Despite the Sri Lankan government’s pledge last month to disarm Army backed paramilitary groups, activities by the gunmen have continued and have, if anything, expanded, sparking angry protests and raising doubts over the second round of talks between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers scheduled for next month.
LTTE officials say that far from dismantling paramilitary operations in the Northeast as obliged under the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) and in line with the agreement struck at the first round in Geneva in February, the Sri Lanka military is assisting the paramilitaries in setting up new bases and forcibly conscripting new cadres.
Renewed pressure by the international community, including the United States, is having no effect and, LTTE officials say, is raising doubts as to the efficacy of continuing to hold talks with the recalcitrant administration of Mahinda Rajaapske.
Furthermore, the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), has embarked on an international campaign to demonise and criminalise the LTTE, rather than to engage in mutual confidence building measures, they say.
According to the joint statement issued by the LTTE and GoSL, the latter “committed to taking all necessary measures in accordance with the Ceasefire Agreement to ensure that no armed group or person other than Government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations.”
However, since the Norwegian brokered talks concluded there have been several lethal attacks on LTTE positions, often by uniformed paramilitaries who withdraw to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) bases behind the frontline separating both protagonists.
There have also been a spate of abductions of young men and boys by paramilitaries – which Sri Lankan military spokesmen blame the LTTE for – in the eastern Batticaloa district. Angry, violent protests by local residents secured the release of two teenagers grabbed by paramilitaries traveling in a white van in a SLA-controlled area. However, many remain missing.
International Pressure
The Sri Lankan government is resisting strong international pressure, notably from the United States. Last week the US State Department’s annual Human Rights Watch report on events of 2005 singled out three groups – EPDP, PLOTE and the Karuna Group – as amongst the groups involved in the violence that gripped Sri Lanka last week.
The State Department criticized the LTTE for several killings, but noted that many of the victims were anti-LTTE paramilitaries, military informants and military intelligence officers.
Also last week, Donald Camp, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, also raised the issue of paramilitaries during a House Committee on International Relations.
Describing the demand for the disarming of the paramilitaries as “a serious Tamil grievance,” Mr. Camp noted that GoSL had committed to carrying this out.
Mr. Camp also addressed the issues of lack of religious freedom, flight of refugees to Tamil Nadu, the uneven distribution of relief to NorthEast and the failure of P-TOMS, the joint mechanism to share aid between LTTE and GoSL.
Denials
But the Sri Lankan government meanwhile continues to deny any connection with the paramilitaries, prompting challenges from international ceasefire monitors overseeing the February 2002 truce.
First the Sri Lankan military denied the existence of paramilitaries and lately, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, denied paramilitaries were operating in his government’s controlled areas.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) also challenged the denials, urging the military “to be truthful” and questioning the Minister’s assertions.
SLMM head Hagrup Haukland said the SLMM was monitoring the activities of the armed groups and would present a report at the next round of talks in Geneva from April 19-22.
Last week, LTTE’s Jaffna political head Illantheriyan met SLMM representatives on Monday and lodged a complaint that armed groups were seen operating in the Jaffna peninsula last week despite heavy army presence in the area.
Mr. Samaraweera also asserted in the BBC interview that his government would not disarm the Karuna Group, as it was “an internal problem of the LTTE”.
The LTTE responded said the government was obliged to take responsibility for disarming the Karuna Group because Colombo had meddled in the issue, which was at one time an internal problem of the LTTE, by providing arms and support to the renegade commander Karuna.
Warnings
With Colombo refusing to budge on the miltiary’s support for the paramilitaries, the LTTE has warned that next month’s talks may not go ahead.
“The [next] Geneva peace talks will face grave danger if the Sri Lanka government refuses to disarm Tamil paramilitary organisations and continues allowing them to launch offensive military operations against our military positions in Batticaloa district,” Mr. Anton Balasingham, the LTTE chief negotiator and political strategist, said Monday (13).
He accused the Sri Lankan security forces of actively participating with armed Tamil paramilitaries in the recent attacks on LTTE’s sentry posts in in the Batticoloa district.
“These offensive military operations have taken place after the Geneva peace talks, where the government had pledged to uphold the obligations of the Ceasefire Agreement in disarming the Tamil paramilitaries and putting an end to their violent activities,” he said.
“The involvement of the armed forces in the operations of Tamil paramilitaries constitutes a serious breach of the spirit of the Geneva talks, and also must be considered as an act of bad faith on the part of the government”, Mr Balasingham said.
“The LTTE leadership is watching the current developments after the Geneva talks with serious concern and dismay. So far the government has failed to take any action to contain the violence of the Tamil paramilitaries operating in the Tamil areas, particularly in the eastern province,” he said.
“LTTE leadership is also losing faith in the current peace efforts when Sri Lankan political leaders and senior personnel of the security establishment issue contradictory and hostile statements against the letter and spirit of the Geneva talks,” the LTTE’s theoretician explained.
Demonising
He was referring to hardline, bellicose statements by Sri Lankan government officials, including delegates in the GoSL team for the Geneva talks.
Sri Lankan state media has meanwhile adopted a hostile stance on the LTTE and compromise with them. The hardline position is being adopted by Sinhala-owned private media in Sri Lanka too, which some LTTE officials suspect is being encouraged to do so.
In the international arena, Mr. Samaraweera has been touring several countries, condemning the LTTE to other governments, using provocative language of ‘terrorism’ and calling for punitive actions by those states against the LTTE.
This public belligerency, according to the LTTE, is proof that the Rajapakse administration is not committed to compromise in a negotiated solution to the ethnic question and not to the stabilization of the fraying ceasefire.
Notably, Mr. Samaraweera, speaking in London, referred to a Human Rights Watch report alleging extortion and intimidation of Tamil expatriates by the LTTE. Although HRW denies being instigated by Sri Lanka to publish the report, Mr. Samaraweera was referring to the report a day before it was published by the New York based group.
It has not escaped notice that amid a dispute between the GoSL and the LTTE on whether the February 2002 CFA should be amended or not, US Congressman Frank Pallone introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives on February 8 that it should be renegotiated. (The LTTE, backed by the international community, successfully argued in Geneva it should not.)
“It is necessary that the GoSL and the Tamil Tigers renegotiate a cease-fire agreement and implement the agreement in a productive and successful manner,” Mr. Palone said, adding, “is important that the US continue to reject the actions and violent tactics of the Tamil Tigers and apply international pressure to request that they begin conducting themselves in a responsible and credible manner.”
LTTE officials say that far from dismantling paramilitary operations in the Northeast as obliged under the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) and in line with the agreement struck at the first round in Geneva in February, the Sri Lanka military is assisting the paramilitaries in setting up new bases and forcibly conscripting new cadres.
Renewed pressure by the international community, including the United States, is having no effect and, LTTE officials say, is raising doubts as to the efficacy of continuing to hold talks with the recalcitrant administration of Mahinda Rajaapske.
Furthermore, the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), has embarked on an international campaign to demonise and criminalise the LTTE, rather than to engage in mutual confidence building measures, they say.
According to the joint statement issued by the LTTE and GoSL, the latter “committed to taking all necessary measures in accordance with the Ceasefire Agreement to ensure that no armed group or person other than Government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations.”
However, since the Norwegian brokered talks concluded there have been several lethal attacks on LTTE positions, often by uniformed paramilitaries who withdraw to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) bases behind the frontline separating both protagonists.
There have also been a spate of abductions of young men and boys by paramilitaries – which Sri Lankan military spokesmen blame the LTTE for – in the eastern Batticaloa district. Angry, violent protests by local residents secured the release of two teenagers grabbed by paramilitaries traveling in a white van in a SLA-controlled area. However, many remain missing.
International Pressure
The Sri Lankan government is resisting strong international pressure, notably from the United States. Last week the US State Department’s annual Human Rights Watch report on events of 2005 singled out three groups – EPDP, PLOTE and the Karuna Group – as amongst the groups involved in the violence that gripped Sri Lanka last week.
The State Department criticized the LTTE for several killings, but noted that many of the victims were anti-LTTE paramilitaries, military informants and military intelligence officers.
Also last week, Donald Camp, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, also raised the issue of paramilitaries during a House Committee on International Relations.
Describing the demand for the disarming of the paramilitaries as “a serious Tamil grievance,” Mr. Camp noted that GoSL had committed to carrying this out.
Mr. Camp also addressed the issues of lack of religious freedom, flight of refugees to Tamil Nadu, the uneven distribution of relief to NorthEast and the failure of P-TOMS, the joint mechanism to share aid between LTTE and GoSL.
Denials
But the Sri Lankan government meanwhile continues to deny any connection with the paramilitaries, prompting challenges from international ceasefire monitors overseeing the February 2002 truce.
First the Sri Lankan military denied the existence of paramilitaries and lately, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, denied paramilitaries were operating in his government’s controlled areas.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) also challenged the denials, urging the military “to be truthful” and questioning the Minister’s assertions.
SLMM head Hagrup Haukland said the SLMM was monitoring the activities of the armed groups and would present a report at the next round of talks in Geneva from April 19-22.
Last week, LTTE’s Jaffna political head Illantheriyan met SLMM representatives on Monday and lodged a complaint that armed groups were seen operating in the Jaffna peninsula last week despite heavy army presence in the area.
Mr. Samaraweera also asserted in the BBC interview that his government would not disarm the Karuna Group, as it was “an internal problem of the LTTE”.
The LTTE responded said the government was obliged to take responsibility for disarming the Karuna Group because Colombo had meddled in the issue, which was at one time an internal problem of the LTTE, by providing arms and support to the renegade commander Karuna.
Warnings
With Colombo refusing to budge on the miltiary’s support for the paramilitaries, the LTTE has warned that next month’s talks may not go ahead.
“The [next] Geneva peace talks will face grave danger if the Sri Lanka government refuses to disarm Tamil paramilitary organisations and continues allowing them to launch offensive military operations against our military positions in Batticaloa district,” Mr. Anton Balasingham, the LTTE chief negotiator and political strategist, said Monday (13).
He accused the Sri Lankan security forces of actively participating with armed Tamil paramilitaries in the recent attacks on LTTE’s sentry posts in in the Batticoloa district.
“These offensive military operations have taken place after the Geneva peace talks, where the government had pledged to uphold the obligations of the Ceasefire Agreement in disarming the Tamil paramilitaries and putting an end to their violent activities,” he said.
“The involvement of the armed forces in the operations of Tamil paramilitaries constitutes a serious breach of the spirit of the Geneva talks, and also must be considered as an act of bad faith on the part of the government”, Mr Balasingham said.
“The LTTE leadership is watching the current developments after the Geneva talks with serious concern and dismay. So far the government has failed to take any action to contain the violence of the Tamil paramilitaries operating in the Tamil areas, particularly in the eastern province,” he said.
“LTTE leadership is also losing faith in the current peace efforts when Sri Lankan political leaders and senior personnel of the security establishment issue contradictory and hostile statements against the letter and spirit of the Geneva talks,” the LTTE’s theoretician explained.
Demonising
He was referring to hardline, bellicose statements by Sri Lankan government officials, including delegates in the GoSL team for the Geneva talks.
Sri Lankan state media has meanwhile adopted a hostile stance on the LTTE and compromise with them. The hardline position is being adopted by Sinhala-owned private media in Sri Lanka too, which some LTTE officials suspect is being encouraged to do so.
In the international arena, Mr. Samaraweera has been touring several countries, condemning the LTTE to other governments, using provocative language of ‘terrorism’ and calling for punitive actions by those states against the LTTE.
This public belligerency, according to the LTTE, is proof that the Rajapakse administration is not committed to compromise in a negotiated solution to the ethnic question and not to the stabilization of the fraying ceasefire.
Notably, Mr. Samaraweera, speaking in London, referred to a Human Rights Watch report alleging extortion and intimidation of Tamil expatriates by the LTTE. Although HRW denies being instigated by Sri Lanka to publish the report, Mr. Samaraweera was referring to the report a day before it was published by the New York based group.
It has not escaped notice that amid a dispute between the GoSL and the LTTE on whether the February 2002 CFA should be amended or not, US Congressman Frank Pallone introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives on February 8 that it should be renegotiated. (The LTTE, backed by the international community, successfully argued in Geneva it should not.)
“It is necessary that the GoSL and the Tamil Tigers renegotiate a cease-fire agreement and implement the agreement in a productive and successful manner,” Mr. Palone said, adding, “is important that the US continue to reject the actions and violent tactics of the Tamil Tigers and apply international pressure to request that they begin conducting themselves in a responsible and credible manner.”
