Peace and caution

From tomorrow, which is significantly Thai Pongal, the day of the harvest and abundance, the North and East will receive items that had been restricted for a long time in these areas.

One way of conveying the message in rebel areas that life is much better in government held territory, is to restrict access to goods, harsh as it may sound. But, in Sri Lanka, the government consistently sent supplies of food and medicines to the rebels who were fighting it.

There is no discernible public complaint about the way the peace process has gone on so far. People from all communities have spoken clearly, indicating that they want an end to the civil war that has been an otherwise peaceful country's bugbear for a long time now.

As far as timing is concerned, it is as good a time as any for the LTTE to show its respectability. It's a time when the world has taken a tough stand on terrorism. Countries across the world which seemed to fight shy of banning the LTTE, Australia and Canada for instance, unceremoniously slapped a ban on the organization after they realized that they could fall off the surfboard which was riding an anti-terrorism wave emanating from the West.

But, the moment the LTTE indicated its willingness to talk, it gained a modicum of international respectability. The European Union excluded the LTTE from the list of banned terrorist organizations on December 29th.

The argument trotted out by the EU was that only terrorist organizations, which fell afoul of the law in European territory, were exclusively qualified to make the list. This flies in the face of the UN convention of terrorism which calls for a global approach in tackling the terrorism problem – a convention to which EU member states are signatory.

Back home, the government has dismantled the road blocks in the capital, gone slow in the random checks on the road, lifted the embargo on restricted goods to the North, entered into a unilateral cease-fire - -still unilateral meaning that any party can go back on it anytime — and virtually retired back to barracks. 

Occasional ceasefire violations are being censored by the mandarins at the Government's information agencies so that the public's "feel -good" high is not spoilt. Then, there has been a hara-kiri exercise in exposing a crack Sri Lankan army commando unit, which has done more than all the Presidents, Generals and Ministers put together did to destabilize the LTTE. We Sri Lankan's have sometimes a mania of treating heroes as traitors and true patriots as villains. The LTTE has thrown a hot-potato at the Indian government, asking for a venue in South India to hold talks. The LTTE is working on getting the ban on them lifted first in Sri Lanka and then in other countries. They will no doubt be re-arming re-training, and re-grouping in the interim.

The Tamil National Alliance will in the meantime be used as a human bulwark against any political eventuality such as an interim council in the North and East.

It is imperative that the people are kept informed every step of the way in the process of negotiations, and that nothing is kept in the dark. It is a matter of regret that only the official response of the visiting Norwegians was released by way of the Royal Norwegian embassy, and that there was no other official information released about the talks by the government.