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| India-Pakistan |
| US opts for direct contact with the LTTE |
| 2004-01-19 |
| The United States, which had avoided having any direct dealings with the LTTE since banning it in 1998, has now shed its inhibition and opted for direct contact with the group. The Sunday Island has reported that the Staff of the US House Foreign Relations Committee met the head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat, Pulithevan, at the German embassy in Colombo last week. The meeting, albeit in the embassy of another country, is believed to signify a significant change in the US attitude vis-à-vis LTTE. Political observers told Hindustan Times that this change was a result of recent developments in south Sri Lankan politics - Sri Lanka’s political mainstream. Apparently, the US and the rest of the Western world now think that it is better to establish direct links with the LTTE instead of going through the Sri Lankan government, which is unable to take the peace process forward because it is embroiled in a seemingly interminable conflict with the President of the country over various issues. The position of the Sri Lankan government was weakened further when the LTTE said that it could not resume peace talks in the absence of "political clarity" in south Sri Lanka. The LTTE said that it was waiting for a single power centre with a popular mandate and executive power, to emerge in the south. But the development of the war-ravaged, predominantly Tamil, North Eastern Province (NEP) cannot wait for the leaders of south Sri Lanka to end their quarrels. And the US, with the other key donors like the EU and Japan, is keen to see development works taking placing there. The LTTE, which had initially stalled the flow of foreign development assistance on the grounds that this was tied to "unacceptable" conditions, now seems keen on getting the money, if only to show that it cares for the suffering Tamil masses more than the Sri Lankan leaders do. Towards this end, the LTTE is organising a development seminar in Kilinochchi on Monday, to present the NEP’s development needs and seek international funding. It is learnt that, barring India and the US, as many as 15 missions and international bodies will be represented at the meeting. Political observers say that if the political crisis in Sri Lanka does not end soon, the donors countries may be more and more encouraged to link up with the LTTE directly. They further say that a rapprochement between the West and the LTTE may speed up if the expected snap elections to the Sri Lankan parliament brings to power a government with the Marxist-Sinhala majoritarian Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in it. President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party is to sign an electoral pact with the JVP on January 20 and the SLFP-JVP combine is hoping to win the elections. Against the JVP’s strident anti-Americanism on economic issues, LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran has said that he believes in the free economy and private sector-driven development. The LTTE has already begun playing on US fears over the emergence of religious communalism in south Sri Lanka woven around the issue of "unethical conversions" by Christian groups. The US may also be sensitised to the possibility of Islamic militancy taking root in the communally sensitive Eastern districts. According to Sunday Island the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat head, Pulithevan, told the visiting US Congressional staffers that his organisation was "secular". The LTTE has, in the recent past, tried to portray the Muslims’ resistance to it in the eastern districts of Sri Lanka, as being spearheaded by Al-Qaeda, a bogey in US eyes. The LTTE and the Tamil press have also been saying that Muslim youths have formed armed groups to fight the Tamils. Political observers feel that at an appropriate time, the LTTE may use the Muslim issue to get US support. The LTTE has an anti-Muslim past. In 1990, it ethnically cleansed the Jaffna peninsula in 24 hours, and massacred 140 Muslims while they were bent in prayer in a mosque in Katthankudy in the eastern district of Batticaloa. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |