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When the over hyped direct talks between the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration in Sri lanka and the Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam open up in Sattahip Naval Base in Thailand today the opening ceremony would neither fly the ancient Lion Flag of the proud Indian Ocean island nation nor a representative of the elected executive President, Chandrika Kumaratunga or any Sinhala national organization representing the whole country or the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka would participate in it. In these talks, going to be long drawn for years, the Sinhala people, who have lived in this island for more than two thousand year will have to depend on two politicians, G.L.Peiris and Milinda Moragoda who have never been sympathizers of the Sinhala causes. A political solution popularly referred to as ‘a package’ presented by G.L. Peiris had to be abandoned during the time of the rule of President Chandrika Kumaratunga due to a mass agitation in the country since it was blamed to be too “pro-LTTE”. Moragoda, on the other hand is identified by the country’s opposition with US interests and married to a foreigner. The lack of flying lion Flags at Sattahip Naval base show the real dilemma the tiny nation faces under the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who has put the country through. He had just de-proscribed the country’s only separatist group, the LTTE who still did not accept the country’s flag, territorial integrity or its sovereignty. Hence, no flag of the nation was flying at the conference hall at the Ambassador City Jomtien Hotel in the Sattahip Naval Base. The LTTE claimed it was entering the talks as equal partners of the Sri Lanka government. The Chief negotiator himself has declared that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was a Prime Minister only for a part of the country. He said LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was their Prime Minister and President. Though the majority Sinhalese are denied a representative at the peace talks the Muslims, who undergo varied difficulties including murder and mayhem at the hands of the Tamil terrorist group just like their Sinhalese counter parts especially in the Eastern and Northern provinces would have its representative: the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim congress Rauf Hakeem. Fulfilling a pre-condition to the peace talks, by de-proscribing the Tamil separatist group, Ranil Wickremesinghe showed his government’s extremely weak capacity at the time of entering the talks. In India where more than 50 million Tamils live all Tamil political parties had to abandon separatist politics, decades ago, just to be in day-to-day politics. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam remains proscribed in India for trying to agitate for Tamil separatist politics there. The LTTE that has the largest suicide bomb team in the world with possible links to Middle Eastern terrorist groups not only survived September 11 events but also is actively being supported by Norway, the Sri Lankan opposition has alleged. Due to the relaxed controls on the terrorist group the country’s President, who has access to the intelligence reports, in a letter to the Prime Minister recently said 200 suicide bombers had entered the capital city of Colombo ready to detonate themselves destroying their targets at the orders of Velupillai Prabhakaran. A spokesman of President Chandrika Kumaratunga alleged that the administration showed a lack of interest of having the support of the President or the opposition of the country by refusing to have a representative of the President in the Thai talks. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has totally rejected of accepting a representative of the President or the Sinhala organizations. The spokesman of the president said, “ By rejecting to accept a representative of the President the government has clearly indicated that they did not want the cooperation of the President in the government’s endeavor.” The talks also would provide opportunities to some Western journalists to write their human stories too. LTTE’s Chief negotiator and his delegate Australian born wife Adele would make this an opportunity to meet Adele’s mother in Thailand. Adele due to her terrorist activities is not allowed in Australia. She is the founder leader of the “Birds of Freedom”, a women’s military brigade of the terrorist group that is notorious of employing kidnapped child soldiers. The United national Front government has been doing everything possible to start the Thailand talks, which would make way, according to them, for massive economic aid from the Western nations for the country’s tottering economy. Extraordinary measures have been taken to keep the country’s press gagged unofficially. The main obstacle to the pre-condition put forward by the LTTE, to de-proscribe them, was the opposition shown by the Mahanayaka of Malwatte, the leader of the largest Buddhist sect. But other monks alleged that the Maha Nayaka opposition was withdrawn after the government granted a massive 53 million rupees gift purportedly to be spent for religious affairs. Some have called it a bribe. Anyway the grant itself would show how far the government was prepared to go just to start the Thailand talks. (EOM) (02/09/16 go2lanka.com) |