Talks in doubt amid violence

Escalating violence in Sri Lanka is casting doubts on whether the talks scheduled to take place in Geneva later this month between the hardline government of President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Liberation Tigers will go ahead.

Both sides say they are prepared to go for the Norwegian-facilitated talks on October 28-29, the first since February this year.

But deepening mistrust and simmering hostility fuelled by heavy bloodletting raises serious doubts about the talks, despite intense international diplomatic activity this week.

The LTTE’s Chief Negotiator, Anton Balasingham, told a Sunday newspaper this week, the government seems to operate with a clandestine military agenda while pledging to pursue the peace process to placate the international community.

"The Tamil people are deeply sceptical over this deceptive 'war and peace' strategy of the Rajapakse regime," he said.

The proposed peace talks were further complicated Monday when Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ordered that the Northeastern Province, which the Tamils claim as their homeland, should be split in two.

The merger was a key Tamil demand accepted under a 1987 peace accord signed by India on behalf of the Tamils with Sri Lanka. But the Court backed the petition by a key ally of President Rajapakse.

Global concern over Sri Lanka’s escalating violence has also mounted. The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has deplored it.

The European Union and India Friday demanded an immediate halt to violence and an early resumption of peace talks.

A joint statement issued after the India-EU summit meeting said: "Both sides are convinced that violence is not the answer to problems in Sri Lanka, and call on the parties to return to talks immediately."

On Monday the US embassy in Colombo pressed the LTTE to "renounce the use of terror."

"Only through the cessation of violence, a renewed commitment to peace talks, and constructive engagement by both sides can a political solution to this conflict be achieved," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

Yasushi Akashi, the peace envoy of the island's chief financial donor, Japan, and Norway's special envoy, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, held talks with Sri Lankan officials this week while U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher is also due to visit for two days on Thursday.

Akashi and Hanssen-Bauer are also planned to travel to the LTTE-held Vanni in the north to talk with the Tiger leadership during their visits to Sri Lanka.

Two weeks ago the LTTE said it would respond positively to the international community’s calls for both sides to attend Norwegian-facilitated talks in Geneva.

However, the LTTE, dropping any preconditions for the talks, said it wanted Sri Lanka to call off the military offensives which have made a mockery of the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) both sides say they are committed.

Coming in the wake of two months of Sri Lankan military offensives, the LTTE move was widely interpreted as a sign of severe weakness.

And within days of both sides agreeing to talks earlier this month, there were two Sri Lankan offensives against the LTTE, first in the eastern Batticaloa district and the second in the southern Jaffna peninsula.

Both failed, the second spectacularly so, with Sri Lanka army (SLA) units who stormed LTTE positions in front of the Elephant Pass area last Wednesday being routed and suffering heavy causalties in a few hours.

And on Monday a devastating bomb attack on a marshalling site for Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) personnel going on leave killed over 100 sailors and wounded 130 more.

At least 130 SLA soldiers were killed and 450 wounded, some 280 seriously in six hours of heavy fighting in the Muhamalai area last Wednesday. The LTTE say they lost 22 fighters killed, although the Army, reeling from the defeat claimed 200 Tigers are estimated killed.

In the wake of its debacle at Muhamalai, Sri Lanka’s military has continued bombing and shelling LTTE controlled areas, further raising tensions.

Several civilian areas have been targeted. This week international ceasefire monitors have visited destroyed homes and wounded civilians in hospital as the military in Colombo claimed ‘successful’ attacks on LTTE bases.

Diplomats and analysts interview by Reuters this week the latest talks, scheduled under intense international pressure, also seemed doomed even before they began due to the huge distrust between both sides.

"No, there is no rethink. The President has reaffirmed that we will go ahead with the talks whatever," said Palitha Kohona, head of the government's Peace Secretariat, told Reuters Tuesday.

"We will continue retaliating, taking action against them but we will go to the talks."

LTTE military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan echoed Kohona's sentiments and said the Tigers "remained committed to a negotiated settlement" to the decades-long civil war.

But he warned the LTTE would not be passive in the face of Sri Lankan attacks.

“When Sri Lanka Air Force bombers continue to bomb targets in Tamil homeland, far off the defence line localities where the Sri Lankan ground troops engage in frontal assaults, how could anybody expect the Tigers to refrain from targeting military installations?” he asked.