The Sri Lankan government formally withdrew from the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Wednesday, January 2, saying it now has the upper hand in the decades-old ethnic conflict.
Sri Lanka also signaled Friday it wanted to end Norway's position as the island's peace broker as international concern mounted over Colombo's decision to end the truce with the Tigers.
Norway was instrumental in persuading the government and the Tamil Tigers to sign a truce in February 2002, and has since then tried but failed to secure progress at successive rounds of negotiations.
Accusing the government of "war-mongering", the main opposition party, which signed the CFA, claimed the decision to scarp the truce had benefitted LTTE's aspirations for an independent state, weakened Sri Lanka and "disappointed" the international community, including India.
"This self-serving decision of President Mahinda Rajapakse has weakened us (Sri Lanka) both internationally and domestically; it benefits only the LTTE's aspirations for a separate state," the United National Party said in a statement.
The UNP said military assistance to Sri Lanka from the US, India and the UK "symbolised the international community's faith in the ceasefire agreement and their backing for the ongoing peace initiative".
"It is clear that not only have the blood-thirsty and war-mongering rulers of this country lost touch with reality but they do not have the capacity to learn from past experiences -- both internationally or locally," the UNP said.
Sri Lankan Cabinet spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, said that the "foremost thing in the country is to uphold national security" which was why the government had taken the decision.
"National security is threatened at every corner," he said.
Rambukwella said the government had also decided to formally end any negotiations with the LTTE.
"The government sees no point in having any attempt to come to a settlement with a terrorist outfit,"
Under the ceasefire that went into effect from February 23, 2002, both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE had the option to pull out after giving two weeks' written notice to Norway, the facilitator of the peace process and the ceasefire agreement.
Fighting has escalated in recent months, and the government now believes it has the upper hand and is in a position to capture the Tamil Tiger defacto state in the north.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the Sri Lankan government will press ahead to crush "the scourge of terrorism," while working on a "practical and sustainable political solution."
He also said the truce deal was "flawed from the start," although he stopped short of calling for Nordic diplomats - frequently accused by Colombo of being sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers - to go home.
The Nordic countries responded by saying they were "deeply concerned" by the worsening situation in Sri Lanka and they are worried that “the violence and human suffering will now further escalate”.
"During the first three years (of the truce) ... as many as 10,000 lives may have been spared," the foreign ministers of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland said in a joint statement.
The Sri Lankan government lashed out at the Nordic countries, saying their claim was ‘dubious.’
Meanwhile, Nordic ceasefire monitors from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) began wrapping up their six-year mission to Sri Lanka.
The SLMM, which kept a tally of violations of the truce agreement, became increasingly ineffective as its access in conflict areas was hampered and fighting escalated. Its role ends with the ceasefire.
In a statement on January 3, SLMM said: “The Government of Sri Lanka has decided to abrogate the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 … effective as of 16 January 2008. Thus the SLMM will terminate its current operational activities in Sri Lanka effective 16 January at 1900 hrs.”
Earlier government spokesman and media minister Anura Yapa said that the decision to abrogate the ceasefire agreement was taken at a cabinet meeting presided by President Mahinda Rajapakse on Wednesday.
According Yapa Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake proposed that the Ceasefire Agreement of February 2002 be abrogated. It was approved unanimously with no lengthy discussion.
Yapa said that the government viewed the 2002 truce agreement, which was backed by the international community, as a "flawed document."
"The government does not want to be a party to a non-functioning ceasefire agreement," Yapa told reporters. "But, it does not imply that the government has shut the door for negotiations."
He said that if the LTTE were to lay down their arms - an unlikely event - the government could resume talks facilitated by Norway which broke down in October 2006.
The Sri Lankan government also said it wanted Oslo to have a "redefined role" in the country where tens of thousands of people have been killed in protracted ethnic conflict.
"Now that there are new circumstances, we naturally expect the Norwegians to have a redefined role," Bogollagama told reporters.
"We will tell you what that role is when the (Sri Lankan) government decides."
Sri Lankan military chiefs have said 2008 will be a turning point in the war and have vowed to eject the LTTE from their defacto state in the island's Northeast.
The decision to abrogate the CFA comes amidst both political and military leaders making declarations in the past weeks that the war to crush the LTTE would be intensified this year.
Last week, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said in public that the truce between the two sides was "moribund" and that the CFA was a "joke".
