COLOMBO, 24 September 2007 — Sri Lanka offered yesterday to halt major military operations against Tamil separatists in exchange for peace talks following intense international censure.
Troops will not press ahead with an offensive if Tamil Tiger rebels agree to talk, Defense Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse told a newspaper amid pressure from the island’s key foreign backers not to pursue the military option.
The country’s top defense official said it was now up to the Tigers to decide if the military should keep up its drive and urged them to resume peace negotiations which collapsed in October last year.
“The decision (of war or peace) is theirs and I believe they wouldn’t reject this opportunity,” Rajapakse told the Sunday Island. “We’ll not take advantage of the ground situation,” if the Tigers agree to negotiate. Rajapakse, who is also the president’s younger brother, made the comments after the United States urged Colombo against pressing ahead with a military drive.
The European Union and neighboring India have also warned against an all-out military campaign.
The surprise olive branch came just days after the defense secretary had vowed to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Rajapakse had on Monday called for stepped-up military action to finish off the rebels. “Without defeating terrorism, we can’t have a political settlement,” he said last week in a speech in the northeastern coastal city of Trincomalee as part of celebrations after the ministry said three rebel gun-running ships had been sunk.
“The president is working hard on a political settlement,” he said, adding: “Whatever the political settlement, it cannot be implemented unless terrorism is eradicated.”
The hard-hitting speech prompted the US ambassador to Sri Lanka to warn there was no military solution to the Indian Ocean island’s long-running separatist conflict, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.
“The expulsion of the LTTE from the east (of the island) and the recent sinking of several LTTE ships carrying arms and other provisions mark important military successes,” Blake said. “But these tactical successes should not tempt the government to reconsider whether Sri Lanka’s conflict can be won by military means. It cannot.”
Diplomats close to the now moribund Norwegian-led peace process said Colombo appeared to be taking on board their concerns in the wake of high-level international meetings in Geneva and New York focusing on the island.
“There is no mood on either side to resume talks,” one diplomat noted. “But, at least we can expect a scaling down of the violence. There is a lot of concern about the mounting body count.”
Ambassador Blake’s remarks came as the Sri Lankan government battled to avoid formal censure at the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is reviewing the island’s deteriorating rights record in Geneva. Diplomats said Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse could also face tough questioning during his current visit to New York to address the UN General Assembly.
Rights groups accuse the government and Tamil rebels of extra-judicial killings and scores of disappearances of civilians and political activists. A top international panel on Wednesday accused Sri Lanka of failing to honor promises to investigate grave human rights violations and accused the government of a virtual cover-up.
The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons said a government probe into 16 high-profile cases, including mass murder, had failed to make headway since being launched in November 2006.
The military’s offer came as fighting broke out Saturday afternoon in Vavuniya district, a frontier between government-controlled and rebel-held areas in Sri Lanka’s north, said an officer at the Defense Ministry’s media center.
A group of Tamil Tigers attacked an army patrol in Thampane, setting off a gunbattle that killed two insurgents, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy. One soldier was killed and eight others were wounded.
Separately, soldiers shot and killed a rebel who attacked troops guarding the northern defense line that separates government and rebel-controlled areas.
