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Secret Talks once again?

By Our Defence Correspondent
The government has taken a decision not to disclose to the nation the substance of its impending peace talks with the LTTE, which are being brokered by the government of Norway, according to highly placed government sources.

This will mean keeping the media away from any negotiations, which will initially be through letters being exchanged, and later through direct negotiations, sources said.

This decision was taken last week at discussions between President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and several of her close confidantes at a meeting at Temple Trees, sources said. However, the Cabinet has not been informed of the decision, although several top Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers were partty to the decision.

The decision was taken due to fears that the United National Party would capitalize on the issues which would be discussed between the government and Tigers, and use them as propaganda ahead of the General Election, which is due by this August, sources said.

The continued strained relations between UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the president, were a key factor in the decision. The Opposition Leader is due to meet the President this week to discuss the proposals to amend the constitution, but little headway is expected even in that matter.

Although there exists an agreement brokered by British Foreign Secretary Liam Fox, for the president and opposition leader to consult each other and keep each other informed of major decisions or developments regarding the war and peace talks, this agreement has been honoured more in the breach over the last two years.

The government’s continued strategy of not keeping the opposition informed is also bad news for any effort by the PA to obtain any bipartisan support, either for peace talks or amending the constitution.

Another key factor in the decision to keep the talks a secret, is the likelihood that smaller hard-line Sinhalese parties will also use the matter for propaganda and dilute the vote in the next election, sources said.

The fact that most media organizations in Sri Lanka are unhappy with the actions of the government towards journalists in general, was also an issue which was mentioned at the Temple Trees meeting, sources said.

One other key factor that was mentioned was the fact that negotiations are likely to demoralize the armed forces, since several key military matters will be topmost on the agenda for talks, sources said. These include the fate of prisoners of war held by the LTTE, the Tiger demand that the armed forces withdraw from the Jaffna Peninsula, and the lifting of the ban on prohibited items being sent to the LTTE held areas, sources said.

This would continue the trend of having secret negotiations with the Tigers, which was started by President J. R. Jayewardene’s government at the first peace talks a decade and a half ago, continued by President R. Premadasa in 1989/90, and lastly by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in 1994/95.

At the last peace talks which ran from September of 1994 until April 19, 1995, more than one hundred letters were exchanged between President Kumaratunga and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. But not a single one of these letters has been shown to either the public or parliament.

Similarly, Nothing is known of the 13 months of discussions which were held at the Hilton Hotel in Colombo between President Premadasa’s negotiators and the LTTE team.

Even the details of peace talks between President Jayewardene’s team and the LTTE, which were brokered by Indian Special Envoy Romesh Bandhari and held in the Bhutanese capital of Thimpu, are not completely known,

Most recently, there were letters exchanged between the president and Prabhakaran in 1998, where she proposed peace talks and he rejected her. But even the existence of this exchange was not known until the Tigers announced it in late 1999 in order to embarrass the president’s election campaign.

The government was embarrassed by the publicity given to the 15 prisoners of war who went on a hunger strike recently, with huge coverage being given to the visit by their relatives to the Wanni. Television footage of the relatives in emotional scenes was felt to be especially damaging, since the government has never done anything to secure the release of the prisoners. The fact that four prisoners (three soldiers and a sailor) were released last week, was even more embarrassing.

However, this decision not to give details of negotiations is likely to boomerang on the government. President Kumaratunga and the People’s Alliance themselves were instrumental in proving that President Premadasa used the cover of his secret talks in 1989/90 to gift the Tigers huge hauls of arms and ammunition. Given this type of past scenario, it will be extremely easy for the opposition to convince the public that the PA’s secret talks will also be detrimental to the national interest.

When the LTTE staged surprise attacks in June 1990 and April 1995, the entire country was taken unawares, having been led by the government to believe that the negotiations were going quite well. The armed forces and police suffered most from this, with hundreds of soldiers and policemen being massacred without a chance, not knowing until minutes before their deaths that peace talks had collapsed.

The decision to keep the talks secret reinforces a belief among many political observers, that even after nearly six years in power, President Kumaratunga and the People’s Alliance still have little idea of how to go about negotiations with the LTTE.

This will definitely prove to be a critical obstacle. Throughout the 1994/95 peace talks, the LTTE continuously complained that the government was not offering any concrete proposals for resolving the ethnic problems, and that the PA seemed more intent on rebuilding Jaffna and hoping to win the northern Tamils away from the LTTE.

One key difference between the 1994/95 talks and the expected negotiations, is that if most of the talking is through letters, then the armed forces top brass will not be able to advise the president on how to respond to the Tigers, demands for changes to the strategic situation in the north. It will be remembered that during the last talks, the government team included a senior army officer, and a senior navy officer, who kept their service chiefs fully informed

The hazy situation surrounding the impending negotiations has already caused a severe slackening in the attitude of many in the armed forces toward continued operations on the ground. Most officers and soldiers are clearly waiting for peace talks to begin in earnest. Not knowing if the gains they win today will be frittered away in secret negotiations, the resolve to go forward is clearly lessening.

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