Another Peace Trap?

The Tigers are getting cocky. Despite being down in the dumps on being proscribed by leading developed nations, they are pretending to exude an air of supreme confidence and making demands that only sovereign states are entitled to.

This could well be because of the bizarre interpretations by some countries of their own laws on terrorism such as prominent terrorists being permitted to address public meetings to commemorate birthdays of terrorist leaders. An example of supreme cockiness is the request made by the LTTE to the Indian government to permit peace negotiations between the Sri Lanka government and their representatives to be held in Chennai notwithstanding the fact that the LTTE is a proscribed organisation and its leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran and his cohort, Pottu Amman, are wanted for the murder of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The reasons given are that their spokesman Anton Balasingham being a sick man needs medical attention which would be available in Chennai and that he has to be in close and regular contact with Prabhakaran, who is said to be in the Wanni.

The plea for proximity to Prabhakaran is ridiculous considering the regular contacts the terrorist leader has with his cohorts in western capitals via satellite telephones. The plea about Balasingham’s health care is supreme gumption. India has to bend its laws to accommodate a representative of a proscribed organisation because of the health care of a non-entity. Should this former translator of the British High Commission in Colombo be accorded the status of a statesman or royal potentate? Is the murder of the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv himself a prime minister, to be ignored to accommodate a rag -tag ruffian?

Now the LTTE is attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the Sri Lankan people and the gullible west that they are not engaged in forced conscription of Tamil school children in the Eastern Province. The entire Eastern Province knows it quite well. Children in remote villages had flocked to Batticaloa town in the hope of avoiding the head-hunters. Desperate citizens are communicating with the media and their friends in Colombo about their plight being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea — terrorist head-hunters and the security forces who are not responding to appeals of citizens for the fear of breaking the ceasefire.

Yesterday, Balasingham in London had accused President Chandrika Kumaratunga of undermining the Norwegian peace effort and creating new apprehensions and controversies. This is consequent to her expression of deep concern about reports of forcible recruitment of school children by the LTTE.

‘The LTTE like the army were recruiting volunteers’, Balasingham from London had claimed.

The report of a group of Tamil academics, the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), which was serialised in The Island on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday had cited specific names and places where forced recruitment had taken place. Independent observers have the opportunity of verifying these claims for themselves.

This brings into question what the peace-brokers, the Norwegians have been doing other than meeting Balasingham in London, Indian officials in New Delhi and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe in Colombo. It is essential that the Norwegians should ascertain by themselves whether forcible conscription of school children had taken place and is still going on. They should act fast before the children are kidnapped and taken away into training camps that are inaccessible to all except the LTTE.

President Kumaratunga has expressed her concern on a UNHCR report. This organisation continues to operate in LTTE-controlled areas. Undoubtedly she would have reports from her own sources. Other international organisations operating in LTTE-controlled areas too should be asked to make their observations known to the facilitators.

This also provides an opportunity for foreign correspondents, who can now visit LTTE- controlled areas to report on the situation prevailing there. Unlike Sri Lankan corespondents, foreign correspondents are welcomed with open arms by the LTTE. Hitherto, most reports of foreign correspondents have been made on fly-by-night reports — a run into the jungles with LTTE guides, a stay for a few hours or a day and out again after being granted interviews or taken on conducted tours. They could provide a much better picture of life in LTTE-controlled areas if they live for a few weeks or preferably months in the Wanni making independent observations. That was what legendary foreign correspondents like Edgar Snow did camping out with Mao Tse Tung’s revolutionaries on the Long March or Walter Reed with the Bolshevik Revolutionaries.

LTTE’s motives on its criticism of President Kumaratunga are clear. Any person who is critical of the LTTE is guilty of sabotaging the peace process. Ironically this is the same accusation that President Kumaratunga and her supporters levelled at those sceptics who doubted the motives of the LTTE during her peace efforts in 1994.

President Kumaratunga learnt it all the hard way. There is no need for Mr. Wickremasinghe to go through the same process. If he does not and cannot take a firm stand now on what is manifestly a grave crime of kidnapping children, it will be too late to act on much graver crimes. Many, before Mr. Wickremasinghe have fallen into the Peace Trap. Should he repeat it with his eyes open?

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