Sri Lanka gives peace another
chance By Tarini Unnikrishnan
NEW DELHI - Sri Lanka has begun a brand new
chapter in the resolution of its 21-year-old civil war
by inviting Norway back to broker a peace accord with
the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE), even as
Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar warned that Oslo
was being asked to return under "seriously redefined
parameters, [which] included a much shorter leash".
Kadirgamar, who chose to travel to India and
China for his first visits abroad last week after his
appointment as the island nation's foreign minister
following elections earlier in April, in an interview
with Asia Times Online said President Chandrika
Kumaratunga was "very clear" that Sri Lanka's
sovereignty would never be compromised, either during
the negotiation process or as a consequence of it.
Significantly, Kadirgamar indicated that
Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which had just
returned to power after the elections, had been in
"back-channel contacts" with the LTTE over the past
couple of years. This had been happening even as the
LTTE was participating in parallel talks with the rival
UNP government of then premier Ranil Wickeramasinghe,
which had been mediated by Norway, Kadirgamar said.
After all of these failed fits and starts, it
seems the LTTE is now willing to be "much more pragmatic
and realistic" about a solution. Under the
circumstances, both Colombo and the Tamil Tigers have
realized that the "most urgent priority was to provide
relief and rehabilitation measures for the north and the
east", the most devastated parts of Sri Lanka,
Kadirgamar added.
A Norwegian envoy this week
paid a visit to Colombo, led by Norwegian Deputy Foreign
Minister Vidar Helgessen. Erik Solheim, a special
adviser to the Norwegian foreign ministry, met the
Tigers' political head in rebel-held territory on
Monday, a day after he and Helgessen held talks with
Kumaratunga. To the media, Solheim described both
meetings as constructive, and said he was carrying
messages between the two sides, but gave no details. He
said there were reasons to be optimistic that peace
talks would resume - but not immediately. Norwegian
Foreign Minister Jan Peterssen will arrive in Sri Lanka
towards the end of the month.
"It's a cold
start, the Norwegians have to be there," said
Kadirgamar. "We need a third party facilitator." The
LTTE wants one, he explained, but emphasized that this
time, the Norwegian role would be far more
circumscribed.
"So far they had been running the
show. The previous government was only taking dictation.
All this had to stop. Our problems with the LTTE are
domestic in nature. The Norwegians have to learn to be
true facilitators, no more, no less," Kadirgamar said.
Significantly, the Sri Lankan minister also
indicated that Colombo was willing to compromise with
the LTTE on setting up "some sort of an administration"
in north and eastern Sri Lanka, especially to administer
relief and rehabilitation measures.
It could be
called anything, he said, as long as the sovereignty of
the country was not at stake. He was referring to the
collapse of the previous peace talks when the LTTE
announced the setting up of an Interim Self-Governing
Authority (ISGA), with huge powers to rule that could
call Colombo's authority into question.
A
role for China and India Kadirgamar's visit to
Shanghai last week, where he participated in a 60th
anniversary meeting of the Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific and took the
opportunity to meet senior Chinese leadership, seems to
have been made with the intent of inviting Beijing to
put some of its teeming billions of dollars as
investment into war-torn Sri Lanka. He met Chinese Vice
President Qing Hong, state councilor Tang Jiaxuan,
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and CCP Politburo member
Qian Qichen.
In India, meanwhile, the Sri Lankan
foreign minister's objective seemed to have been to
persuade New Delhi to further involve itself in the
renewed attempts at peace with the LTTE, especially
since Norway's new role was now being redefined.
Analysts pointed out that Sri Lanka had always
kept India "on board" all the peace negotiations of the
previous years, even if New Delhi had refused to
publicly get involved in its domestic troubles, after
its humiliating withdrawal from that island country in
1990.
Analysts also said that Kumaratunga had
received a shot in the arm when New Delhi privately
disapproved of Norway's previous mediation efforts,
perceiving it to be "far too accommodating of the LTTE",
and referred to the incident last year when a Norwegian
monitor had tipped off the Sea Tigers about an attack
intended to be carried out by the Sri Lankan Navy. An
infuriated Kumaratunga had taken the incident as
evidence that Wickeramasinghe was being "too soft" on
the LTTE and "not tough enough" on the Norwegians.
When the Tamil Tigers announced that the ISGA
would have complete command and control over marine and
offshore resources, including oil, in the seas adjacent
to the north and the east (areas over which it had
control), both New Delhi and Kumaratunga saw red. A
furious New Delhi viewed it as an attempt to "fuel
instability in its southern neighborhood", and knew the
move would be seen as "vindication" by other insurgent
movements in its own country, such as in Kashmir and
Nagaland.
Especially after the assassination of
former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE in
1991, New Delhi was deeply aware of the need to "contain
the LTTE" and its activities all along its southern
flank, analysts added. That is why, despite the fact
that India was in the middle of an election, Kadirgamar
seemed to have no trouble meeting his counterpart,
External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, as well as
National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra, in New Delhi
last Thursday.
Kadirgamar pointed out that there
was "political consensus across the spectrum in Sri
Lanka that India must get more involved in the peace
process". He pointed to the enormous contrast 15 years
ago, when the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) had
violently demanded the expulsion of the Indian
Peace-Keeping Force from Sri Lanka, calling it a
manifestation of "India's expansionist designs". Not
only is the JVP in alliance with the government today,
but JVP leader Somawamse Amarasinghe recently stated
that a proposed defense pact with India should be "an
important aspect" of Sri Lanka's foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Kadirgamar said he will travel to the
US to meet Secretary of State Colin Powell on May 12 to
keep him apprised of the new developments in Sri Lanka.
The US, he added, had been hugely supportive of the
peace process by banning the LTTE and calling it a
"terrorist organization".
Asked about his visit
to Shanghai, Kadirgamar said he had told Vice President
Qing that he would like to send a number of "young
Marxist politicians" who had recently been elected to
parliament in Sri Lanka for a visit to China, "so that
they could see for themselves how China had reconciled
communism with its stunning skyscrapers and great
cities".
Jokingly, he said the Chinese vice
president asked him, "What books do these young people
read their Marxism from?" adding,"Things change, nothing
remains static."
"That," Kadirgamar added, "was
also the lesson Sri Lanka must learn."
Tarini Unnikrishnan is based in New
Delhi, India, and has been writing on foreign affairs
for the past 10 years.
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