Situation Report

Geneva: How far can the two sides go?

LTTE's Political Wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan and party leave Kilinochchi in a Sri Lanka Air Force MI 17 helicopter for Colombo. LTTE photo

The Sri Lanka Navy launched one of its major operations last Thursday to detect weapons smuggling, barely a week ahead of talks in Geneva with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Most of the seaworthy assets were sent out to scour the deep seas off the southern coast. The move came on the orders of the Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda. It followed intelligence reports from a friendly foreign agency that a suspicious ship was headed towards Sri Lankan waters. A reconnaissance flight of the Air Force of the country where the agency is the premier external intelligence arm had spotted the suspicious ship some 200 nautical miles south east of Sri Lanka.

Vice Admiral Karannagoda, who is in the 14-member team for the Geneva talks, ordered the immediate deployment to track down the suspicious vessel. The SLNS Samudura, the former United States Coast Guard vessel Courageous, was diverted to the south eastern waters from patrol duties off the coast of Mullaitivu. Two gunboats - Ranadheera and Ranajaya - together with two Dvora fast attack craft (FAC) moved out of the Eastern Naval Area Headquarters from Trincomalee.

From Colombo, SLNS Sayura, the Indian built Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV) and two more Dvora fast attack craft joined in. The AOPV was scheduled to leave for India for an overhaul but the departure will now be delayed. In addition, at least two vessels from the Southern Naval Area Headquarters in Tangalle were also moved out.

The search of the deep seas off the south eastern coast, in the general area off Kirinda, continued yesterday but there have been no signs of any suspicious vessels. Only the Dvora fast attack craft deployed in the operations have returned to their respective bases whilst the others were still continuing their search yesterday.

The information about a suspicious ship loaded with military hardware moving towards Sri Lanka comes in the backdrop of reports defence authorities received weeks earlier. These reports spoke of the LTTE acquiring large quantities of surface-to-air missiles, stocks of ammunition and other war-like material from a South East Asian country. Such reports prompted the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to initiate preventive action.

Late last month, Chamal Rajapaksa, a cabinet minister, went to the Cambodian capital of Pnom Penh as President's special envoy. He carried a message from President Rajapaksa urging Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, to help curb illegal procurement of weapons in his country by Tiger guerrillas. A top level official delegation from Cambodia is due in Colombo shortly to discuss follow-up action.

Sections of the defence establishment are sceptical about warnings of possible weapons shipments. They contend such warnings have come even in the past when Government delegations were set to meet LTTE for talks. However, senior defence officials point out that in the light of recent developments they would not ignore any intelligence warnings or relax the level of alert the armed forces have been placed in.

Proof that the LTTE was smuggling in military and other hardware has come in the form of two major detections in the Palk Straits in the past weeks. The first was the Navy's discovery in the island of Kachchativu of a consignment of 65,000 electronic detonators in 38 packages on January 29. They bore the markings of a factory in Hyderabad in India. Four persons, said to be fishermen, were arrested in this regard. The coxswain of the boat had been released only after the tsunami in December 2004 having served a sentence in the Jaffna prison after being found guilty of smuggling dynamite.

On February 11, a Navy patrol intercepted a multi-day fishing trawler reportedly smuggling in several items including explosives. On that day, two navy Dvora fast attack craft (FAC) - P 497 and P 473 - had been on patrol in the Palk Straits, south of the Delft Island. FAC P 497 which had been some seven nautical miles apart from P473 had spotted a lone trawler some seven nautical miles north east of Talaimannar. It was spotted speeding towards the island of Iranativu.

When the FAC closed in on the trawler, they had changed course. The Navy patrol gave chase and two sailors boarded the vessel. The trawler bore the name Kusum and four persons were on board, two of them minors. Upon being questioned, the men on board had claimed they were from Negombo. Whilst one sailor stood at the rear of the trawler, the second went on interrogating a person who identified himself as Gamini. He possessed a national identity card and an identification card issued by the LTTE. Speaking in fluent Sinhala, Gamini had said they were on a fishing run. Two ice boxes had contained fish but there had been no nets. There was also no explanation as to where the fish was caught.

Upon further examination, the Navy sailor found a large engine on board. There were also spare parts and spark plugs . There was also a stack of unidentified gadgets packed in aluminium foil. The object was one and half feet long and had been stacked in rows and believed to have been made of steel. By then a loud explosion had engulfed the trawler in a ball of fire. Only the sailor who stood at the rear of the trawler managed to escape and swim to the Dvora that stood some seventy metres away. His colleagues and the four occupants who were on board were feared killed. Their bodies, however, were not recovered. Navy officials said the explosion caused the fire around 5 p.m. and the blaze had continued till past midnight confirming suspicions that a large quantity of explosives was also on board. The next day Navy divers recovered pieces of the hull, the damaged engine (meant for a boat) and melted metal parts.

Further investigations conducted by the Navy have revealed a disturbing factor. The LTTE was paying large amounts of money to multi-day fishing vessel operators in the south to get them to carry out special assignments. As the name implies, such vessels set out to sea for many days and return with large catches. Such boats are said to come from Matara, Chilaw, Kalpitiya and Negombo areas and are known to fish in the Gulf of Mannar. On many occasions they had mingled with Indian fishing boats in the area.

Navy officials say this is the first time a multi-day fishing trawler bearing a name which suggested it was from the south was spotted returning from India. The new modus operandi had been used by the LTTE to avoid suspicion. The vessel in question had moved along the IMBL (international maritime boundary line), the line that divides the territorial limits of India and Sri Lanka in the Palk Straits, having entered from the Indian side. It was moving into Sri Lankan waters when the Navy patrol made the detection.
Adding to these developments were reports that the LTTE had not slowed down preparations for hostilities in the wake of the upcoming Geneva talks. However, they have resisted from triggering off incidents in the North and East with the Colombo-based Joint Operations Headquarters (JOH), the joint apparatus of the armed forces and the police, receiving daily "nil" reports since it was decided to hold talks in Geneva. There have been reports of fresh recruitment and training in the Mannar district where fortification of Sea Tiger activity has continued. In the Trincomalee area, Tiger guerrillas have advised civilians to start building bunkers in their homes. Here too, recruitment and training activity have been stepped up.

However, such preparations do not mean the agenda for the LTTE delegation to the Geneva talks was to raise issues, create a media blitz, end further discussion and revert to hostilities. To the contrary, reports from Wanni make clear they are bent on further rounds of talks even if it is not with the ultimate objective of addressing issues connected with the peace process and a final settlement. In doing so, their main thrust is to make clear to the international community that the blame for the "ineffectiveness" of the ceasefire lays on the hands of the Government. They are ready to catalogue the issues and articulate their case.

Herein lies a problem for President Rajapaksa's Government. There has been a virtual "information overload" on the Sri Lanka delegation for the Geneva talks. The Sri Lanka delegation has been given briefings and documentation to cope with every conceivable issue that the LTTE may raise. This is both during open and closed door sessions. This, no doubt, has caused some concern for the LTTE. Some of the LTTE websites have dubbed the preparations as similar to arrangements to go to war. One has quoted Velupillai Balakumar, former EROS leader and now advisor to LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, as chiding the delegation members as peons.

If the Norwegian facilitators have obtained the consent of the Government to meet the travel and accommodation costs of the LTTE delegation, a host of pro-LTTE media are due to descend on Geneva at their own expense. If one is to go by what happened during the past six rounds of talks between the then United National Front (UNF) Government and the LTTE, briefings for them were often in private. They were updated on developments in meticulous detail and their reportage became the focal point of attention for the Colombo media including some foreign outlets.

Even the Norwegian facilitators were disappointed that only a pro-UNF Colombo based media group was assigned regularly to cover the talks. Their concern hinged on the fact that such coverage did not sufficiently educate the Sri Lankan public of the issues at stake. If a similar situation happens in Geneva, all the efforts of the Government would be in vain for a large segment of the public will be unaware of what exactly went on. At present, representatives of only a few state media organisations are billed to travel to Geneva.
Norway which is making arrangements for the talks has issued a media advisory. They have said The Club Suisse de la presse/Geneva Press Club will be the press centre for the talks. Access to journalists at the talks is to be limited to only two specific events:

1. Opening statement by Erik Solheim, Norwegian Minister of International Development as facilitator and Urs Ziswiler, Swiss Political Director of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs on February 22.

2. Media briefing at 4 p.m. on February 23 after the adjournment of the talks.
Unlike in the past, the Government is to set up an Operations Room at Temple Trees with direct telephone links to the conference venue in Geneva. Government Ministers, representatives of constituent parties of the Government, officials and representatives of the armed forces will be among those on hand whilst the talks get under way. President Rajapaksa is also to be on hand to give immediate directions if they become necessary during talks.

The LTTE delegation for the talks - political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan, "Police Chief" B. Nadesan, "Col." Jeyam (military wing), Ilantheriyan (Political Wing leader for Batticaloa), S. Pulithevan (LTTE Peace Secretariat) and Ms Selvi flew to Geneva from the Bandaranaike International Airport on Friday. They will join team leader Anton Balasingham.

Unlike on previous occasions, the LTTE delegation was not afforded VIP facilities and had to clear formalities as normal passengers. However, thereafter Chairman of the Sri Lanka Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd., Tiran Alles, accommodated them in an upstairs lounge and later escorted them to lunch at the public restaurant.

Before boarding a Sri Lanka Air Force helicopter flight to Colombo, Mr. Thamilselvan declared that the Geneva talks would address the "proper implementation" of the Ceasefire Agreement and there was no need to amend it. Two important issues the LTTE is expected to raise are what it calls dismantling of paramilitary groups and High Security Zones around military installations to enable civilians to return to their homesteads. The LTTE contents that paramilitary groups have found shelter and protection in these zones.

Mr. Thamilselvan also declared the LTTE was seeking "immediate relief" from what he called assassinations, abductions, occupation, violence and harassment. Police Chief Chandra Fernando has become a last minute inclusion to the Government delegation particularly to respond to some of these issues.

Last week Mr. Fernando issued a directive to Asoka Wijetilleke, now DIG Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to detain a group of policemen and question them further with regard to the death of five students in Trincomalee. Earlier, President Rajapaksa had directed Mr. Wijetilleke, who was then DIG (Colombo North) based in Gampaha, to conduct investigations into the incident where commandos of the Police Special Task Force (STF) were allegedly involved.

Acting on the directions of DIG Wijetilleke, Director of CID on Monday obtained detention orders under the Emergency Regulations to detain a Sub Inspector attached to the Trincomalee Police and 12 STF personnel for a month. CID sources said they would be interrogated but made clear their arrest did not, however, mean their complicity. "Further investigations are necessary to determine that," the sources who did not wish to be identified said.

According to statistics made available to the Sri Lanka delegation, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that is tasked to oversee the ceasefire has ruled that the LTTE was responsible for 3471 violations during the period February 1 to December 31, 2005. This is out of 6751 complaints received from the LTTE and 1313 from the Government. According to the SLMM, violations by the Government of Sri Lanka were only 162. There were 946 cases pending for the same period.

The upcoming Geneva talks have at least temporarily halted the two sides from reverting to war. The Government wants the CFA amended to make it more effective. But the LTTE is strongly opposed to it and only wants its own concerns addressed first. How far can the two sides go to accommodate each other? Therein lies the success or failure of the Geneva meet.

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