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EXCLUSIVE: Interview with the President of Sri Lanka - Tsunami fails to bring the government and rebels closer

Ravi R. Prasad - 4/11/2005

Soon after the tsunami hit hundreds of journalists from all over the world descended on Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Both these countries face serious challenges of secessionist movements. While rebels in Aceh want a separate nation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka are demanding interim administration for the areas that are under their control.

The fierce competition between the journalists led them to speculate on the political situation vis-à-vis the magnitude of the disaster that had struck the two beleaguered nations. They soon they started churning out reports saying that the governments and rebels in the tsunami-hit Indonesia and Sri Lanka would start working closely and this could lead to resolution of the conflict.

Within a few days these prophesies were proved wrong. In Aceh, the rebels reportedly attacked the security forces involved in relief and rescue efforts. As the rebels themselves were not organized enough to provide any assistance to the victims and survivors they chose to disrupt the relief measures. This snowballed into military campaign in Aceh by the Indonesian government troops.

In Sri Lanka, the LTTE is extremely well organized and runs a parallel administration in parts of the northern mainland. The Tamil Tigers control the population, finance, law and orders as well as they are involved in development and rehabilitation of people affected by the 20-year-long conflict.

The cease-fire between the government and the Tamil rebels agreed upon three years ago had helped bring a semblance of normalcy in the war-battered northern mainland referred to as the northern Wanni region. Though the peace talks got derailed and efforts to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table have not been successful in spite of efforts by the interlocutors, the Norwegian government, the two parties to the conflict had begun cooperating and mending fences to an extent.

The tsunami not merely destroyed the development and rehabilitation that had been undertaken over the past three years, but it left behind much more obliteration, something much beyond the imagination and the capacity of the country to deal with.

The Tamil Tiger cadres and government soldiers worked together to rescue and provide immediate relief to the survivors. Their camaraderie impressed the journalists arriving in Sri Lanka, some of them for the very first time. They concluded that the disaster would bring the two sides closer and finding solution to the ethnic conflict that has claimed over 70,000 lives would not be difficult.

Some went to the extent of saying that the resumption of peace talks that had abruptly ended two years ago was not far away. The Norwegian too rushed back hoping to convince the two sides to restart the talks.

But within a few days the two sides were accusing each other of not doing enough for the survivors. The LTTE claimed that the government was not sending adequate supplies to the areas controlled by them. The government retorted with statistics to prove that much more relief was being sent to the rebel-held territory than the government controlled south.

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga remained skeptical about the LTTE restarting the peace talks after suffering a devastating blow from the Tsunami. President Kumaratunga said in an exclusive interview it was unlikely that the LTTE would come for talks because of the disaster.

"I cannot read the minds of the LTTE,'' Kumaratunga said. "I don't know they will come because of a disaster, they will come only if they think they can get what they want nothing else."

The President praised the rebels for cooperating and permitting the government to do the relief work for the people in the areas under their control. "The Tamil Tigers are cooperating very well in the relief efforts and we are sending in tons and tons of food into the LTTE held areas as well as the others. Jaffna, Kilinocnchi and Mullaitivu, which are the three districts out of the five in the north that have been badly affected, we have sent up to two days ago 2000 metric tons of basic food items alone in the first five days. That is not counting the medicines and the medical doctors, equipments that we sent there, like mats and clothing."

The government has estimated the damage caused by the tsunami at $1.8 billion and Kumaratunga said that the reconstruction would be completed in six months. But, so far there are no signs of reconstruction taking off the ground.

The LTTE continues to accuse the government of doing precious little for thousands of survivors in the Tamil dominated north and east of the country. The Tamil Tigers have raised funds from the Tamil Diaspora for the rehabilitation and reconstruction program run by the Tamil Relief Organization, an outfit of the LTTE. With that money and the assistance provided by UN agencies and multilateral organizations rehabilitation work has begun in that region.

The international community has made pledges worth billions of dollars, but what has reached Sri Lanka is a fraction of the commitment. Most of the donor nations want to see a mechanism set up by the government to help the survivors without any discrimination.

The government's secretariat for coordination of the peace process and the LTTE held several rounds of talks to evolve a joint mechanism for rehabilitation and reconstruction, but so far the two sides have failed to reach an agreement. The biggest hurdle is the LTTE's desire to have funds delivered to them directly by the donor nations and other multilateral organizations. The government is not prepared to accept it as it wants to keep a tab on what comes into the country in the name of relief and reconstruction.

Reports from London indicate that the Norwegian special envoy for Sri Lanka's peace process, Erik Solheim met with LTTE's theoretician Anton Balasingham and the rebels have agreed to the joint mechanism proposed by the government. There is no independent confirmation of this report published in a local Tamil daily "Sudaroli".

This could lead to problems within coalition government of President Kumaratunga. The leftist element, Janatha Vimukti Peramuna, a partner in the coalition United People's Freedom Alliance, is vehemently opposed to any negotiations with the Tamil Tigers. The JVP, which was responsible for two bloody insurgencies in the country, has threatened to leave the coalition and bring down the government.

It would be an arduous task for Kumaratunga to negotiate with the LTTE, while keeping the red brigade onboard.