By Shamindra Ferdinando
Norway’s claim that the LTTE was willing to resume negotiations with the Sri Lankan government without any preconditions to resolve the North-East crisis has contradicted Velupillai Prabakaran’s earlier position that there would not be any peace as long as the armed forces remain in control of Jaffna.

The government and the security forces top brass have decided that troops will not withdraw from Jaffna or any other areas currently under their control to help political negotiations with the LTTE, officials said.

Norwegian Special Envoy Erik Solheim who engaged in a highly ambitious effort to bring the government and the LTTE back to the negotiating table, last week reiterated that the LTTE laid down no preconditions for resumption of peace talks.

However, senior security officials, diplomats and politicians stressed that they were waiting to hear what LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakaran, who turns 46 today says in his annual "National Heroes Day" speech tomorrow honouring thousands of cadres killed in action against the Sri Lankan and the Indian Peace Keeping Force [IPKF].

The LTTE will end its "National Heroes Week" with Prabakaran making a speech over the clandestine Voice of Tigers [VOT] on Monday, probably in the afternoon. The speech will be subsequently released by the LTTE’s International Secretariat in London.

In his last year’s "National Heroes Day" speech, Prabakaran stressed that there could be no peace talks under" conditions of war" and declared that his "forces" have the capability to liberate their homeland. Commenting on the swift collapse of the army’s defences in the Wanni just four weeks before the event, Prabakaran said that the LTTE’s military capabilities have stunned both the Sri Lankan government and the international community.

However, UK’s State Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Peter Hain last week said in Colombo that both the Sri Lankan security forces and the LTTE could not achieve their goals militarily. He said that messages passed between the LTTE and the Norwegians have indicated that the LTTE now accepts that they could not secure a separate state by violence.

It was interesting to read some of the remarks made by the LTTE leader at "National Heroes Day" functions. Prabakaran on November 27, 1995, less than two weeks before troops wrested control of Jaffna from his cadres, said that "the door to peace would be closed as long as troops occupied the town,"

They may hoist the [national] flag ....and light firecrackers but we want to express one thing," he told the VOT. "As long as Sri Lankan armed forces occupy Jaffna, the door to peace talks will remain tightly shut,". He also offered third-party mediated talks.

Since, Prabakaran lost Jaffna, he had offered third-party mediated talks on number of occasions. But he never did so when he controlled Jaffna, analysts said.

Prabakaran in his martyr day speech on November 27, 1996, [the first speech after LTTE lost Jaffna], insisted on the withdrawal of troops from Jaffna and all other areas captured in operation "Riviresa" to create what he described as a congenial environment with military de-escalation as precondition for any third party mediated talks.

The following year, he rejected the PA’s devolution package stressing that the LTTE would continue to fight for self-determination. "The government’s sole aim is to find a military solution to the problem. Actually the political package and the ongoing war against the Tamil people are two sides of the same coin," the VOT [monitored by the security forces] quoted Prabakaran as saying.

In 1998, Prabakaran reiterated his call for third party mediation while urging the government to create what he described as a climate of peace and goodwill to hold talks.

But, last year, Prabakaran was able to speak from a position of great strength in view of the crushing defeats his cadres inflicted on the army in the Wanni in the first week of November. He reminded the government that his group which captured 10 key military bases in the Wanni in just five days was sending signals of "peace and goodwill" to the government as they wanted to resolve the crisis through peaceful means but he expressed "grave doubts" of a peaceful end to the bloodshed.

Military sources said that over the years the LTTE leader had focused on various issues in his "National Heroes Day" speech. In November, 1993, he vowed to continue his fight for a separate state and the next year accused the security forces of trying to sabotage peace efforts. At that time he had been having talks with President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government. In the same speech, he called for an immediate ceasefire, lifting of economic embargo on the Jaffna peninsula and the vacation of the Pooneryn army base.