The Liberation Tigers have warned that Premier Mahinda Rajapakse’s vow to alter the four-year-old ceasefire agreement if he is elected President next month could lead to the truce’s collapse.
“According to the ceasefire agreement (CFA) and the peace process, the government of Sri Lanka and LTTE are the only equal partners,” Mr. S Puleedevan, head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat told Reuters.
“Nobody can take unilateral decisions ... that means that that’s the end of the ceasefire agreement,” Mr. Puleedevan added. “So nobody can change it. Nobody can touch it.”
He was responding to undertakings in his manifesto by Mr. Rajapakse – the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s candidate for the November 17 polls – to alter the February 2002 truce soon after being elected.
Mr. Rajapakse, who has wide grass roots support among the Sinhalese majority, has vowed to take a different approach to the talks from his archrival Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose United National Party (UNP)-led government signed the truce and held several rounds of talks with the Tigers.
Attacking Wickremesinghe for “weakening” Sri Lanka’s security forces by signing the ceasefire with the LTTE, Rajapakse said in his manifesto he would “readjust (review) the CFA in a manner that terrorist activities have no place. I will take remedial action after reviewing the CFA monitoring process.”
He added, without elaborating: “I will get regional co-operation [for this]” – which has been widely interpreted as securing India’s support in changing the CFA.
“Mainly due to the UNP’s action to enter into a Ceasefire agreement without farsightedness there has been several problems created,” Rajapakse also said.
“The agreement had been reached without the consensus of the people of the country. Attempts were made to forcibly put this agreement on the public, but the LTTE themselves have broken away from this agreement.”
Elaborating on Rajapakse’s stance, his chief election campaigner Mangala Samaraweera told reporters: “the role of Norwegian facilitation and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will be reviewed immediately. They are not actually doing what they should be doing and we will review it.”
The truce has been under strain for the past two years amid an escalating shadow war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military.
Scores of LTTE members, Army intelligence officers, paramilitary cadres and civilians have died in a cycle of violence which escalated last year in the wake of the defection to the Army of a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna.
The violence, once predominantly occuring in Sri Lanka’s restive east and occasionally in the capitol, Colombo, has spread to almost other parts of the Northeast.
The LTTE accuses the SLFP-led government, headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, of backing a covert war of attrition against them, saying Sri Lankan military intelligence is deploying five paramilitary groups in a concerted campaign of violence against its members and supporters in the eastern province.
Although Rajapakse’s strident Sinhala nationalist policies have made Wickremesinghe the seeming de-facto choice for the island’s minorities, the LTTE is sceptical of his commitment to reigning in the paramilitaries.
Notably, neither of the leading contenders for the Presidential race have commented on the paramilitary campaign, despite demands by the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community that the irregulars be disarmed as stipulated by Clause 1.8 of the CFA.
“There’s less prospect (of progress after the election) frankly speaking, because we can’t find any difference between the candidates,” Mr. Puleedevan told Reuters, referring to stalled peace talks.
“No big changes will happen until the international community exerts pressure on the Sri Lankan government’s side,” he added, critical of the recently imposed EU travel ban on Tigers to its member-states. “They are exerting pressure on the wrong side.”
“According to the ceasefire agreement (CFA) and the peace process, the government of Sri Lanka and LTTE are the only equal partners,” Mr. S Puleedevan, head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat told Reuters.
“Nobody can take unilateral decisions ... that means that that’s the end of the ceasefire agreement,” Mr. Puleedevan added. “So nobody can change it. Nobody can touch it.”
He was responding to undertakings in his manifesto by Mr. Rajapakse – the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s candidate for the November 17 polls – to alter the February 2002 truce soon after being elected.
Mr. Rajapakse, who has wide grass roots support among the Sinhalese majority, has vowed to take a different approach to the talks from his archrival Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose United National Party (UNP)-led government signed the truce and held several rounds of talks with the Tigers.
Attacking Wickremesinghe for “weakening” Sri Lanka’s security forces by signing the ceasefire with the LTTE, Rajapakse said in his manifesto he would “readjust (review) the CFA in a manner that terrorist activities have no place. I will take remedial action after reviewing the CFA monitoring process.”
He added, without elaborating: “I will get regional co-operation [for this]” – which has been widely interpreted as securing India’s support in changing the CFA.
“Mainly due to the UNP’s action to enter into a Ceasefire agreement without farsightedness there has been several problems created,” Rajapakse also said.
“The agreement had been reached without the consensus of the people of the country. Attempts were made to forcibly put this agreement on the public, but the LTTE themselves have broken away from this agreement.”
Elaborating on Rajapakse’s stance, his chief election campaigner Mangala Samaraweera told reporters: “the role of Norwegian facilitation and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will be reviewed immediately. They are not actually doing what they should be doing and we will review it.”
The truce has been under strain for the past two years amid an escalating shadow war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military.
Scores of LTTE members, Army intelligence officers, paramilitary cadres and civilians have died in a cycle of violence which escalated last year in the wake of the defection to the Army of a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna.
The violence, once predominantly occuring in Sri Lanka’s restive east and occasionally in the capitol, Colombo, has spread to almost other parts of the Northeast.
The LTTE accuses the SLFP-led government, headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, of backing a covert war of attrition against them, saying Sri Lankan military intelligence is deploying five paramilitary groups in a concerted campaign of violence against its members and supporters in the eastern province.
Although Rajapakse’s strident Sinhala nationalist policies have made Wickremesinghe the seeming de-facto choice for the island’s minorities, the LTTE is sceptical of his commitment to reigning in the paramilitaries.
Notably, neither of the leading contenders for the Presidential race have commented on the paramilitary campaign, despite demands by the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community that the irregulars be disarmed as stipulated by Clause 1.8 of the CFA.
“There’s less prospect (of progress after the election) frankly speaking, because we can’t find any difference between the candidates,” Mr. Puleedevan told Reuters, referring to stalled peace talks.
“No big changes will happen until the international community exerts pressure on the Sri Lankan government’s side,” he added, critical of the recently imposed EU travel ban on Tigers to its member-states. “They are exerting pressure on the wrong side.”
