COLOMBO, 7 October 2003 — It’s a long way from the jungles of northern Sri Lanka to the pubs of Ireland.
And the distance from rebel group to legitimate political organization may be even greater for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), analysts and diplomats said.
Dublin is the latest in a series of overseas trips for the rebels, who hope to put finishing touches this week on a plan to restart stalled peace talks to end two decades of war — and do it in public on the international stage.
“I think it’s mainly to get them greater legitimacy — for them to be able to interact with foreign governments. That would be the primary motive,” Jehan Perera, of the independent National Peace Council, said of the rebels’ globe-trotting.
But that effort at image-building has been clouded by charges from human rights groups that the Tigers continue to forcibly recruit child solders and that they are undermining confidence in the peace process by murdering political opponents.
The Dublin meeting, which runs through Friday, comes just several days after the US State Department re-designated the LTTE as a “foreign terrorist organization” that “continues to engage in terrorist activities”.
While applauding the Tigers for continuing with a peace process that started when a cease-fire was signed in February 2002, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the Tigers still had to prove they were sincere.
The United States “will be prepared to deal with the group as a legitimate political entity in Sri Lanka only after the organization renounces terrorism and ceases terrorist acts,” he was quoted as saying in a US Embassy statement.
Peace talks with the government to permanently end the war that has killed 64,000 have taken the Tigers to Thailand, Japan, Berlin and Oslo since they began last year.
Since the talks broke down in April, after the rebels walked out for being excluded from an aid-planning meeting in Washington, their travels have continued.
LTTE leaders have met with advisers in the Tamil diaspora in Paris and have studied federal models of government in countries such as Belgium and Switzerland.
“They will go to as many European capitals as they can manage. It is part of their public relations strategy,” said one Western diplomat.
Critics in Sri Lanka charge the welcome abroad for the Tigers is out of line with their actions, including their refusal to comply with monitors overseeing the truce signed 19 months ago who ruled a new rebel camp violated the truce.
But others say their travels expose them to a world outside their war-torn environment and give them a taste of the kind of lives they could lead if the peace process succeeds.
“To the extent that it makes if more difficult for them to go back to war, I think it’s a good thing,” said Perera.
“The negative is, it would strengthen their belief they’re a democratic entity. Their expectations are increasing. They’re being treated as a legitimate government and they’ll want negotiations to proceed on that basis,” he said.
