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LTTE'S chief's "Heros' Day" address: Mixed signals on talks

	December 04, 2000

The LITE chief, V. Prabhakaran, has sent mixed signals through his annual Hero's Day oration on November 27. On the one hand, he has said things which make peaceniks and optimists happy. On other, his qualifications, sub-clauses and convoluted phraseology have planted seeds of doubt among hardboiled realists about his intentions. The Tiger chieftain has tried to

placate the commity of nations, which have been putting tremendous pressure on him, by saying that he is ready for talks ;;without preconditions". He has refrained from reiterating his demand for the full withdrawal of the Sri Lankan army from the "Tamil Homeland". He has not asked for an immediate ceasefire. He also has not reiterated his goal of securing a sovereign Tamil Eelam. He has not asked "self-determination" but only "self-rule".



Tamil Tiger rebel leader in his address on clandestine Voice of Tigers radio, which was later put on the LTTE's website, said he was ready for unconditional peace talks with the government. but proposed cessation of armed hostilities before the talks begin. In his annual speech, which capped a week-long celebration by the rebels to honour their dead, Prabhakaran said he was considering proposals by Norway to work towards mutual confidence building and goodwill measures. 'The LTTE is seriously considering the proposals. If the government takes the initiative, we will respond positively," he said .



Prabhakaran in his s 25-minute speech proposed a process of de-escalation of war leading to cessation of armed hostilities and the creation of a peaceful, cordial environment. He argued that his call for reescalation and normalization of civilian life not be interpreted as preconditions. It was practicaly difficult, he said, for the warring sides to suddenly enter into a peace process while continuing hostilities. Prabhakaran charged President Chandrika Kumaratunga with political duplicity, and said she used subtle propaganda statements about the peace negotiations, devolution and constitutional reforms to placate Western nations. The rebel leader justified the battle for a separate state.



V. Prabhakaran said an economic embargo should be lifted to create a conducive atmosphere for the talks, items which he said should not be "misinterpreted as preconditions". The embargo should be lifted and life should be made very normal for Tamils in LTTE-controlled areas, Prabhakaran d demanded.

His statement made no mention of previous demands that the government declare a ceasefire and withdraw its troops in the north and east, conditions the government has consistently rejected. "We are not imposing any preconditions for peace talks. Yet we insist on the reaction of a cordial atmosphere and conditions of normalcy conducive for peace negotiations," he said.

Prabhakaran also said he was seriously considering goodwill proposals made to him during a rare meeting with Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim one month ago in rebel-controlled territory in northern Sri Lanka. If the government takes the initiative, we will respond positively," he said. "Our liberation organisation is prepared to participate in negotiations to find a political solution to the ethnic conflict through peaceful means," Prabhakaran said. But Prabhakaran was ambiguous about the rebel's demand for a separate Tamil state, which the government has said was not negotiable. ''The deepest aspiration of our people is to live in dignity in a political environment where they could rule themselves," he said. He added that unless the government understood this, the Tamil rebels would have no alternative "other than to secede and from an independent Tamil state".



This year, the speech acquired added significance in the light of the Norwegian attempts to bring the group to the negotiating table. Earlier this month, the reclusive peace envoy, Mr Erik Solheim visited the LTTE stronghold of Wani and held talks with Prabhakaran. Solheim later briefed the leadership in Colombo and New Delhi on his meeting. The meeting was seen as an indication that the LTTE was now serious about talks, and might be prepared to negotiate for something less than a separate state. Though there is no indication of this yet from the LTTE, there is no denying of the growing international pressure on the group to come forward for negotiations towards a solution to the •protracted conflict within the framework of a united Sri Lanka.• The British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth affairs, Mr.Peter Hain, who was last week, said he believed the LTTE was aware that there would be no support for an independent Tamil state. He said the group should give up the path of "brutal violence", and appealed to it and the government to begin talks. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Mr Karl Inderfurth, who was on a farewell mission to South Asia, reiterated this view in meetings with politicians and others.

Meanwhile, in an interview a senior LTTE leader, Mr S.P.Tamilchelvam, has said that peace efforts in Sri Lanka will succeed only when hostilities ceased and when the "military occupation" of Jaffna ended. "It is only when the hostilities cease, the economic embargo on a nation of people is removed and when the people have peace of mind can lasting peace efforts succeed," he said in an interview published in the Sunday Times November 26.

Thamilchelvam has said that India supports the freedom struggle of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. He said that India would want meaningful talks to take place in the absence of military coercion.



New Delhi is keeping a close watch on the ongoing developments in Sri Lanka. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said, we New Delhi was in constant touch with the Sri Lankan government and the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister is going to visit India very soon. But, the spokesman refused to comment on Prabhakaran's announcement. A Norwegian delegation, led by state secretary Raymond Johnsen and including special envoy to Sri Lanka Erik Solhein, had held wide-ranging talks with external affairs minister Jaswant Singh and other officials last week.



Since Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga had earlier been urging a return to the negotiating table, Prabhakaran's gambit puts the Government in a bit of a dilemma. It has to weigh its every move with care

The offer is a virtual reiteration of what the LTTE supreme is believed to have told Norwegian envoy Eric Solheim a few weeks ago. Understandably, the Sri Lankan Government has been guarded in its response. Political observers say, it is well known that the LTTE is not the most reliable of negotiators, having 'often used such breaks in the fighting to re-group. However, this is a kind of risk that every negotiating party has to be prepared for, especially when dealing with a militant organisation which has had some success on the battlefield.



Two new factors seem to have forced Mr Prabhakaran to sing the peace tune. First, the confidence• building efforts of the Norwegian negotiator, Mr Erik Solheim, have raised a lot of hopes regarding the possibility of ending the decades-old ethnic conflict. After meeting the LTTE leader a month ago, Mr Solheim gave a sort of good conduct certificate to the former, thus forcing him to do 'something'. Second, the LTTE's presence and its fund-raising activities in Britain have become widespread and the British government is reportedly considering declaring the outfit a terrorist organisation. Therefore, if not a real change of heart, at least lip service to the ideal of a peaceful solution to the conflict has become imperative.



Sri Lanka's State media has praised the speech by the leader of the Tamil separatists, saying it was a major step toward starting a peace process to end nearly two decades of bitter ethnic strife. It is thus apparent that a sizable hurdle to the launching of peace negotiations has been removed," the Daily News said. "By not insisting on conditions to the talks, the LTTE leader has effected a breakthrough of sorts in beginning negotiations because it was the position of the government that there would be no ceasefire prior to talks," it said.



The offer by the Tamil rebel leader for unconditional talks to end the minority ethnic conflict has put the Government under pressure while giving new hopes for renewing negotiations, Political analysts believe that the offer has been made at a time when the international community has come forward to assist in resuming negotiations between rebels and the Government. "It is a good opening gambit," commented Bernard Tilakarantne, a former Foreign Secretary. "Prabhakaran's speech provides a good opening for talks" said Bradman Weerakoon, a former Presidential Advisor on Foreign Affairs. The absence of any mention of Tamil Eelam showed that the LTTE was ready for a solution within Sri Lanka and government should respond to this positively, said Suresh Premachandran of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). But others are less effusive who say "there is nothing new in the offer. "This is what Prabhakaran has said every time he thinks he should toy with talks," said D.Siddharthan of the Peoples' Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). "The speech is a cleverly designed boody-trap. He has employed it before and successive Sri Lankan governments have been trapped," noted Dayan Jayatilleka of the Premadasa Centre.



Agreeing with him, many political commentators have noticed disturbing contradictions in Prabhakaran's speech. Though he had said that there were no pre-conditions, he had indeed stated some preconditions, which the government would find difficult to meet. He had said that the LTTE would "insist" that the war be de-escalated and all embargoes and restrictions on the Tamils lifted to create' a conducive atmosphere for talks. He has also sworn to recapture Jaffna and restore to the people of Jaffna their "sovereignty" over their land.