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Stagnating peace process a cause for concern, says Dutch envoy
Sri Lanka’s stagnating peace process is worrying with the ceasefire gradually deteriorating, says Reynout van Dijk, the new Netherlands ambassador to Colombo.

“Is there one?” he queried when asked for comments on the peace process.
“Sri Lanka has a ceasefire arrangement since the talks were suspended – not a peace process. Many feel that the ceasefire is gradually deteriorating, thus providing room for those who concentrate on the blaming game instead of coming up with much needed solutions for the conflict. Parties engaged in conflict resolution need to be flexible and empathic,” Mr. Van Dijk said.
“Any party or group that does not take the needs of the other party into consideration (in peace talks) is not really interested in negotiations with sustainable results,” he said.

Mr. Van Dijk was responding to a question on the LTTE stance on negotiations, but he emphasised that all parties involved should share responsibilities in getting the peace talks back on track.

Mr. Van Dijk spoke to The Sunday Times in Jaffna during his two-day visit to the region for his first interview with a local newspaper. A range of issues relating to post-tsunami work, the peace process and the role of the international community were discussed.

His first big task in Colombo, he said, was to revamp the visa processing. “The public complained there were undue delays in the issue of visas and the perceptions of the public are most important to us. That issue has been sorted out. We have streamlined the process and improved our service to the public,” he said happily, after completing a meeting with the Yalpanam Chamber of Commerce outside a Jaffna hotel.

The top Netherlands diplomat was surprised by what he saw in Jaffna. “I had a more negative picture of Jaffna – I thought it was a dying city. I am amazed to see how it is buzzing, given the level of disruption, and how the people are facing up to the situation.” The Netherlands Government is providing a total of over 15 million euros for Sri Lanka’s tsunami recovery work this year, he said.
Asked whether the international community was tired over the stalled peace process, Mr. Van Dijk, a historian who has a degree in economics, said that at some point of time the international community would most likely experience a sense of fatigue as it was the case at similar occasions.

He said he was disappointed over the criticism in many newspapers concerning Norway’s role as a peace facilitator. “The international community is involved as a goodwill measure -- there is simply no other reason to imagine. For what other agenda than humanitarian reasons would Norway take the trouble to take up such a job?

This is a conflict with a long history where everyone involved has a story to tell and the people of Sri Lanka need to recognise this reality.He also said it was unfortunate that the EU declaration of September 26 has been used for political purposes, suggesting a conflict between the EU and Norway concerning Norway’s role as a facilitator.

Mr. Van Dijk said regular development co-operation was widely seen as an investment in a better future for developing countries. “It could be. In Sri Lanka’s case, the level of development co-operation will change in the near future. In the past year or so, there already has been some scaling down by the Netherlands. “How to explain the cost of these investments to taxpayers if the rate of return is low?” he asked.

Peace, he said, was central to the development agenda. “If there was peace, the average economic growth would have been much higher and also development co-operation would go up again.”

Mr. Van Dijk is not supportive to criticism of post-Tsunami work by government agencies, saying it was not easy to speed up things in a disaster of this magnitude. “One must consider the capacity the country had before the tsunami to understand that doing all things at once is simply not possible after such a disaster. Miracles don’t happen. It takes time to recover. Sri Lanka can’t construct so many houses in such a short time when you don’t have enough capacity like masons, carpenters or contractors,” he said.

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