Colombo, Sri Lanka: Norway’s Minister Eric Solheim has remarked that the present hard line of the LTTE in the peace process was due to the EU ban. Minister Solheim, the facilitator, referred to this fact when he addressed the press blaming the LTTE for the failure of Oslo Talks.

This confirms what the idealogue of the LTTE, Dr. Anton Balasingham foree-warned, quoted earlier in these columns.

The government has been carrying on a propaganda arguing the ban would bring the LTTE to the negotiating table.

Now it must have dawned rather belatedly on the government and the EU that the ban has been counter productive. It has become clear to them that the reality is that the ban has forced LTTE adopting a hard line.

We should like to point out that what S.P.Thamilselvan the leader of the political wing of the LTTE told the Press on Thursday at Oslo, was a matter we too had raised in our editorial earlier.

“Both the EU and the Co-Chair countries issue statements condemning both the LTTE and the government for omissions or commissions but when it comes to a question of punishment , they penalize only the LTTE. Why is there this partiality and bias towards one party,” posed the LTTE Political Wing Leader Thamilselvan at the Oslo press briefing.

The Tamils engaged themselves in talks with the South hoping to get justice and fair play through the mediation of the international community. But that hope has been shattered by the EU ban

The ban imposed by the EU, at the wrong time, at a crucial stage of the peace talks, is perceived by the LTTE as biased against them.The LTTE is now determined to adopt a hard line. This is bound to affect future peace talks.

The EU and the international community have a bounden duty to explain why they are not even –handed in their commitments, opinions and actions!

English translation of the Editorial of Sudar Oli

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