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.

There is no doubt that peace loving people of this country welcome this move as it places stays on a process that was fast escalating towards full-scale and unsupervised violence, bordering on anarchy. Even as this editorial is being written, the state has denied any knowledge of the 10 persons who were abducted. This gives the impression there is a force which is controlled neither by the government nor the Tigers indulging in violence.

While no one is sure whether this incident signals the advent of abduction as a means coercion, which is a practice resorted to by rebel groups in the Philippines and the Middle East, or a passing phenomenon that could be quickly brought under control, the fact remains it places the LTTE under enormous strain.

The question could be asked: what is the point of negotiating to stabilise the CFA when basic security for civilians cannot be guaranteed at a time when the government and the LTTE have agreed to commence talks and informed the Norwegian facilitator of a suspension of hostilities, and Karuna too has also declared a unilateral ceasefire against the Tigers?

As an article in this edition of The Northeastern Monthly points out, the CFA is only a document that outlines intentions, and the provisions to carry out those intentions. It is left to the authorities to give effect to those provisions and make them operable. And the most important intention of any ceasefire, if it hopes to be sustainable and meaningful, is to build confidence in each party that its adversary is actually interested in achieving peace.

It should be said that the abduction of the 10 civilians working for an NGO involved in relief and rehabilitation work in the northeast does not help in acting as a confidence building measure for the Tamils. On the other hand, Tamils should also bear in mind that there are those to whom a stable ceasefire and settled conditions spell doom. These spoilers have economic and political profit to make from violence and will indulge and provoke conflict for their selfish purposes.

While this is to be expected, the patience of the Tamil people has run out. Even a superficial review of the dividends accruing to the Tamils during the four years the CFA has been in existence will reveal what little they have gained. True there has been an absence of war that has helped many Tamils to restart their lives. But the uncertainty of what the future holds, in an atmosphere where the CFA has been teetering on the brink of collapse for many months, has brought no respite to their travails.

It is therefore important that the LTTE does not, once again, get trapped in talks and negotiations going nowhere. It will only prolong the uncertainty and agony of the Tamils people. If the Sri Lanka government indulges in its usual procrastination, it is better the LTTE quits the talks once and for all rather than persist in a fruitless venture, merely because of the persuasion of the peace lobby and the pressure brought by the international community.

Source: The Northeastern Monthly

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