The match is not yet over

The naming of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation by the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has resulted in victory drums being beaten islandwide by the People’s Alliance. Certainly, the inclusion of the LTTE in the international terrorists list by Britain is very much in the interests of Sri Lanka. Perhaps, President Kumaratunga’s attempts to negotiate immediately after she assumed office in 1994 and Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s persuasive diplomacy, may have struck a chord among western governments. But Britain’s decision to ban the LTTE, after long deliberations, was not due to the persuasive powers of the PA, but because of its own security interests.

There were 21 other terrorists organisations that were listed by Britain and 16 of them were Muslim organisations that posed far greater security threats to Britain than the LTTE. To have left out the LTTE, whose record of terrorism is far bloodier than that of other organisations named, would have led to great legal complications when the LTTE goes to British courts appealing against their proscription.

It has also to be pointed out that the match is not yet over and much work has to be done. The list of proscriptions has to be approved by the British parliament and there are some British MPs who depend on the support of sizeable expatriate Tamil constituents in their electorates. There are other British MPs who support the cause of a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, a trait among a few na•ve and eccentric British politicians, to support lost or totally unjust causes.

Besides the life of the present British parliament is to end soon and if the ban is to take legal effect soon, it will have to be presented to parliament before the life of the present parliament lapses. Thus, a determined diplomatic effort with the help of other countries is called for.

The opinion is also being expressed that the Sri Lanka government has fallen into a ‘peace trap’ because Britain had made the banning of the LTTE conditional to the Sri Lanka government supporting the Norwegian peace initiative.

This is highly unlikely because even if Britain wanted to pressurise the Sri Lanka government in supporting the Norwegian peace effort, it could have extracted the pledge before ban was announced. To ‘de-proscribe’ it after announcing that the proscription of all these organisations was not linked to British foreign policy and that they were proscribed because they were found to be truly terrorist organisations, would be rather difficult.

The UNP, the main opposition party, is yet to welcome the British ban. There is some hemming and hawing and its leader, Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, has made no clear and precise statement. It may be that welcoming the ban would be construed as an admission that the ban is to the credit of the government. On the other hand, the UNP, since the general elections, has been accused of ‘Riding the Tiger’. The past two decades have witnessed that those who attempted this exercise had always ended up ‘Inside the Tiger’. There is also the likelihood of the UNP being chewed up the Lions as well.

The banning of the LTTE in Britain should be viewed, as Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has said, as the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. This should be the view of both the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Peace negotiations should commence with or without Norwegian facilitation. If the ban in Britain is followed up with similar bans in other European countries, the once fearsome Tigers will be rendered toothless. It will provide an opportunity for other Tamil opinion, other than the fascist LTTE dictates, to surface at the conference table.

The UNP and the PA before the last general elections reached a fair degree of consensus on this issue before they drew apart. It is time now for the two parties to confer once again with other Sinhala organisations as well and attempt to reach consensus.

The match is not yet over.

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