The United States has expressed concern at the growing trade protectionism of the Sri Lankan government, in the wake of a controversial decision to tax programs imported for the entertainment of minority language speakers of the country.

In terms of total programming hours, English language programs would bear the brunt of the new excise-type tax, followed by Tamil programs imported from India, according to data from AC Nielsen Mediawatch.

In the case of movies, it is Tamil language programming that would pay most of the tax followed by English and Hindi movies.

The United States is the largest buyer of Sri Lankan exports and the trade balance is heavily in Sri Lanka’s favour. Imports of English films, which is one of the few items that Sri Lanka imports from that country would be further discouraged with the proposed imposition of the new tax from April, reported Lank Business Online.

Sri Lanka has also been trying to win concessions to access US markets, including a free trade agreement.

Last year the United States bought Rs199 billion worth of Sri Lankan goods, while Sri Lanka imported only 20 billion worth of US goods according to provisional Central Bank data.

Imports from the United States was about Rs5 billion less in 2005 compared with 2004.

“While we have concerns about the continuing trade imbalance, we are more concerned about the increasing number of trade barriers being erected outside formal trade channels,” says Dean Thompson, Head of Economic and Commercial Affairs at the United States Embassy in Sri Lanka.

“These sorts of para-tariffs impose additional costs and will only serve to reduce the choices of programming available to Sri Lankan consumers. Sri Lanka is a trading nation, and as such, should be looking for ways to increase the free flow of trade; something every reputable study shows will have a positive benefit on the nation’s economy.”

ETV and ART TV, which only broadcast English programs have said they would go out of business if the new tax is imposed, which is more than 100 percent of the value of the royalties paid in some cases.

The government has not specified whether the money raised by taxing Tamil and English language entertainment would be used to develop the almost non-existent domestic Tamil and English television entertainment production, or whether such funds would go to develop the already flourishing Sinhalese tele-drama industry.

Tamil is spoken by the Tamil and Muslim communities of the island; while English is the first language of choice among the Burghers, who are descended from Dutch settlers. Sinhalese is spoken by the majority community of the island. There are no Hindi speakers of the island, but the growing popularity of Hindi movies has prompted many to learn the language.

The government has proposed that imported Tamil, English, Hindi and other movies be charged a special tax at the rate of Rs75,000 per movie, while sitcoms and other serials be charged the same tax per every 5-blocks of half-hour programming hours.

The leaders of three of Sri Lanka’s minority parties, Rauff Hakeem, Arumugam Thondaman, and P. Chandrasekaran, are likely to join the President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration shortly, The Sunday Times reports.

But the governing United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is already gaining strength, with the defection of numerous politicians from the United National Party (UNP), press reports.

The Daily Mirror newspaper even quoted an official close to President Rajapakse as saying that the minority government would soon get the crucial two-thirds majority in Parliament.

President Rajapaksa met Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) leader Arumugam Thondaman and was scheduled to meet Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem on Monday in a bid to win their support for his administration. Upcountry Peoples’ Front (UPF) leader P. Chandrasekaran is also due to meet the President, the paper said.

The CWC has agreed to end its long standing opposition to the Upper Kotmale hydro-power project in return for the cabinet portfolio for Mr. Thondaman, the Sunday Times reported.

They say Mr. Thondaman is likely to get the Airport and Aviation portfolio before the local council polls on March 30 while Mr. Chandrasekeran is likely to get a portfolio linked to the plantation workers, the paper said.

The CWC and the UPF are contesting the local elections in the Nuwara Eliya district on the UPFA ticket while in at least seven other local councils the CWC and UPF are contesting together.

To symbolize the CWC’s new links with the government, Nuwara Eliya District parliamentarian Muttu Sivalingam on Friday took part in a project to build alternate houses for those who will be displaced by the Kotmale project.

Confirming the CWC’s decision to drop his objections to Kotmale power project, Mr. Sivalingam said priority would now be given to the welfare of the people displaced by the project, reported the Sunday Times.

CWC Vice President R. Yogarajan said a party delegation led by Mr. Thondaman on Thursday met President Rajapaksa to discuss a series of long standing issues. He said that among them were supply of electricity for the estate sector, improvement of roads and housing in the area.

After the CWC decided to extend support to the government at the March 30 local elections, President Rajapaksa had directed the Defence Ministry to increase the security for Mr. Thondaman, the report said.

Meanwhile, following a series of defections to the UPFA from the UNP ranks, the Daily Mirror reports that closed-door meetings are on to woo another three UNPers to the Rajapaksa administration.

On top of the list is Nuwara Eliya district UNP Parliamentarian Naveen Dissanayake. Puttalam district UNP organiser Neomal Perera and Ratnapura organiser Susantha Punchinilame too are on the verge of crossing over, the paper reported.

However, the President has said that the members would be offered nothing beyond a Deputy Ministerial portfolio.

Opposition Chief Whip Mahinda Samarasinghe joined the government as the Disaster Management Minister while former Parliamentary Affairs Minister A.H.M. Azwer took up the post of President’s Advisor on Parliamentary Affairs.

Meanwhile Kandy district UNP MP Keheliya Rambukwella was sworn in as the Planning and Plan Implementation Minister of the Rajapaksa government. Mr. Rambukwella received the highest number of preference votes by a UNP Member from the Kandy District at the last General Elections.

While a confident President Mahinda Rajapaksa Thursday kicked off his Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) campaign for local polls, party leader and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, skipped the event and fired another salvo in the again deepening rift between the two.

Addressing a packed forum of local council election candidates at the Sugathadasa Stadium, President Rajapakse said the co-operation of local bodies was required to develop the country through the Mahinda Chinthanaya (Mahinda’s thoughts) – the title of his election manifesto last year.

“Every candidate should go from house to house and from village to village to educate the people on the Mahinda Chinthanaya”, he said.

“I will never forget that it was local government members who helped me to first become the Opposition Leader then Prime Minister and later President of the country when some party leaders were sleeping at home”, Mr. Rajapakse said, taking a swipe at SLFP chief Kumaratunga.

However most at the conference were unaware of the latest spate in the ever widening rift between Rajapaksa and Kumaratunga, who was President for ten years and who had resisted Rajapakse’s appointment to the SLFP ticket.

Ahead of last week’s conference, Kumaratunga, in a hard-hitting letter to the SLFP General Secretary, charged that the gathering was organised without seeking her permission.

Explaining reasons for not attending the conference, Ms. Kumaratunga, said she was simply invited just a day and a half ahead of the event: “I was puzzled when I got a couple of lines, inviting me for the ceremony after inviting some 2000 local council candidates.”

“As a leader who respects party discipline and policies, I cannot accept your invitation”, she said in a letter to General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena.

However her latest salvo comes a day after Ms. Kumaratunga insisted on the need to work amicably and in a determined manner when she addressed a meeting in Gampaha ahead of the local polls. President Mahinda Rajapakse too insisted on the need to work together.

Ms. Kumaratunga said she ordered a meeting of party organisers on February 28, but the Party headquarters had cancelled it without her knowledge. Ms. Kumaratunga said President Rajapaksa assigned numerous duties to all the leaders of the party while sidelining her.

Accusing President Rajapaksa for violating party rules, she said her late father and mother, SWRD Bandaranaike and Sirimavo Bandaranaike led the party while respecting human values.

On his part, during his address President Rajapakse assured the SLFP candidates there was a brighter future for them under his leadership. He asked them to take his case as a good example of how a young local councillor could end up being the President of the country.

Meanwhile, the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which supported President Rajapaksa in the Presidential polls, has been canvassing on the grounds that voting for their party, as opposed to the SLFP, will also ensure support for the President.

JVP Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa told a rally at Piliyandala on Wednesday that if President Rajapaksa was to steer the country ahead, the grassroots level power should be handled by the JVP.

This is despite the KVP also denouncing the government delegation to the peace talks on the grounds that they acted contradictory to the agreement between President Rajapaksa and the JVP.

In other news Sri Lanka’s two major parties, the UNP and UPFA, last week faced fiercely contested legal battles in regard to rejection of their nomination lists by election officers for the forthcoming local government polls.

The contested rejections were mainly over disputed questions concerning allegedly underaged youth candidates in the nomination lists of UNP for the Colombo Municipal Council and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main constituent of the UPFA, for the Gampaha Municipal Council.

Objections had been raised to the nomination lists of the two main parties by the JVP, who used this also in their campaigning.

Mr. Weerawansa told the rally that while they were going round the country with a separate plan to develop each Local Government area, other political parties were going to courts as they could not even file nomination papers properly.

“How could one expect such people to develop the villages when they can not even file nominations properly?” he asked.

It was clear, even as it was being read out by the Norwegian facilitators, that the joint statement by the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government following two acrimonious days of talks in Geneva, was going to ignite a crisis in Colombo. Seasoned observers knew that any optimism that a deal struck in Geneva presaged a more peaceful short term was misplaced. And it took just two days for it to erupt. At the heart of the ongoing furore is the status of the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA): was it amended or not?

On the one hand, the bickering over whether the CFA was amended or not (and despite the government delegation’s clumsy posturing, it was not) and, now, on whether it should have been amended or not, might seem puerile, even incredulously dangerous. Almost forgotten, it seems, is the near daily violence on both sides that in December and January killed two hundred people and seemed to herald a new eruption of Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict.

But for both the Sinhala and Tamil polities, the CFA is at the heart of the contest between two antithetical visions of what Sri Lanka should be.

As far as the LTTE is concerned, the CFA is an internationally recognised agreement that is key to the alleviation of the hardships that a million Tamils are still – four years after it was signed – enduring.

For the Sinhala nationalist phalanx in Colombo - and, despite the best will in the world, this is certainly now the driving force behind the state – the CFA is a mistake (committed by Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP government) that President Rajapakse is duty bound to rectify (both because he said he would and because that is the right thing to do).

To begin with, for the LTTE (and as Wickremesinghe himself publicly stated at the time), the CFA recognises the prevailing ground reality: two separate military formations controlling two separate controlled areas. This separation – concretised in a minimum distance to be maintained between opposing personnel – is arguably the first plank on which the prevailing cessation of hostilities rests.

The LTTE has argued that the CFA is bedrock on which the peace process must be built. For the Tigers, this is less an ideational position, than a manifestation (albeit an unpalatable one for the Sinhala nationalists) of ground reality.

But for the Sinhala far right, it is the CFA itself that recognises – and thus gives life to – what they consider an aberration: the repudiation of the Sri Lankan state’s practical (even if not theoretical) sovereignty over an estimated 70% of the Tamil-dominated Northeast.

Other joint concepts like the P-TOMS and ISGA also had the same intolerable logic, concretising a rupture of Sinhala hegemony, and they too drew the wrath of the Sinhala far right (even before they were inked).

But unlike those structures, whose abrogation or rejection has had little or no impact on the Sinhala polity (particularly given donors’ collective failure to follow through on their conditionality), the collapse of the CFA has far reaching implications. War would be inevitable, for a start, and it is hard to see how a new truce could subsequently be agreed upon without much blood flowing first.

Nevertheless, the angst the CFA stirs amongst Sinhala nationalists frequently manifests in vehement paroxysms such as the sentiments expressed by the JVP and JHU at the All Party Conference (APC) held in Colombo this Monday.

The international community’s staunch support for the CFA and the pressure being brought on both protagonists to abide by it also fuel Sinhala nationalists’ hostility. Despite the strong, sometimes blistering, criticism levelled against the LTTE by some international backers of the Norwegian peace process, there is a gnawing concern that the de facto state in the north has become a routine facet of international engagement in Sri Lanka.

Which is why the Sinhala right is more prepared to risk a war than leave the CFA unchallenged. Its vocal challenge is not simply, as those with indefatigable faith in a liberal polity emerging in Sri Lanka through the peace process are sometimes wont to argue, merely posturing for the voters (though the JVP – unlike the JHU - uses nationalist rhetoric with considerable more precision than an initial glance might suggest).

In fact, the Sinhala nationalist phalanx – and that includes, by virtue of their tendency to engage in anti-LTTE, even anti-Tamil ‘outbidding’, the two main parties - sees a strategic slippage in its ability to secure international support for its political vision: a unitary state subordinate to majoritarian whim.

For a considerable period, particularly during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s appallingly destructive and ultimately abortive ‘war for peace’, tacit international approval for a military solution to the Tamil question and repeated international assertions of support for Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity fuelled Sinhala nationalists’ confidence in international sympathy for their core position.

Little wonder, also, that international advocacy of concepts such as ‘pluralism’ or ‘a multi-ethnic state’ were interpreted by the Sinhala polity as support for their vision of Sri Lanka as a single majoritarian state, posited as these notions seemed to be, against those of ‘homeland’ or even ‘self-determination’ as argued by the other side.

The battlefield stalemate – and that doesn’t mean strategic or ideological exhaustion – of 2001 resulted in the CFA. For both protagonists and all communities, the truce produced welcome relief, which even President Kumaratunga’s vehement opposition to the truce failed to blight.

Four convoluted years later, some observers have argued that the peace process – conducted by leaderships on both sides with international diplomatic support – has generated anxieties and suspicions because of the concomitant failure to include a wider range of actors. In the face of powerful onslaughts against the peace process by the JVP et al, this argument has gained credence.

A quick glance at other successful peace processes suggest the jury is still out on the efficacy of inclusiveness. But in Sri Lanka, as recent developments underline, this notion has allowed powerful spoilers to gain better purchase.

Press reports have suggested that during the Geneva talks, for example, JVP leaders were in constant touch, if not in the same room as President Rajapakse as he was managing his delegation’s performance. Whatever the truth of that, there is no doubt that the JVP and JHU are kept closely informed by the President and have a strong influence over affairs of state, far exceeding even those of the main opposition UNP.

The point is this: if it was the exclusion of powerful players in the margin which is to be blamed for the failures of the peace process so far, then last month a very different dynamic manifested itself. The massive delegation that President Rajapakse despatched to Geneva had a number of Sinhala nationalists, including the constitutional lawyer H. L. De Silva, in its ranks. In Colombo, the same forces were kept permanently in the loop.

And the result was a near total collapse of the talks. Standing on a manifestly public stage – at least in terms of the Sinhala right’s supervision - and, no doubt, working to a specific mandate from the President, the government delegation engaged not in negotiation, but in grandstanding. Acrimony inevitably followed the accusations and counter-accusations.

Progress, limited as it was, was only possible when stripped down, skeletal delegations on both sides (and on the government’s part, without nationalist elements) huddled in a smaller room to thrash out the finer points of the joint statement.

Even then, at one stage, according to press reports, the government delegation flatly refused to accept the title ‘Ceasefire Agreement’ being included in the joint statement, thereby precipitating a crisis that was only averted by robust Norwegian advocacy of international law.

In the wake of subsequent developments in Colombo, that crisis has now returned. The elevated supervisory position President Rajapakse has extended actors like the JVP and JHU cannot easily be withdrawn – even should he want to, and there is no sign he does.

But withdrawn it must be if progress is to be made at the negotiating table. Else, as one LTTE negotiator pithily stated, ‘the next round will [still] be the first round.’

Inclusiveness has thus, since being promoted as a panacea for the ills afflicting Sri Lanka’s peace process, paved the way for a series of impasses. The major failures to advance the peace process – including the scuttling of P-TOMS and talks on ISGA – are linked back to the growing influence of the Sinhala right wing.

Indeed, President Kumaratunga signed the P-TOMS and confronted the JHU and JVP, only under severe international pressure. Last month, President Rajapakse’s delegation reaffirmed its commitment to the CFA, again only under international pressure. On the opposite side to this pressure was Sinhala nationalist resistance.

Ironically, whilst much is made of the role of international pressure on getting the LTTE to the table – and a close examination of the ground dynamics of the last few months does not entirely accord with that claim – there is no sign the Sinhala right will be subject to the same pressures (and if it was, whether it will simply acquiesce and play ball is another matter, of course).

The point here is that the peace process – indeed any peace process – with the LTTE is an anathema for the ever-growing Sinhala nationalist bloc. Efforts to skirt this contradiction in peacemaking and recent attempts to induct the JVP et al into the peace process under the banner of ‘inclusivity’ have only worsened things.

Whilst for many advocates of the peace process, stabilising the badly frayed ceasefire is indubitably the first step to turning around Sri Lanka’s slide towards the abyss, for the Sinhala nationalists this is the first point of resistance to a what they consider a fundamental challenge to their vision of a unitary majoritarian state.

It is in this context that the JVP leader’s declaration on Monday should be seen: ‘We firmly believe that it is better to walk away from the negotiation table without any progress being made, rather than agreeing to any conditions detrimental to the sovereignty of the country.’

LTTE Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist Anton Balasingham explains the circumstances in which the talks were held and the issues discussed.

This interview first appeared in The Sunday Leader.

Q: Could you first of all tell us your assessment of the talks after two days of deliberations?

A: Even though talks ended on a positive note it has been a very tough, difficult dialogue I should say frankly because the government came with a different agenda.

The LTTE from the very start, from the day Mr. Erik Solheim met Mr. Pirapaharan, we were making statements that the agenda for talks will be the effective or rather the smooth implementation of the terms and conditions of the Cease Fire Agreement. But we were disappointed to note from what Norway came and told us that the government had ideas of coming out with certain amendments and with the aim of revising the entire document.

Then I insisted we will not discuss anything about revision or reworking of the cease fire document because our agenda is that we should stick to the letter and spirit of the agreement and only see how we could implement the terms and conditions of the Cease Fire Agreement.

So with all that when the peace talks started I made my initial opening address with the purpose of articulating our point of view. Our objective in coming for the talks as you would have observed from my address was that the talks should be confined to the implementation of the Cease Fire Agreement.

Q: As you point out in the first paragraph of your opening statement itself you said the most important achievement of the Norwegian facilitation of the peace process has been the signing of the Cease Fire Agreement between the government and the LTTE. You also said the CFA was not finalised in haste to the advantage of one party as argued by some critics but to be the foundation on which the peace process can be built. Was that the position you maintained right throughout the deliberations?

A: Exactly. Absolutely. I’m also one of the architects of the CFA document and we spent months. Specific attention was given to each clause and both the parties were consulted with our military experts and Mr. Pirapaharan and from the government side Ranil Wickremesinghe was also informed of the various terms, conditions, obligations and finally both the parties agreed and both parties signed the ceasefire agreement.

So it was not worked out in haste to the advantage of one party. Both parties were given quite a lot of time to work out various formations. So what happened after my initial opening speech, I was disappointed to note chief negotiator of the government side, Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva, insisting there were serious flaws in the CFA and that there should be amendments, revisions and it had to be reworked.

Q: Mr. De Silva said in his opening statement that the CFA in its present form, signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Velupillai Pirapaharan was unconstitutional, and against the laws of Sri Lanka. Is that the position he maintained during the two days of deliberations?

A: Not two days. Later on they had to give it up. After the first day, their legal expert, H. L. de Silva, he came out with the proposition that certain clauses in the ceasefire document contravened the constitution and that it was not endorsed by the President who had executive authority, so on and so forth. I challenged their contention saying that it was signed by both the parties with international assistance.

It was not the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka only who were involved. The Norwegian government was also involved in this agreement and also five Nordic countries. So it was an international agreement and also we know that it is determined by the Supreme Court in the P-TOMS case where the Supreme Court ruled the CFA did not contravene the constitution, therefore we argued and said it is not a question of legal or constitutional validity of the document that is in question.

We have come here with the objective of analysing and arguing that each term, condition and obligation must be implemented and I read out what the main clauses that the government of Sri Lanka has failed to implement.

Q: But wouldn’t you say the government also had a moral obligation to seek a revision because President Rajapakse had signed an agreement with the JVP wherein he said there were clauses in the CFA, which were not only unconstitutional but also leading to separation and compromising national security. He pledged to redo and revise the CFA. Did you therefore expect the government to sit and discuss the implementation of an agreement, which it claimed was unconstitutional and paved the way for separation?

A: We are fully aware of Mahinda Rajapakse’s manifesto, his position with regard to the CFA, and we know that the government delegation brought a team of legal experts to question the legal and constitutional validity of the CFA. But we took up the position and argued there with the Sri Lankan delegation and Norwegians that the LTTE will not discuss any issues pertaining to the revision or the rewording of the agreement. That is not the mandate given to me by Pirapaharan, I said.

In front of me Pirapaharan told Erik Solheim that the LTTE will only participate in the peace negotiations to fully and effectively implement the clauses and terms of the ceasefire document.

So I told the delegation that I have come with a specific mandate from Mr. Pirapaharan to only talk about the implementation of the CFA. I said we will walk out if anybody raises anything or starts discussing constitutional or legal problems pertaining to this document.

I said the moment you claim the CFA is incorrect, then you are coming out of the CFA. That means you are giving two weeks notice for the resumption of hostilities. You better think very carefully, I said. So they kept quiet. Then after that they have been discussing among them and the Norwegians also. Erik Solheim openly said that the agenda for the talks according to Mr. Pirapaharan is to discuss the implementation of the CFA and not about changing the structure or coming out with amendments, so they kept quiet. They agreed.

Matters pertaining to implementation were taken up on the second day. The most contentious issue that was discussed on the second day was the disarming of the paramilitary groups. I took up Clause 1.8 of the CFA.

Q: Does that mean even when the next round of talks comes in April or even thereafter that the issue of amending, revising or rewording the CFA will not arise? That it is now only the implementation of the CFA that will be discussed? That the government has accepted the CFA?

A: Of course, the government has openly issued a joint statement reaffirming its commitment to the CFA. What does that mean? That they have accepted the meaning and content of this document.

Q: Are you saying then in the future the issue of bringing any amendment to the CFA is shut out for good?

A: That is absolutely correct. I can assure you the LTTE will not permit even in the future any suggestions for amendments or rewording of the CFA.

Q: Are you saying the understanding at the end of the two days of talks is that the government of Sri Lanka and that of President Mahinda Rajapakse have in fact accepted this CFA, every word, every comma, every full-stop?

A: Yes.

Q: You were talking about the paramilitary issues…

A: That is very important. There when we raise the issue of paramilitaries, it is very clearly stated in Clause 1.8 that Tamil armed paramilitaries will be disarmed by the government of Sri Lanka and should be offered the opportunity of being fully integrated with the Sri Lanka military structure if they want to. That matter was taken up and I argued at length the violence cause by the paramilitaries.

We also provided the government with ample information, documents stating the entire paramilitary groups, how they operate, the location of their camps, the commanding officers of the various districts, how they are working in collusion with the Sri Lankan armed forced and particularly the Sri Lanka military intelligence.

Q: Did the government team dispute those charges?

A: Wait. We have given documentary proof. Of course the government says no. Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva said, ‘I wish to dispute the arguments and say there is no connection between the Sri Lanka military and the paramilitaries.’ We know they will say that but I insisted there is a connection.

Mr. H.L. De Silva said the concept of paramilitaries does not apply because it entails, he said, quoting me regarding the definition I tabled of paramilitaries, that is paramilitary groups are ancillary forces who work in collusion with the regular forces. So we said these armed groups are working with the army and since they are working with the army under the control of the army, they are being supported and sustained and given sanction by the armed forces. They are undeniably paramilitary forces. I said, ‘Don’t bring any legal arguments, Mr. Silva, because this is the ground reality I am talking about.’

I said, you have no idea what the ground reality is. Because I have been working with the leaders of these paramilitary groups for the last 30 years. Some of them were my disciples. So I know who they are and how they operate and why they operate.

Then I explained the history of these paramilitaries and how they originally took up arms for the Tamil cause, how they joined the IPKF as mercenary groups, then when the Indians left they joined the so-called democratic mainstream as political parties and changed their masters. Their masters are now the Sri Lanka government and military intelligence. So this is the true history of these people.

The IGP, Chandra Fernando came out with a list of killings from various times. I told him it is not the question of individual killings that we are discussing here. It is a question of an armed conflict coming down for the last 25 years. Of course, the LTTE has killed several soldiers. There have been communal riots. And the army has killed a lot of civilians. So if we go through the history of the entire armed conflict I can say 70,000 Tamils have been killed by the security forces. We also killed. Our cadres – 20,000 – were also killed in battle. Therefore I said don’t pick up individual cases and say Alfred Duraiappah was killed, Amirthalingam was killed, etc. Then they said okay, that is in the past but after the CFA we have killed so many people.

Q: Did the government raise the issue of Lakshman Kadirgamar?

A: Yes. I said the government has no evidence to prove the LTTE killed him. They say so because everybody thought Kadirgamar was a target and the LTTE was angry with him. And it is an assumption. Assumptions cannot be a direct argument to accuse somebody unless you can prove. ‘Have you got any proof?’ I asked.

Q: Did the government furnish the proof?

A: No, no. Nothing at all.

Then the question they raised was that recently, in the last few months there has been intense violence in the north -east in which 80 or 90 soldiers were killed and civilians were killed and there were assassinations. Even those killings cannot be categorised as individual assassinations or political killings.

This is a phenomena we call shadow war. A subversive war because some of these paramilitary groups, particularly the Karuna group has launched a dirty war in collusion with Sri Lankan intelligence against the LTTE cadres and we have listed out the various people who were killed— Pararajasingham, Nehru, important journalists like Sivaram, so on and so forth.These are killings done in the context of a subversive war launched against the LTTE by paramilitaries.

So it cannot be categorised as intensified violence but action against the LTTE

Q: You stated that the LTTE conceded to the government the non inclusion of the word ‘paramilitary’ in the joint statement. Were you really being magnanimous or as some people describe you as being a cunning fox got it incorporated through the play of words and trapped the government into accepting the disbanding of paramilitary groups through the joint statement

A: Yes, there is no need to use the concept of paramilitary if you study the text of the joint statement because it specifically states that in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, that these armed groups will not be able to function.When we say in accordance with the CFA, there is a specific clause which is 1.8, which says these armed groups are none other than the paramilitaries. So the paramilitaries are specifically included in an undefined form.

Q: In the joint statement it says the government is committed to take all necessary measures in accordance with the CFA to ensure no armed groups other than the security forces will conduct armed operations or carry arms. Now the government in the same statement says it is committed to upholding the CFA. Now the moment you commit the government to upholding the CFA, Article 1.8 comes into play. Are you now expecting the government on the strength of the joint statement to disband all paramilitary groups including Karuna?

A: Of course they should because they are bound by this statement.And also by the obligations of the CFA they have to disarm the para military groups.We have also requested the government that if our political cadres are to go back to Batticaloa and Jaffna this should be done.You know that a few months back we withdrew our political cadres because of the violent activities of the paramilitaries.

Now we have told the government, you better start disarming these groups and put an end to their armed military operations so that we could send our cadres to the north and east.We are ready to do that.And if anything happens to them, it will constitue a very very serious violation of the joint statement issued by both the parties.

Q: Through this joint statement and the deliberations over two days, you have placed the government and President Rajapakse in a very vulnerable situation in that the President who said the CFA was unconstitutional and will pave the way for separatism,has now agreed to uphold and implement it.The President has thus been put in the position of intentionally violating Sri Lanka’s constitution which is an impeachable offence.Now you have put him into that position.You have also got him committed to disbanding the paramilitaries. Now did the government realise when issuing the joint statement that they were committing to disbanding the para militaries and what have you given in return for all these concessions by the government?

A: I dont want to go into the constitutional complexities because most probably President Rajapakse would have made this statement in his manifesto without considering the serious implications of the CFA. As far as we are concerned the CFA is signed by two parties, the GOSL and LTTE and endorsed by international monitors including Norway and Nordic countries. It is an international instrument. I also told you we know the Supreme Court has made a ruling that the CFA does not contravene your constitution. We have no problem in maintaining our position that the CFA has to be accepted and implemented without any amendments.

But the problem of Mr. Rajapakse, whether he has made any mistakes or faces political difficulties or whatever is not a matter for me to comment.

Q: Once talks on the CFA ends and political issues are gone into. are you expecting the government to start from where the talks stalled, that is with the ISGA or would you expect a fresh approach given the President’s position the ISGA will not be a basis for discussion?

A: Because we are going to talk about various other obligations under the CFA. Only we discussed in detail two issues, about under aged recruitment and the disarming of the paramilitaries. We have given an undertaking of putting an end to recruitment of underage children. Secondly so has the paramilitaries.There is a two month space for it.We have to see whether the government is going to disarm these groups.And if they are disarmed and made disfunctional and their operations halted then we will send our political cadres into Jaffna and Batticaloa. That is one issue.

Second time we are going to take up the issue of High Security Zones.It is a very sensitive and critical issue because it is concerning the security of your country and your military in the north-east and as far as we are concerned it is a fundamentally humanitarian problem.Thousands and thousands of people are thrown out of their houses, their villages,from their farm lands and languishing in refugee camps. So this is a very very important problem. For the last 10-15 years people are suffering

Time has come for the government to take some action because we will definitely come out with some proposals for the government. We are not asking the government to withdraw its troops from the north-east.At least there must be some relocation of these camps to enable and facilitate these people to go back.There are other issues such as fishing restrictions.Next time also there will be critical issues not implemented by the government.We will take it up. Political issues will come only when there is a total de-escalation and normalisation of civilian life in the north and east

That has being our stand for the last so many decades.

Even with Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe we insisted on fulfilling the existential problems of our people. Day to day problems. Here we are going to insist on de-escalation and normalisation of civilian life as a necessary condition to move towards the next stage which is the political discussion.

Even when we go to the political discussion, Mr. Rajapakse will have difficulties because there is a difference. Both the parties are living in different ideological universes.They conform to what is called the Mahinda Chintana but we go by Pirapaharan’s vision. So these are two different universes with a wide gulf between them. He is insisting on a unitary structure and we are fighting for a regional autonomy with self government in our own homeland. To bridge these two conflictual and controversial positions at the negotiating table is not going to be a simple matter. It is going to be a very very difficult task. Let us see.

The joint statement issued in Geneva by the Liberation Tiger and the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapakse after their two days talks came under heavy fire from opposition parties, particularly the Sinhala far right, at the all party conference (APC) on Monday.

All parties were invited save one - the Tamil National Alliance, a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil parties which had swept the Tamil areas in the last Parliamentary elections.

The problem the opposition parties focussed on was that although Minister de Silva in his opening speech at Geneva had said certain clauses in the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) violated the Constitution of the country, at the end of the meeting the two delegations released a statement saying they would abide by it.

As the third round of the APC held at the Presidential Secretariat to brief the political parties on the Geneva talks, the Sinhala opposition parties complained that Chief Government Negotiator Nimal Siripala de Silva’s opening comments were not in accordance with what was stated in the joint statement, at the end of the Geneva meeting.

In return, President Mahinda Rajapaksa however pledged to adopt a broader approach at the next round of talks with the LTTE on April 19-21, though he did not elaborate.

Sinhala ultra-nationalist parties, Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), submitted separate memoranda rejecting the Geneva agreement.

Somawanse Amerasinghe, leader of JVP, told the conference: “The Geneva talks did not adhere to the Mahinda Chintanya but instead was conducted according to Norway’s wishes.” He was referring to President Rajapakse’s election manifesto, titled ‘Mahinda’s Thoughts’ which declared the CFA would be changed to ‘end terrorism.’

“Norway has succeeded in fulfilling the demands of the Liberation Tigers. If the Government disarms armed groups is agreed in Geneva, it should also disarm the LTTE,” he said.

“We firmly believe that it is better to walk away from the negotiation table without any progress being made, rather than agreeing to any conditions detrimental to the sovereignty of the country,” Amarasinghe told the conference.

He also urged the government team to actively work towards rectifying the ‘mistakes’ made at the Geneva talks.

The JVP leader said the government and the people were hopeful that the next round of peace talks would lead towards a lasting solution to the armed conflict.

The JVP, the third force in Sri Lanka’s politics, urged the government to strengthen the armed forces as a means of compelling the LTTE to continue negotiations.

The hardline monks party and government ally, the JHU, threatened to withdraw its parliamentary support and even vowed to take to streets if the government fails to rectify ‘mistakes’ it committed at the Geneva talks.

Blaming the government for taking over the responsibility to disarm the Karuna Group and other paramilitaries, the JHU called it a mistake on the part of the government to have done so.

The main Opposition United National Party (UNP) Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya said contradictory statements were made by Minister de Silva.

The UNP was careful not to criticise the CFA itself – the truce, after all, had been signed by the UNP when it was in power.

“Talks were started saying the CFA is against the Constitution. But the talks closed on a note accepting the CFA. The joint statement is contradicting the views of the Co-chairs to the peace process”, he said.

He said that UNP would prefer to hold direct talks with the President rather than saying a few words in front of the press at a meeting like the APC.

No sooner had the first face-to-face talks in three years between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan state ended in Geneva, controversy erupted anew over what had been agreed at the table: was the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) amended – as the government wanted – or was it not – as the LTTE insisted?

The furore was triggered when H.L De Silva, a Sri Lankan government negotiator and an ideologue for the Sinhala far right, claimed that the CFA had in fact been amended during the Geneva talks. It had, it fact, not been touched, despite the strenuous efforts by the government delegation to force changes to the agreement against the LTTE resistance.

Moreover, Mr. De Silva’s comments – and those by other Sri Lankan negotiators alluding to the same - compelled a furious LTTE, which characterised as the claim “ridiculous and preposterous to register a strong protest with Colombo, warning the claim was “totally unacceptable to the LTTE.”

The LTTE formally expressed their deep displeasure to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse through the Norwegian facilitator.

Mr. Anton Balasingham, the LTTE’s chief negotiator and political ideologue, told the government Wednesday, “these attempts to distort and misinterpret the joint statement issued by the parties after the Geneva talks will damage mutual trust and seriously undermine the peace process.”

Mr. Balasingham was referring to a statement by Mr. De Silva the day before, Tuesday, that the Ceasefire Agreement could be considered amended because ‘fresh concerns were raised and agreed’ in Geneva.

His comment on Tuesday was a follow up by Mr. De Silva to an earlier statement he made the previous Sunday that the agreement had been amended, which Mr. Balasingham and the head of the LTTE’s political wing, Mr. S. P. Tamilselvan, had also dismissed.

“Mr Silva’s central theme is that the issues discussed and undertakings given by the parties in the joint statement are not specifically mentioned in the original document and therefore constitute an amendment of the earlier Agreement,” Mr. Balasingham said on Wednesday.

“This argument is untenable and seriously flawed since the undertakings given by the parties reflect and correspond to the cardinal issues of the CFA and fall within its conceptual framework. Even if the issues discussed transcend the confines of the text of the original truce, they cannot be construed as amendments,” he noted.

“For example, there were six joint statements issued after six sessions of talks between Ranil Wickremasinghe’s government and the LTTE … That doesn’t mean all the issues discussed and undertakings given by the parties amounted to amendments”, Mr. Balasingham explained.

“I am surprised that Mr H.L. De Silva has taken this international Agreement superficially, ignoring or failing to understand its implications. His thesis is illogical and incoherent, based on pure fantasy. This intervention by Mr Silva, we can only conclude, is politically motivated, aimed at placating the Sinhala hardliners, but certainly not a constructive engagement to promote peace”, Mr. Balasingham pointed out.

Mr. Balasingham was referring to a statement made by Mr. De Silva in the Daily Mirror newspaper last Tuesday, in which the government negotiator defended his comments against LTTE’s criticism that his interpretation of the joint communiqué was “bizarre and ridiculous.”

Mr. De Silva listed specific points he claimed underlined his earlier argument that the ceasefire agreement was amended.

Mr. De Silva argued, for example, that the parties had accepted additional responsibilities to those agreed in the CFA, and as such, the agreement in Geneva was an amendment.

“The right of the parties to take “all necessary measures” was more comprehensive in that it extended beyond acts of direct infringement by either party … An additional provision which is supplemental in character is an amendment, though the original text is not specifically altered,” he said.

Previously, addressing a news conference in Colombo on Sunday, Mr. De Silva had stressed that although the LTTE had objected to amendments, the joint statement signed by the two parties at the end of the two day talks meant the original ceasefire document had indeed been changed.

Mr. De Silva said the eight paragraph agreement contained certain issues not found in the 2002 ceasefire agreement and added that the new agreement would supplement the previous one signed between the United National Front government and the LTTE.

“This bizarre interpretation given by the President’s counsel, Mr H.L. De Silva is ridiculous and preposterous and totally unacceptable to the LTTE”, Mr. Balasingham responded to the claim made on Sunday.

“The joint statement clearly points out that the parties discussed issues related the Ceasefire Agreement, reaffirming their commitment to respect and uphold the truce. What was agreed by the parties and enunciated in the joint statement falls within the framework of the Ceasefire Agreement,” he told TamilNet when queried about the issue.

“During the engagement the government delegation raised several issues and concerns … [to] which we were compelled to respond, articulating our view. To argue such discourse entails a new intervention necessitating a supplementary amendment is absurd and illogical,” the LTTE’s theoretician pointed out.

“The LTTE was totally against any amendments or revision of the original Ceasefire Agreement. Our delegation even threatened to walk out of the peace talks if the Sri Lankan government attempted to bring any changes in the original document,” he pointed out.

SLMM rejects Army denials

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) last week urged the military to be truthful on the issue of armed groups operating in the east with outgoing SLMM head Hagrup Haukland insisting “there is no doubt that such groups do exist.”

Mr. Haukland’s hard-hitting statement follows comments reportedly made by top Sri Lanka Army (SLA) brass in the local media after the Geneva talks. The military officials reportedly said there was no evidence to prove that such armed groups operated in the east.

“There is no doubt that such groups do exist. The army should be truthful about this issue,” Mr. Haukland said.

In Geneva, the government gave a commitment to the LTTE that it would ensure no group other than the government security forces would be allowed to carry arms after the LTTE claimed that there were at least five armed groups in operation in the North and East.

Mr. Haukland in an interview with the Daily Mirror referred to the comments made by renegade LTTE commander Karuna Amman who insisted his group would not disarm despite the agreement reached between the government and the LTTE in Geneva.

The SLMM head said he believed Karuna’s comments further substantiated claims that armed Karuna cadres were operating in the east despite the military saying otherwise.

Mr. 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.

Meanwhile the LTTE has alleged that a paramilitary cadre under rebel custody had revealed there were plans to disrupt the Geneva talks by launching an attack against the LTTE in Batticaloa.

The LTTE quoted the Karuna loyalist as saying he was given instructions to launch a claymore mine attack against LTTE Commander Jayarthanan and Tiger Intelligence Official Uma Ramanan on the day talks between the government and the LTTE were set to begin in Geneva. (Daily Mirror)

A senior delegation of the Liberation Tigers met with senior Norwegian officials and politicians in Olso following the successful negotiations with the Sri Lanka government in Geneva last month.

Last Friday, Mr. S. P. Tamilselvan, head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, met with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahre to discuss developments since the talks in Switzerland on February 22 and 23.

The LTTE’s Southern Forces Commander Colonel Jeyam, the Head of Thamileelam Police Mr. G. Nadesan and the Director of LTTE’s Peace Secretariat S. Puleedevan participated in the meeting.

The LTTE also met the Former Foreign Minister, Jan Petersen, Chairman of Defence Committee, and the Former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland who is the President of the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) on March 01

On February 28, the LTTE delegation met with the Norwegian State Secretary for International Development, Anne Margareth Fagertun Stenhammer and State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Raymond Johansen.

Norway’s Minister for International Development, Mr. Erik Solheim, chaired the hardfought negotiations in Geneva. Mr. Solheim has been Oslo’s Special Envoy to the Sri Lankan peace process for almost eight years. He became a minister after his party, in a coalition, won last year’s elections in Norway.

The LTTE delegation also paid a visit to the Norwegian Nobel Institute and met the Director of the institute Geir Lundestad.

Mr. Tamilselvan also met various party officials including Norwegian Labour Party MPs, Christian Democratic Party MPs and the right wing Progressive Party MP Morten Høylund, who is a (FrP) Foreign Affairs Committee member.

Speaking to Norwegian Foreign Minister Gahre, Mr. Tamilselvan conveyed LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s congratulations to Norway’s new Government and expressing appreciation on behalf of the Tamil people to the continued Norwegian engagement in facilitatiting the peace efforts and monitoring the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement.

The disarming paramilitary cadres in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled areas would be the key in demonstrating Colombo’s commitment, he said, discussing developments since Geneva.

“We also emphasized the humanitarian situation prevailing in the Tamil homeland. We also brought to focus the fate of war affected, war displaced and the tsunami ravaged people in our homeland,” LTTE’s political head also said adding that the dialogue between the LTTE delegation and the Norwegian Foreign Minister was constructive.

The LTTE delegation was scheduled to return to Sri Lanka on Tuesday this week, having returned to Switzerland from their visit to Norway.

Nearly a fortnight after the Sri Lanka government agreed in Geneva to implement the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, military repression against Tamil residents and attacks on the LTTE continued.

In the most serious act of paramilitary violence after the Geneva talks, two LTTE cadres were shot dead Saturday at a Vavunathuivu sentry-point in the Batticaloa district - dDespite the government pledging to take “all necessary measures … to ensure that no armed group or person other than Government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations.”

And there were several other incidents ranging from an attack by suspected Army-backed paramilitaries on the family of a Tamil candidate in Jaffna to continuous harassment of fishermen by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and allegations of disappeared LTTE cadres having been arrested by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).

Two Liberation Tigers were killed on Saturday when a heavily armed group of attackers, who entered the LTTE-controlled area in Vavunathivu, launched an attack on an LTTE sentry point before towards Vavunathivu SLA base.

Ten LTTE cadres were at the sentry-point when they were attacked by an armed group, suspected to be Army-backed paramilitaries and military intelligence officers in an encounter that lasted about ten minutes.

International truce monitors, who were notified of the attack. rushed to the area. Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) head Hagrup Haukland said later he had taken up this matter with the Sri Lankan government.

“It is a very serious incident because the attackers had come from the cleared areas in vehicles,” he said, using a term used by the government to refer to areas it controlled – LTTE-controlled areas are ‘uncleared.’

“This attack is yet another blow to the Ceasefire Agreement and is also seriously undermining both parties’ commitment to the Joint Statement from the Geneva talks,” he said.

“If such attacks and killings should re-occur SLMM fears that the next round of talks is put at stake.”

The Nordic monitoring group said it “urges the parties to do all in their power to maintain the ceasefire and to implement the agreed measures spelt out in the Joint Statement, thus creating and maintaining a stable and safe environment for all, conducive to the Peace Process.”

The LTTE condemned the attack in a statement issued by its Batticaloa Political Wing:

“We point out that the killings are a gross violation of the Cease Fire Agreement and provides further evidence that Sinhala extremists, SLA, its intelligence wing and the collaborating paramilitary forces are engaged in nefarious activities designed to trigger an all out war in our homeland to bring further calamity to our people”

“When our fighters returned fire, the SLA soldiers and the paramilitaries withdrew towards the Vavunathivu SLA camp. We have received reliable information that soon after that an ambulance from the SLA camp, escorted by military vehicles, drove towards Batticaloa,” the statement said.

“We strongly condemn the attack and killings of the two LTTE cadres, and point out that the killings are a gross violation of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA),” the statement said.

But SLA Spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe denied any military involvement in the Vavunathivu attack.

The LTTE has also accused the government of failing to honour its pledge to disarm armed groups in the NorthEast, especially citing the Karuna Group of continuing to carry weapons in government-controlled areas in the eastern province.

LTTE Batticaloa district political head Daya Mohan was quoted as saying that since the conclusion of the Geneva talks the Karuna Group has penetrated Batticaloa town and has setup its offices in the area.

A recent issue of the Karuna Group Tamil newspaper, Alai (Waves), published colour photographs of Karuna cadres reportedly undergoing military training somewhere in the East, reported the Sunday Times.

The paper also confirmed the opening of an office in Batticaloa town by the political wing of the Karuna Group.

“There has been no change since the Geneva talks. The government security forces continue to harbour armed groups in their area. This does not augur well for the future”, Daya Mohan said.

Meanwhile, the family of one of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) candidates for the Jaffna Municipal Council was attacked by suspected paramilitary cadres last Friday.

Other ITAK candidates and civil society organisations have accused paramilitary operatives of being behind the attack. The Tamil National Alliance, the main Tamil party in the Sri Lankan parliament, is fielding candidates for the local government polls under the ITAK symbol.

In other news, the fishermen from Valligamam south and west have suspended all fishing activities in northern seas from Saturday in protest against SLN forces’ persistent harassment and attacks on fishermen, the Fishermen Societies Consortium in Jaffna said Friday.

370 families of fishermen in Mathagal and 212 families in Seenthipanthan, Urany and Senthankulam may face death due to starvation should this boycott drag longer, TamilNet reported.

The fishermen are demanding freedom to fish without hindrance and complain that SLN attacks on fishermen fishing in the seas of Chullipuram, Urany, Senthankulam, Seenthipanthan and Mathagal are on the increase.

The Fishermen Societies Consortium further said that a SLN Dvora patrol boat Thursday rammed into a boat belonging to the secretary of a fishermen society in Chullipuram intentionally in the high seas causing the boat to capsize and injuring and throwing overboard the secretary’s son.

“Though more than twelve incidents of this nature had occurred in our fishing waters during last week alone and as repeated complaints to the SLN authorities remain unheeded, we have decided to boycott fishing,” said the members of the Consortium of Fishermen societies.

Meanwhile, the Liberation Tigers in Trincomalee said Thursday that they have submitted fresh evidence to the SLMM to confirm that five of their members who have been reported missing since 25 February were arrested by SLA soldiers.

“Our organisation has lodged a fresh complaint based on evidence though eye-witnesses to substantiate our earlier complaint,” said Mr. S. Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the LTTE.

“The LTTE members were arrested while they were travelling from Aathiamkerni towards Ralkuli, in Muttur, south of Trincomalee, in an area held by our organisation,” Mr. Elilan said.

“We immediately brought this matter to the SLMM in Trincomalee. The SLA has, however, informed the truce monitors that no such arrests were made,” he said.

“Today we renewed our complaint made earlier to the SLMM stating that we are in a position to provide evidence to prove our complaint. We are yet to receive a response from SLMM on this matter,” Mr. Elilan told Tamilnet Thursday evening by telephone.

In his report Mr. Elilan said he was given details of the five missing cadres and the events leading to their disappearance which makes him firmly believe they were in the hands of the army.

However the SLA has denied Mr. Elilan’s claims. The Daily Mirror also quoted the SLMM as saying it had no knowledge of the alleged arrest the evidence the LTTE says it had given to the ceasefire monitors to prove the allegations.

The SLMM also charged both parties of violating the ceasefire agreement by constructing bunkers at Omanthai.

SLMM’s acting spokesman Robert Nilsson told the Daily Mirror there were complaints from both parties accusing each of constructing bunkers and defence lines.

“Our monitors confirmed that both parties have constructed or repaired their bunkers and defence lines, in what can be seen as a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement”, he said.

The spokesman said the military and the LTTE agreed to dismantle these constructions soon. “We will continue our investigations into the matter and hope the parties will keep their promises”, he added.

Sinhala nationalists reacted angrily last week to a statement published by the US State Department which recognised Sri Lanka’s conflict as one based on ethnic identities and the LTTE as a product of this tension.

“Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils have been in armed conflict with the majority Sinhalese government in Colombo since the 1970s, seeking to establish an autonomous region in northeastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE (also known as the ‘Tamil Tigers’) has been the leading force in that conflict since the 1980s,” a statement welcoming the agreements reached last month at the talks in Geneva said.

Sinhala nationalists argue that Sri Lanka’s conflict is merely a phenomena of terrorism, rather than one based on ethnic grievances.

“The editor of the State Department web site either does not know what this conflict is all about or expressing the long established belief in the minds of the State Department officials, who have been fed by the US Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) who served in Colombo since the eighties, that Sri Lanka’s conflict is between the minority Tamils and the government controlled by the majority Sinhalese,” one newspaper supportive of the Sinhala nationalist position.

Despite the hopes of most of Sri Lanka’s people, almost every indicator suggests that this week’s talks between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government in Geneva will be acrimonious. Even the release of prisoners by both sides has been largely ignored by those anxious about the prospects of peace. To begin with, the mutual respect that is sine qua non of successful negotiations is completely lacking. What ought to be an exercise in joint problem solving is instead being approached by Colombo as ‘a continuation of war by other means,’ to paraphrase Clauswitz.

The opening salvo was fired last week by President Mahinda Rajapakse himself, in an interview with Reuters. Speaking ten days before the first direct talks between the protagonists in three years, President Rajapakse did not use the opportunity to send a conciliatory message of cooperation to the Tigers and the Tamils. Instead, digressing unnecessarily on sensitive matters unrelated to the agenda of the forthcoming talks, he railed against the notions of a Tamil nation and homeland and even threatened the LTTE. His comments have predictably raised hackles across the Tamil community. The LTTE response two days later was acidic and its own warning, though more subtle than Rajapakse’s, was equally unmistakable.

Nothing has sent a clearer message as to the Norwegian brokers’ expectations of these talks than the media blackout that has been hurriedly imposed. According to the Swiss hosts, the press will have two opportunities - before the talks kick off and after they ‘adjourn.’ This, as is now well known in Colombo, is at the insistence of the Sri Lankan government. But, as President Rajapaske ought to know full well, this is unlikely to thwart Sri Lanka’s resourceful media hounds. But it has certainly dampened expectations.

Ever since the Norwegians’ shock announcement mid-January about the imminent talks, there has been a peculiar degree of anxiety in Colombo which has not been alleviated even by the professional advice of US-based negotiation experts. This, in turn, seems to have fuelled an unhelpful hostility in the south, with even the American advisors suffering the Sinhala regime’s ire (particularly, it seems, for making the unspeakable suggestion that the government try to build bridges with the LTTE so as to pave the way for future agreement). The entire saga has been a pitifully ludicrous sight.

And despite the Norwegians’ best efforts, a crucial, even pivotal problem - contradictory stances on the agenda - has not been resolved, with Colombo reverting at the last minute to its earlier stance - already rejected by the LTTE - that changes to the February 2002 ceasefire agreement (CFA) be discussed. The LTTE delegation has stated repeatedly that it has been mandated by the Tiger leadership to only discuss the implementation of the truce and not changes to the text. The reason, the LTTE argues, is that it is Sri Lanka’s failure to implement crucial aspects of the CFA that has led inexorably to the dangerous instability that has rocked the island’s Northeastern areas for the past few months. The problem is therefore, the LTTE argues, one of will, not practicality. The talks, for the Tigers, are thus about testing Colombo’s commitment to de-escalation.

And the signs are not good. Instead of engaging with the issue of Army-backed paramilitaries according to the spirit and intention of the CFA, Sri Lanka is splitting hairs on technicalities and attempting to escape its obligations. There seems to be no recollection of the maelstrom of violence that has gripped the Northeast since December and abated only in the past few weeks. And everyone knows that the present lull is not necessarily going to last. It hardly inspires confidence that President Rajapaske is more concerned with organizing a political circus around a fiction of a peace process than in taking resolute steps to help take down the sword dangling over the actual one.

But President Rajapaske cannot be described as a man of the moment. Indeed, he has a history of being a man of the wrong moment - we have not forgotten, for example, how, barely three days after the tsunami wiped out tens of thousands of Sri Lankans, his first public comment was to assert that the LTTE should not receive any of the international aid being raised. Arguably, he thus contributed more than anyone else to destroying the communal amity the indiscriminate waves spurred. Now he has contributed more than anyone else to poisoning the mood before this week’s crucial talks. Moreover, instead of dealing boldly with the demonstrable threat to peace posed by the Army’s paramilitary forces, President Rajapakse is instead sending his delegation with a deal-breaking brief - to re-write the CFA. The irony is, where others see ineptitude, he sees guile.

Norwegian-brokered talks between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government in Geneva this week look set to be acrimonious and confrontational, even though they are only centred on the February 2002 ceasefire agreement.

Whilst the LTTE has said it is wants to discuss the failures of implementation of the agreement, the government is at the last minute, reverting to demanding that the agreement be re-drafted. That, the LTTE says, is out of the question.

As this edition goes to print, the Sri Lankan delegation, which includes four ministers, the Navy commander and Police Chief and is led by Chief Negotiator Nimal Siripala De Silva would be arriving in Geneva, ahead of the talks on Wednesday and Thursday. The other ministers are Jeyraj Fernandopulla, Rohitha Bogollagama, and Feriel Ashroff.

The LTTE delegation, led by the movement’s Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist, Mr. Anton Balasingham is already at the venue, at the secluded Chateau de Bossey 22 km northwest of Geneva.

Apart from Mr. Balasingham and his wife – flying in from London – the other LTTE delegates arrived Saturday – to a rousing welcome from Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates in Switzerland.

Expatriate Tamils greeted the LTTE delegates upon their arrival at the airport with flowers and garlands. The airport was decorated with rebel flags of red and yellow. An estimated 35,000 Tamils live in Switzerland which has the largest ex pat Sri Lankan Tamil community after those in Canada, Germany and Britain.

Press access to the talks are limited to the opening statements by the Norway, the broker and Switzerland, the host, on Wednesday and to the media briefing immediately after the adjournment of the talks on Thursday, Swiss officials said.

The strict restrictions were imposed after the Sri Lankan government insisted on reducing the profile of the talks – the first face-to-face negotiations between the two protagonists since 2003.

Bus transport will be provided for registered press personnel from the Geneva Press Club at 7.00 a.m. Wednesday in time for the opening statements by the facilitator of the talks, Norwegian Minister of International Development Erik Solheim and Swiss Political Director of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Urs Ziswiler.

While the Sri Lanka government is proposing to present a draft of an amended Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) prepared by its legal team, LTTE Chief Negotiator Anton Balasingham said this week that his delegation had a mandate from the LTTE leadership only to discuss the implementation of the February 2002 CFA.

The central issue the LTTE is likely to raise, with regards non-implementation of the CFA is that of the Army-backed paramilitary groups which have been waging a ‘shadow war’ against LTTE members and supporters.

Amongst five groups the LTTE is expected to provide details on and demand the dismantling of – as per Clause 1.8 of the CFA – is the ‘Karuna Group’ named after a renegade LTTE commander who defected to the Sri Lankan armed forces after his rebellion against the LTTE leadership was crushed in a lightning offensive over the Easter weekend 2004.

President Mahinda Rajapakse, who last week, adopted a confrontational approach towards this week’s talks, warning the LTTE not to ‘push him to the wall’ has offered to ‘rein in’ – rather than disarm - armed groups operating alongside the military against the LTTE.

That is unlikely to satisfy the LTTE, which is likely to stand by its demand that Clause 1.8 of the February 2002 truce stipulates the paramilitaries should be disarmed and had provided a 30-day period to do so.

The mood remains one of tense hostility, despite the release of prisoners by both sides last week. The LTTE released two policemen in its custody and the government released four LTTE cadres. All the prisoners had been arrested last year after entering the other side’s controlled areas without notice.

“The most likely outcome in Geneva is not going to be war or peace, but another in-between option,” said Bart Klem, the Dutch co-author of a World Bank-funded report released last month, ‘Aid, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka.’

But that may be an optimistic reading. Whilst the guns have been largely silent in the past two weeks, there is sporadic violence and the Northeast remains tense.

Normality is returning to northern Sri Lanka after the region went to the brink of war in January residents told Reuters, but many are awaiting the outcome of the this week’s talks: if they fail, the violence could erupt again.

Troops keep up a high presence on the streets of the Jaffna peninsula, dominated by the Tamil community, hemmed in by rebel lines and seen as a key objective for the LTTE.

Jaffna residents say some young men are still crossing into LTTE territory every weekend for military training. Further south in the de facto rebel capital, Kilinochchi, most say they hope talks will avert war, but others say it remains inevitable.

“There have been talks before and nothing has come out of it,” vegetable vendor Mutu Balu, 36, told Reuters as camouflaged LTTE vehicles drove past.

“The Sinhalese majority government will never concede to the Tamils’ demand and fulfill their rights to self-determination.”

“The violence of the army has stopped,” Tamil shopkeeper S Poobalaratham told Reuters as an armoured personnel carrier growled up the road. “We don’t hear firing, we don’t hear bombs and mines going off. We hope and pray this will continue.”

Reuters reports that many companies are waiting to see the outcome of the talks before investing in the $20 billion (11.5 billion pounds) economy, and trade on the local stock market has been volatile in recent weeks on intermittent fears of renewed hostilities and peace hopes.

International ceasefire monitors are insisting that there are indeed ‘armed elements’ operating in government-controlled areas in the volatile Eastern Province although there is no proof these armed groups had the backing of the military.

The announcement by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) follows an announcement earlier by Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry stating that a joint search operation conducted by the Police and Army in the Welikanda area last week failed to substantiate claims that ‘paramilitaries’ were in operation or had even existed in the area.

However the SLMM insisted it has proof armed elements were operating within government-controlled areas in the Eastern Province and had even confronted them on at least one occasion.

The ceasefire monitors however said there was no proof to say these groups were operating with the assistance of the military and added that only the terminology used to describe them differed with the LTTE alleging they are paramilitaries and the SLMM referring to them as an ‘armed element.’

Speaking to the Daily Mirror SLMM spokeswoman Ms. Helen Olasfdottir said the word ‘paramilitary’ only applied to an armed group operating with the assistance of the military while an ‘armed element’ is a group operating independently.

“We never said there was proof of paramilitaries operating as that would implicate the military as assisting an armed group. We said there are armed elements operating in the East. That means we are saying there is proof an armed group is operating in the East but we don’t have proof to say the group is operating with the assistance of the military,” she said.

The LTTE has however often repeated that armed groups operating in the East have the direct backing of the military, a charge denied by the Army.

The Defence Ministry said in its release that “the search and clear operation covering Karapola, Mutugala, Wadumunai and Thiruchchena villages in south-west, north-west and south-east of Welikanda in the Eastern Province under government control confirmed once again that no infiltrators or any other alleged paramilitaries have sought entry into those areas either for settlement or otherwise.”

The search operation follows the abduction of employees attached to the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) in Welikanda with the relief agency and the LTTE claiming that ‘paramilitaries’ were responsible for the abduction.