by Our Defence Correspondent
The LTTE moved closer towards its strategic objective of taking control of development efforts in the Northeast, with an official grand tour of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France, and Switzerland by its senior delegation, during which it received VIP treatment and met with senior officials of several governments.

The tour was carefully planned to present the image that the LTTE is the only significant player in the future of the Northeast, and to build up relationships between European government officials and the LTTE. A massive propaganda campaign accompanied the LTTE officials at every step of their tour, intended to further enhance the image of the LTTE. In fact, the LTTE team spent most of their two weeks abroad touring Europe, and it is quite clear that the conference in Paris was merely a show, and that all major decisions regarding the LTTE proposals have been taken by Prabhakaran in the Wanni.

The Tigers made full use of the participation of persons from countries as far apart as Australia, Singapore, the United States, France, Norway, and Malaysia, to present an image of a worldwide organization.

The European tour also was a careful buildup of suspense and expectations for the release of the LTTE’s official proposals for the peace process, in the next few weeks. The proposals, which were finalized during the LTTE’s conference in Paris, are now with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The Tiger team made a considerable show of the conference, ensuring that it was organized very professionally in order to impress officials of other countries that the LTTE is a very professional organization. So much so that translators were on hand to translate the proposals, which were written in English, into Tamil, for the benefit of Prabhakaran.

The LTTE’s proposals are expected to be a blueprint for its plan for long-term development of the Northeast, rather than merely being a response to the government’s latest proposals, which the Tigers have already rejected.

As this column has pointed out repeatedly, the United National Front government has made little progress in developing the Northeast, with no proper plan drawn up and nitty-gritty efforts by individual ministers being blocked by the LTTE. The Tigers have in fact carried out a concerted plan of blocking the government’s efforts, in order to show the international community that only they are capable of governing and developing the Northeast.

The only development project of any major scope, the rehabilitation of the A9 Kandy-Jaffna main road, has dragged for more than a year, and is not expected to be completed until mid next year, more than six months behind schedule. The LTTE was in fact very successful in its entire European exercise, as government officials in all the European countries they visited went out of their way to give VIP treatment to the LTTE team.

Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen met with them in Oslo during their 4-day visit to Norway, where a full programme of activities was carried out. These included a session of speeches by Aanund Hyland, a Professor at the University of Oslo, Stein Tonnesson, a political historian

from the International Peace Research Institute, and Erik Solheim. The LTTE team then went on a tour of the Norwegian Parliament, conducted by

Solheim and Lisa Gold, before visiting the headquarters of two prominent political parties, the Socialist Left Party and the Conservative Party.

The next day the Tiger delegation were taken on a tour of the Norwegian Army Camp at Rena, which was organized by the former Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, Major General Trond Furuhovde, where Norwegian soldiers demonstrated their peacekeeping methods and drills.

The next day the LTTE team flew to Sweden, where they visited the Swedish Parliament, the National Police Headquarters, Stockholm University, and the Swedish International Development Agency, and met with government officials over three days, before flying going on to Finland and Denmark.

The final stop in the LTTE’s tour was Switzerland, where they met with officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Bernardino Regazzoni, before returning to Colombo.

Although the LTTE is officially a banned organization in the UK, when the LTTE team reached Colombo on Wednesday, Tamilchelvam, Karuna and

Pulithevan met with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the British Parliament and Shadow Foreign Secretary, Michael Ancram, and Lord Ashcroft, the former treasurer of the British Conservative party.

The LTTE team was flown by a SriLanka Air Force helicopter to Kilinochchi. Karuna went aboard another SLAF helicopter to Batticaloa.

During the Paris conference, the LTTE made full propaganda use of the presence of Norwegian special envoy Eric Solheim, Lisa Gold of the Royal Norwegian Government, the former Prime Minister of the Canadian Province of Ontario Bob Rae, and Prof. David Cameron of the Canadian Forum of Federations on the final day.

Tamilchelvam, Karuna, Pulithevan, and US-based advisor Rudrakumaran, attended a dinner at the Norwegian embassy in Paris at the end of the conference, where they were hosted by the Deputy Norwegian Ambassador in France Dag Werlo Holter.

Meanwhile, it is strange that participants at the conference included persons from countries in which the LTTE is a banned organization, such as the UK and Malaysia. These include Professor Sornarajah, who is a Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of the Centre for Petroleum and Natural Resources Law at the University of Dundee in Scotland; and Professor P. Ramasamy, Professor of Political Science at the National University of Malaysia. Among the other conspicuous participants at the conference was Shiva Pasupathi, who was Sri Lanka’s Attorney General during the presidency of J. R. Jayewardene, and now lives abroad.

The conference itself was attended by Tamilchelvam, Karuna, Economic Advisor of the Planning and Development Unit Dr. Jay Maheswaran, the Director of the Sub Committee on Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs in the Northeast Selvin Ireneuss, Prof. Sornarajah, Prof. Ramasamy, Dr. Manuelpillai Paul Dominic (Professor of Law at the University of Sydney and Professor of Tax Law at the University of Western Sydney), Pasupathi, Legal Advisor Visvendran, and Constitutional Affairs Advisor Rudrakumar.