The Norwegian-facilitated peace process was adrift this week after the Liberation Tigers said Saturday they would not go to talks - postponed once already - that were scheduled in Geneva for April 24-25, due to Sri Lankan military interference with a requested safe-conduct transport of LTTE commanders for a crucial pre-negotiation strategy meeting.
Amid escalating violence and communal tension in many parts of the Northeast, the indefinite postponement of the second round of talks in Geneva has alarmed diplomats and Sri Lanka’s residents.
Having refused to provide the customary helicopter airlift for LTTE commanders in the East to travel to Vanni for the central committee, the Sri Lanka military also refused to let Colonel Sornam and Colonel Bhanu travel by Sea Tiger boats shadowed at a distance by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) boats.
The Tigers accepted international truce monitors’ offer to hire a civilian vessel for the transport, on the condition the SLN was not involved. That plan fell apart when at the last minute Colombo insisted the Navy would escort the civilian ferry. The Tigers called off the transfer and said they could not go to Geneva until the central committee had met.
If making transport arrangements for a LTTE conference ahead of the Geneva meeting was this hard, then the talks themselves could hardly be expected to be productive, diplomats told Reuters.
The impasse came amid a new high in violence which has left at least 70 people dead over the past two weeks. The US and other international actors have condemned the violence and demanded a return to negotiations.
The US has blamed the LTTE for the upsurge in violence and praised Colombo’s restraint.
However, diplomats say neither side is demonstrating enough flexibility to show commitment to the peace process, Reuters reported Monday.
The European Union, Japan, Norway and the United States, co-chairs of Sri Lanka’s donors’ group, expressed grave concern on Friday about the worsening situation in the country and condemned recent violence.
“The co-chairs also strongly encourage the parties to build confidence and an environment conducive for progressing toward lasting peace for all Sri Lankans,” a statement said.
The co-chairs are to meet in Tokyo on April 24 to review the situation and the peace process.
Many international actors have demanded Sri Lanka disarm Army-backed paramilitaries blamed for a series attacks on LTTE cadres and supporters. Meanwhile, the Tigers deny responsibility for the recent series of deadly ambushes against Sri Lankan security forces, but few analysts or diplomats believe them.
“There are various things that could be done that would not be very difficult that would allow the talks to take place,” one diplomat told Reuters. “But neither side is willing to allow them.”
Analysts point out that Colombo could easily pave the way for the LTTE strategy meeting and thus, the Geneva talks, by providing a helicopter to swiftly transfer the commanders to Vanni and bring them back a few days later.
Under the 2002 Norway-brokered truce that ended almost two decades of fighting, the Sri Lankan government had been providing helicopters for top LTTE officials traveling through government-held territory.
It has turned down several requests for air transport in the past, but started doing so with more frequency after relations became strained following a series of violent incidents since December.
Senior LTTE officials travelling through government-controlled territory have been murdered by Army-backed paramilitaries.
Without the talks as a safety valve, ambushes against Sri Lanka’s military and ethnic riots in the island’s northeast are expected to escalate further, Reuters reported. Some experts fear that could even include attacks within the capital Colombo, which would wreck investor confidence in the $20 billion economy.
Some diplomats believe neither side could win a war and so neither side will start one. But with both sides saying they could win if war was forced upon them, others fear that escalation could rapidly turn into a full-on conflict in the north and east that could devastate communities also hit by the 2004 tsunami.
It is the second time such attacks have pushed the island to the brink of war this year - the last was before the first round of talks was agreed. Some see them as a form of bloody brinkmanship and expect the meeting to eventually happen.
The government agreed at the first round of talks in Geneva to stop armed groups using its territory for attacks on the Tigers, but now says it cannot find any to disarm - a line that has upset the Tigers.
“I just see this as the LTTE playing tough,” analyst Rohan Edrisinha at the Centre for Policy Alternatives told Reuters.
“The immediate goal of the LTTE is to see that the government does something to rein in or restrain [paramilitary] forces and they are going to use the threat of postponing the talks.”
Swedish Major-General Ulf Henricsson, head of the unarmed Nordic mission overseeing the cease-fire, said he still believed both sides were not acting in the interests of their people but that he was also slightly more optimistic.
“I think it’s at its peak now,” Henricsson told Reuters in his Colombo headquarters, referring to the recent violence. “I’m not so afraid of a full scale war. If there was a military solution for one of the parties, we would have seen that by now.”
But for now, the Geneva talks remain off. The Tigers say they will not go until they can meet with their eastern commanders, and the government is preventing them from being transported to the Tiger headquarters.
“Until the hurdles in front of us to attend Geneva talks are removed and a more conducive environment created, our Geneva team is unable to come to the Geneva talks,” head of the Tiger political wing S.P. Thamilselvan said in a letter to Norway.
But the suspected Tiger ambushes are also seen as strengthening the hand of President Mahinda Rajapakse’s hardline Buddhist and Marxist allies, who oppose any concessions to the Tigers.
Rajapakse owes his election to a Tiger-inspired boycott that kept away Tamil voters seen as likely supporters of his more conciliatory opponent. At the time, some analysts took that as a sign the Tigers might have judged they were gaining too little from peace.
Sri Lanka’s stock market, closed for most of the last week due to the Sinhalese and Tamil new year, fell over 4 percent on Monday, with traders digesting the news of recent violence but still confident that talks would ultimately take place.
Norway, which brokered the original truce, said special envoy for the peace process Jon Hanssen-Bauer would fly into Colombo on Tuesday for urgent talks with both sides.
Amid escalating violence and communal tension in many parts of the Northeast, the indefinite postponement of the second round of talks in Geneva has alarmed diplomats and Sri Lanka’s residents.
Having refused to provide the customary helicopter airlift for LTTE commanders in the East to travel to Vanni for the central committee, the Sri Lanka military also refused to let Colonel Sornam and Colonel Bhanu travel by Sea Tiger boats shadowed at a distance by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) boats.
The Tigers accepted international truce monitors’ offer to hire a civilian vessel for the transport, on the condition the SLN was not involved. That plan fell apart when at the last minute Colombo insisted the Navy would escort the civilian ferry. The Tigers called off the transfer and said they could not go to Geneva until the central committee had met.
If making transport arrangements for a LTTE conference ahead of the Geneva meeting was this hard, then the talks themselves could hardly be expected to be productive, diplomats told Reuters.
The impasse came amid a new high in violence which has left at least 70 people dead over the past two weeks. The US and other international actors have condemned the violence and demanded a return to negotiations.
The US has blamed the LTTE for the upsurge in violence and praised Colombo’s restraint.
However, diplomats say neither side is demonstrating enough flexibility to show commitment to the peace process, Reuters reported Monday.
The European Union, Japan, Norway and the United States, co-chairs of Sri Lanka’s donors’ group, expressed grave concern on Friday about the worsening situation in the country and condemned recent violence.
“The co-chairs also strongly encourage the parties to build confidence and an environment conducive for progressing toward lasting peace for all Sri Lankans,” a statement said.
The co-chairs are to meet in Tokyo on April 24 to review the situation and the peace process.
Many international actors have demanded Sri Lanka disarm Army-backed paramilitaries blamed for a series attacks on LTTE cadres and supporters. Meanwhile, the Tigers deny responsibility for the recent series of deadly ambushes against Sri Lankan security forces, but few analysts or diplomats believe them.
“There are various things that could be done that would not be very difficult that would allow the talks to take place,” one diplomat told Reuters. “But neither side is willing to allow them.”
Analysts point out that Colombo could easily pave the way for the LTTE strategy meeting and thus, the Geneva talks, by providing a helicopter to swiftly transfer the commanders to Vanni and bring them back a few days later.
Under the 2002 Norway-brokered truce that ended almost two decades of fighting, the Sri Lankan government had been providing helicopters for top LTTE officials traveling through government-held territory.
It has turned down several requests for air transport in the past, but started doing so with more frequency after relations became strained following a series of violent incidents since December.
Senior LTTE officials travelling through government-controlled territory have been murdered by Army-backed paramilitaries.
Without the talks as a safety valve, ambushes against Sri Lanka’s military and ethnic riots in the island’s northeast are expected to escalate further, Reuters reported. Some experts fear that could even include attacks within the capital Colombo, which would wreck investor confidence in the $20 billion economy.
Some diplomats believe neither side could win a war and so neither side will start one. But with both sides saying they could win if war was forced upon them, others fear that escalation could rapidly turn into a full-on conflict in the north and east that could devastate communities also hit by the 2004 tsunami.
It is the second time such attacks have pushed the island to the brink of war this year - the last was before the first round of talks was agreed. Some see them as a form of bloody brinkmanship and expect the meeting to eventually happen.
The government agreed at the first round of talks in Geneva to stop armed groups using its territory for attacks on the Tigers, but now says it cannot find any to disarm - a line that has upset the Tigers.
“I just see this as the LTTE playing tough,” analyst Rohan Edrisinha at the Centre for Policy Alternatives told Reuters.
“The immediate goal of the LTTE is to see that the government does something to rein in or restrain [paramilitary] forces and they are going to use the threat of postponing the talks.”
Swedish Major-General Ulf Henricsson, head of the unarmed Nordic mission overseeing the cease-fire, said he still believed both sides were not acting in the interests of their people but that he was also slightly more optimistic.
“I think it’s at its peak now,” Henricsson told Reuters in his Colombo headquarters, referring to the recent violence. “I’m not so afraid of a full scale war. If there was a military solution for one of the parties, we would have seen that by now.”
But for now, the Geneva talks remain off. The Tigers say they will not go until they can meet with their eastern commanders, and the government is preventing them from being transported to the Tiger headquarters.
“Until the hurdles in front of us to attend Geneva talks are removed and a more conducive environment created, our Geneva team is unable to come to the Geneva talks,” head of the Tiger political wing S.P. Thamilselvan said in a letter to Norway.
But the suspected Tiger ambushes are also seen as strengthening the hand of President Mahinda Rajapakse’s hardline Buddhist and Marxist allies, who oppose any concessions to the Tigers.
Rajapakse owes his election to a Tiger-inspired boycott that kept away Tamil voters seen as likely supporters of his more conciliatory opponent. At the time, some analysts took that as a sign the Tigers might have judged they were gaining too little from peace.
Sri Lanka’s stock market, closed for most of the last week due to the Sinhalese and Tamil new year, fell over 4 percent on Monday, with traders digesting the news of recent violence but still confident that talks would ultimately take place.
Norway, which brokered the original truce, said special envoy for the peace process Jon Hanssen-Bauer would fly into Colombo on Tuesday for urgent talks with both sides.
