| |
Sri Lankan peace process on the ropes
again
By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO - The firing by Sri Lankan President
Chandrika Kumaratunga on Tuesday of three ministers and
subsequent declaration of a state of emergency have
triggered a major uproar, but even these dramatic events
are unlikely to upset the peace process and a 20-month
long ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) , analysts say.
Defense Minister Tilak
Marapana, Interior Minister John Amaratunga and Media
Minister Imtiaz Bakeer Markar were removed from their
posts under constitutional powers vested in the
president. The move, which stunned many Sri Lankans,
came hours before Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
was due to meet US President George W Bush in
Washington.
And later, Kumaratunga declared a
state of emergency. Its exact details and powers of the
declaration have yet to be made clear, although under
the constitution the president has command of Sri
Lanka's armed forces and ultimate responsibility for law
and order and security.
"This is shocking news,"
said Jehan Perera, media director at the National Peace
Council (NPC), a privately funded peace promoter.
However, a presidential spokesman commented,
"The president has specifically asked me to state that
the ceasefire agreement [with the LTTE] stands, and will
stand and there is no question about it," said spokesman
Lakshman Kadirgamar.
The dismissals add to the
perception of more political instability in Sri Lanka,
where Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe have long had
differences over the peace process in the past few
years. The peace process that began in September 2002
continues, but the LTTE suspended participation in April
and said that progress was too slow. Talks had been
expected to start next month.
Kumaratunga has
swiftly moved to take charge at the three ministries
left leaderless, appointing her confidantes as permanent
secretaries to the institutions. News reports say that
she is planning a major shakeup in the departments that
come under defense, media and interior. She has also
ordered troops stationed at state television stations
and at the government printing press.
Her moves
were triggered by widely-published proposals made by the
LTTE at the weekend on the formation of an interim
administration in the northeast region, where the
majority of Tamils live in the Sinhalese-dominated
nation.
The LTTE said that they wanted to lead
an interim self-governing authority with autonomous
powers - if necessary outside the country's constitution
- to rule the northeast for five years. Elections would
then be held afterwards.
In the structure they
propose for an interim administration, the Tigers want
wide powers over raising revenues and the imposition of
taxes, and over land and law and order. They also want
to have the power to negotiate foreign aid.
The
NPC's Perera said that Kumaratunga's reactions in the
wake of the LTTE's announcement were not warranted by
conditions on the ground. After all, he said, this was
the first time they have made proposals for a negotiated
political settlement to end the 20-year long ethnic
conflict - and these deserve to at least be discussed.
"This is very unfortunate since the LTTE step was
welcomed by the international community led by the
United States," he added.
The sacking of the
three ministers means an end to a shaky cohabitation
between Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP),
which was elected to power in December 2001, and
Kumaratunga, who was elected separately in 2000 while
leading the then ruling People's Alliance coalition.
Kumaratunga had also expressed unhappiness about the way
the military and the police were being run and had
reprimanded the ministers, all Wickremesinghe's
nominees.
But Kethish Loganathan, director of
the Peace and Conflict Unit at the Center for Policy
Alternatives, said that he did not expect the peace
process to be shattered by the latest political
divisions. "In any case, peace talks were only likely to
resume next month to discuss the proposals made by Tamil
rebels," he said.
There was no immediate
reaction from the LTTE to the latest developments. But
public support for the peace process, despite concerns
over the LTTE strengthening its forces and taking
control in the northeast, remains high.
This is
given the fact that the ceasefire has been the longest
so far. The absence of war has also yielded dividends in
the form of economic stimulus and freer movement of
people in the war-torn north and the east, areas that
were once closed to the public.
Although
Kumaratunga well knows that there is massive
international support for the peace process and has said
that she supports a negotiated settlement, her Sri Lanka
Freedom Party in a statement on Tuesday said that the
rebels' proposal for an interim administration would
violate the constitution because it would break up the
state. It said it viewed "with grave concern the
proposals released by the LTTE for the establishment of
an interim self-governing authority which lays the legal
foundation for a future, separate, sovereign state".
Kumaratunga was in the fact the one who invited
Norway to help initiate peace talks in 1999, but failed
to push through the initiative due to an escalation in
the fighting. When Wickremesinghe's UNP took power in
December 2001, he cut a deal with the rebels and
launched Sri Lanka's most successful peace effort so far
since the rebels stepped up their campaign in 1983 for a
separate state for minority Tamils.
(Inter Press
Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
