COLOMBO, 5 June 2003 — Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday rejected a government offer of talks on greater financial autonomy as European diplomats launched a fresh bid to salvage Sri Lanka’s Norwegian-backed peace process.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said there was no change in their stance despite a letter from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday calling for dialogue to end the deadlock and revive peace negotiations.
“We regret to say that your suggestions are unsatisfactory and therefore unacceptable,” the LTTE’s London-based chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham said in a letter to the prime minister released to the media here.
“...We are prepared to resume negotiations if you reconsider your position and offer us, for our consideration, a draft framework for an Interim Administrative structure along the lines proposed by our leadership.
“We hope that you will consider our suggestion favorably,” Balasingham said referring to an interim council, on which the Tigers want a majority, to decide the political and financial future of the embattled northeast region.
Colombo had offered financial authority to the LTTE, but the rebels are holding out for greater political power as well ahead of a final settlement to a conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.
The government’s chief negotiator, G.L. Peiris, said they were not averse to the setting up of an “interim administration,” but the elements of such an arrangement must first be discussed by both parties. “The differences are not insurmountable,” Peiris told reporters here, adding that the government was keen to have a face-to-face dialogue with the Tigers to discuss the issue.
Peiris said the government recognized the need for an administrative structure to address the issues raised by the Tigers.
“The problem we have is one of using words and phrases to describe what we want,” Peiris said. “An interim structure catering to the needs of the northeast is not unacceptable to the government.”
He said there were informal contacts between the government and the LTTE through the moderate Tamil National Alliance (TNA), and they were hopeful of reviving the peace process.
The formal Tiger rejection came as European diplomats launched a fresh bid to restart the stalled peace process ahead of a crucial aid pledging conference in Tokyo next week.
Heads of mission from the British High Commission and the Dutch and Swiss embassies were traveling Wednesday to the rebel-held north to urge the LTTE to end their talks boycott, officials said.
The Tigers have also said they will also not attend Monday’s aid donors conference hosted by Japan in a bid to raise foreign financial support to rebuild the war-ravaged nation. But despite the LTTE boycott, the rebels will have a “critical role” in the allotment of foreign aid money, said Peiris, who was leaving for Tokyo yesterday.
