Will the hectic premeditations and discussion workshops help?

The Truce, which ended the ongoing war between the government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is four years old now. The Cease fire agreement (CFA) between the United National Front and the LTTE, with Norway's mediation, was signed on the 22nd of February 2002. The signatories to this agreement are, Honourable V. Pirabhakaran on behalf of the LTTE and Ranil Wickremasinghe representing the government.

In the 29 October 1989 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, popular journalist and Senior editor at TamilNet, writes on the waning importance of a rear base in Tamil Nadu after the end of Eelam war I in 1987. "That a multipurpose comfortable rearbase would in the long term erode the conviction to fight and play into the hands of India was an opinion expressed in 1983. Finally the rearbase started becoming a factor that threatened to undermine the control various leaders had over their fighting cadres," Sivaram wrote.

RE: Another misguided venture by the mighty USA

Dear US Citizen,

It is with much regret that I present this information to you concerning the state of affairs in Sri Lanka and the critical role the United States (US) is playing in it. Whenever I attempt to reason logically about this matter, it grieves me deeply to realize that a nation which took part in two world wars to preserve the ideal of freedom, could in fact be aiding and abetting the subjugation of the minority Tamil speaking people on the island of Sri Lanka.

After years of struggle, people of Sri Lanka sighed with relief when the cease Fire Agreement was signed on 22/02/2002, as it sprouted a streak of hope of a lasting solution for the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. All of a sudden, like a bolt from the blues, Karuna, one of the most trusted confidants of LTTE militants, turned to be a baneful renegade and a black sheep and slipped into the hands of the Sinhalese armed forces.

Sinhalese ruling regimes, including the present one, allied as they are with racist groups of the worst order, should fear that their unsavory past should undo their future. Instead, they are being bolstered by the U.S. government to believe that their spurious past is a tolerable sin which can be forgotten and forgiven.

Relatives of the two youth protesting on the main highway, Army patrols in Chenkalady, A Police officer guards the LTTE office in Batticaloa after it was bombed and PLOTE head in Batticaloa, Baheerathan shows his injuries

Since his defection, Vinyagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna and cadres loyal to him have been carrying out sporadic targeted attacks against the LTTE. In return, Karuna associates and sympathisers have been murdered.

When we think of martial arts, we usually think of China or Japan. Only recently, people have discovered that martial arts had its roots in India “somewhere�. The location of what part of India martial arts came from still remains a mystery to a lot of people.

The long rambling article by Mirak Raheem entitled “Paramilitaries: The need to re think,� is an uncalled for effort to revise the CFA drastically, by resorting to details that are either already covered by the broad terms of the CFA, or include subjects that should form no part of this Agreement.

The abduction of the Tamils Rehabilitation staff within the Sri Lanka government controlled region is condemned, as an act against the attempts at peace, by both inland and foreign sources. Above all, the hearts of our people are filled with the expectation and anxiety that these volunteers should be released immediately without being subjected to any dangers. Worldwide appeals are being made that measures aimed at the immediate release of these staff, who render great service to the war torn and tsunami battered people, should be intensified.

According to the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera is the same who told the US media on his recent visit that “the LTTE is the godfather of modern terrorism,� and has elsewhere claimed that the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) is the “fund-raising arm of the Tamil Tigers,� both exaggerated statements.

The date: 2003 Jan 06. The place: Batticaloa. The occasion: A meeting between the delegation from the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the LTTE.

“The Sri Lankan army should supervise the activities of the paramilitary groups and keep them under control. Recent incidents in Batticaloa appear to be aimed at casting aspersions on us and confounding the peace process.

Sinhala leaders have always used the peace talks to fool the international community and drag time to prepare for war. Over the last four years of CFA, LTTE has proved to the international community this opportunistic politics of the Sinhala leaders. LTTE does not need to nor have to prove again to the international community the deceit of the Sinhala leaders. The foundation for peace talks and the political solution has already been laid by the LTTE and the GOSL.

If irritants such as the abduction of the 10 TRO officials are resolved, it appears that representatives of the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE should meet for face-to-face talks on stabilising the CFA in the middle or latter part of February.

Articles appearing in the popular media during the past couple of months have made reference to the LTTE being preoccupied in seeking for itself international legitimacy as a group that had transcended the narrow confines of being a military outfit and become an organisation having the requisite sophistication and wherewithal to run a state (or at least a semi-state).

The agreement by the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to discuss the implementation of the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in Geneva this month, is a laudable step forward towards peace which has been widely welcomed by the international community.