Members welcome MR’s maximum devolution concept

by Shamindra Ferdinando

The EU Parliament yesterday defeated an LTTE-inspired move to pass an unprecedented resolution critical of Sri Lanka. The two-part resolution severely criticised the recent decision to freeze accounts of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), an established LTTE front organisation and the listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation by the 25-nation EU.

We revealed this in a front-page story headlined Lanka sees Oslo hand in critical EU resolution on September 3.

An authoritative official said that the Norwegians influenced the move. The resolution was defeated by over 50 members of EU parliament voting against the proposal and about 30 backing it.

The Norwegians wanted to justify the LTTE claim that the inclusion of the group in the EU list of foreign terrorist organisations undermined the Oslo-led peace process, he said.

Both Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer and former head of the Nordic truce monitoring mission Maj. Gen. (retd) Ulf Henricsson publicly criticised the EU decision to proscribe the LTTE. They expressed the belief that such a ban would strengthen the Sri Lankan government, thereby denying the two parties to meet as equals, a claim vehemently denied by the government.

The Norwegians unsuccessfully campaigned to prevent the listing of the group.

While rejecting the anti-Sri Lanka proposal, the EU welcomed what a senior official termed as President Mahinda Rajapakse’s maximum devolution concept. The EU Parliament also called on member States to strictly enforce the ban.

The EU emphasised the need to monitor the LTTE merchant fleet, curb fund raising and prevent efforts to indoctrinate Tamils living overseas.

The LTTE move was made against the backdrop of Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricsson’s controversial assessment that government troops executed 17 aid workers in the first week of August. "We are going to be targeted on the human rights situation," he said.

The displacement of tens of thousands of people in the northern and eastern provinces due to ongoing battles and alleged disappearances in war-torn areas and Colombo too were to be used against the Sri Lanka Government.

Earlier France demanded to be fully informed of the ongoing probe on the massacre. The retired Swedish army officer on the eve of his departure from Sri Lanka accused troops of executing the workers. He also accused the military of a systematic campaign of death, destruction and abductions.

The Norwegians made a desperate bid to get the resolution passed. "This is part of their strategy to strengthen the LTTE in the post-EU ban era," a senior official said. He emphasised that the recent Norwegian and SLMM criticism of the EU ban and Henricsson’s attack over the Muttur massacre were a calculated move to facilitate a damaging EU resolution.

The recent disappearance of Catholic priest Jim Brown (34) on August 20 at Allaipiddy and civilian Vimalathas, a father of five, too has been brought to the notice of the EU, one of the four donor co-chairs.

The sources said that the Muttur massacre remains the major contentious issue. Officials said that Henricsson accused government troops without checking facts.

They emphasized the urgent need to establish the time of death and who was in control of Muttur town at the time of the massacre.

According to the Judicial Medical Officer who performed post-mortem examinations on the bodies, the probable time of death was between the night of August 3 and August 4. According to Henricsson’s report the French NGO office at Trincomalee was in radio contact with the Muttur Office (wherein the 17 deceased were employed) every 30 minutes from August 1, and the last contact was at 06.10 hrs on the morning of August 4. Henricsson goes on to say that after 06.10 hrs on the morning of the 4th August all attempts to contact the Muttur Office by radio, mobile phone and fax were in vain. It would thus follow that the murders took place at sometime between 06.10 hrs and 06.40 hrs on the morning of Friday August 4.