News - Et tu Danes? Denmark pulls out of SLMM

Denmark followed Finland yesterday announcing their withdrawal of members from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) further depleting the Scandinavian monitoring team as the deadline set by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for EU country representatives to withdraw was approaching.

SLMM spokesman in Colombo T. Omersson confirmed that Denmark had announced the withdrawal of its 11 members soon after Finland also declared that it was pulling out a similar number of members from the monitoring mission. The moves will reduce the number of Scandinavian monitors to 35 from 57, while Sweden which has also been called by the LTTE to withdraw is yet to announce its decision.

The developments came after fresh attempts to convince the LTTE to change its position failed earlier this week. The issue was taken up during the visit of Swedish Envoy Anders Oljelund to Kilinochchi where he met with LTTE Political Wing leader, S.P. Thamilselvan who declared that there was no change in their decision to call for representatives from EU countries to withdraw by September 01.

The government yesterday expressed surprise at the decisions by Denmark and Finland to pull out its monitors.

“The decision will mean that they are caving in to a demand of a terrorist group. The whole world including the European Union is trying to get together and fight terrorism and this decision will give the wrong signal”, Government spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told The Sunday Times.

He said that even if the two countries do not revise the decision, there were other Asian countries who were willing to send members as monitors, but declined to name the countries who have offer such help.

However, he said that the government hopes to take up the issue further during the visit of Norwegian envoy Hanssen Bauer who is due in Colombo early next week. He is also due to meet Thamilselvan.

Norwegian embassy spokesman Tom Knappskog told The Sunday Times that the main purpose of Mr. Bauer’s visit would be to discuss the issue about the monitors, but he declined to comment on the decisions taken by Finland and Denmark to pull out their monitors.

The SLMM spokesman said that in view of the decisions by Finland and Denmark they would be forced to restructure their monitoring mission while maintaining its district offices.

The monitors have already suspended sea monitoring activities but maintain offices in Jaffna, Mannar, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara.