Given the tremendous international pressure on it to re-start talks with the Sri Lankan government, the LTTE is to discuss the issue with its constitutional experts in Geneva on October 1 and 2.
According to the pro-LTTE Tamil daily Sudar Oli on Saturday, the LTTE’s political wing leader SP Tamilselvan, ideologue and chief negotiator Anton Balasingham, and constitutional experts V Rudrakumaran, Swarnarajah, Siva Pasupathi and Ramaswamy will meet in Geneva to discuss ways and means to get the peace process moving.
These experts had helped the LTTE draft its October 2003 proposal for an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) in the Tamil-North Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.
The government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga had rejected the LTTE’s proposal saying that it would seriously violate Sri Lanka’s integrity and sovereignty, if implemented. The government had also rejected the LTTE’s demand that its proposal be the sole document on the negotiating table.
President Kumaratunga subsequently said that she would discuss the LTTE’s proposal, provided it was modified to make the matter acceptable to the majority Sinhala community and the majority political constituency in South Sri Lanka.
But the LTTE rejected all the government’s demands and refused to tamper with its proposal, which, according to it, was a very carefully drafted document, enshrining the irreducible demands and aspirations of the Tamils.
Sources close to the LTTE told Hindustan Times that nothing was expected to come out of the parleys in Geneva on October 1 and 2 as there was no scope for modifying the ISGA proposal.
According to political pundits here, the LTTE will conduct the consultation exercise only to show the international community that it is in the peace process and is wedded to constitutionalism.(Hindustan Times)
