community.

21 July 2004

Print this

Email this