Right-wing allies of Sri Lanka's president have renewed moves to drop support for his shaky minority in parliament over his failure to take a harder line with Tamil rebels, officials said yesterday.
President Mahinda Rajapakse called an all-party meeting today to discuss the peace process, which the nationalist all-Buddhist monk party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), and the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) will attend.
"Crisis talks [with the JHU and the JVP] will take place after Monday's [today's] all-party meeting," a source close to Rajapakse said. "The president has already asked his peace delegation to brief the two parties before he meets with them."
"The idea is to keep them on the side of the government," the source said.
The two allies supported Rajapakse in last November's presidential election, after he pledged to take a harder line with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
However, the two parties said Rajapakse failed to press the rebels at talks in Switzerland last month to shore up a shaky four-year ceasefire. They have threatened to withhold crucial support in parliament as a result.
"The talks venue itself went against the election manifesto set out by the president," JHU spokesman Champaka Ranawaka said.
"The government failed to amend the ceasefire agreement as we had planned before," he added.
"The government must not only disarm other militant groups, but must start the process from the LTTE. They must start before the next round of talks," he said.
At the talks in Switzerland, the government initially insisted on rewriting the February 2002 truce arranged by peace broker Norway.
However, after the Tigers resisted the move and threatened to walk out, Colombo backed down and agreed to uphold the ceasefire.
Colombo has also agreed to ensure that other militant groups will not be allowed to operate, especially in the island's restive east where the Tigers face attacks from a breakaway faction.
"If the government moves to neutralize the other armed groups as they have agreed in Switzerland, then there will be very serious implications for security of this country," Ranawaka said. "We will not sit idly by."
The JHU has nine members in the 225-member national parliament while the JVP has 39 seats.
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