Sri Lanka's main parties contesting next week's elections have vowed to open talks with militant Tamil separatists, but fears of a factional war among the rebels and a persisting feud between the country's leaders have dimmed hopes of early negotiations.
Prime Minister Ranil Wick-remesinghe said the parliamentary election called nearly four years ahead of schedule placed a "big question mark" over the Norwegian-backed process to end the war that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.
He expressed hopes of reviving talks before the end of April if his United National party was returned to power in Friday's polls, which he has turned into a referendum on his peace initiative with the Tigers.
However, diplomats and officials close to the peace process say that even if Wickremesinghe wins, a split in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) must be resolved before any negotiations can start.
Earlier this month a member of the Tigers' four-member peace negotiating team, V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, broke away from the organization, taking with him about a third of its fighting force.
On Friday, the Tigers vowed to get rid of their renegade regional commander, signalling an imminent showdown. Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, 49, is known for his ruthless intolerance of dissent.
The Tigers' statement came a day after Wickremesinghe said in an interview that international donors who had pledged US$4.5 billion dollars in aid to rebuild Sri Lanka were keen that negotiations, stalled since April last year, should resume before May.
"The talks started with the LTTE on the basis that they have a rigid chain of command and Prabhakaran was in control of all his cadres," a western diplomat here said. "Now that assumption is no longer valid."
Until the break-up of the Tiger movement, it was a split in the Colombo government itself that peace-broker Norway had to contend with.
The election was called by President Chandrika Kumaratunga after her tense relationship with Wickremesinghe came to a head in November. After taking away the prime minister's control over troops in November, Kumaratunga sacked the legislature he controlled. Since then, Norway has to put its efforts on hold.
Norway's special peace envoy Erik Solheim, who held talks with Sri Lankan leaders as well as the main Tiger leadership this month, said Oslo was keeping out of the internal conflict in the LTTE.
Political analysts said that even if the Tigers resolved their differences and established Prabhakaran's supremacy, there was no guarantee of political stability after the elections.
The head of the political science department at Colombo University, Jayadeva Uyangoda, said the country was headed for a prolonged period of uncertainty as no party was expected to get a clear majority.
A victory for Kumaratunga's party would mean completely renegotiating terms of peace talks as her main coalition partner, the Marxist JVP or People Liberation Front, wants discussions based on "reasonable condition."
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
‘EAST SHIELD’: State-run Belma said it would produce up to 6 million mines to lay along Poland’s 800km eastern border, and sell excess to nations bordering Russia and Belarus Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War, and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and might export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister said. Joining a broader regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to quit the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to beef up its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Pawel Zalewski said. The mines would be part
RSS