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The CFA & Sanctimonious Pontificators:
Flatulent responses to the abrogation of a flattened Ceasefire
Secretary General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process
18th January 2008
The Peace Secretariat is astonished at what seems the general amnesia
afflicting many persons who pontificate about the recent abrogation
of the Ceasefire Agreement. Whilst initially this Agreement was signed
in a spirit of idealism, it rapidly became clear that the LTTE was unwilling
to work in accordance with this spirit.
There were two principal aims of the CFA. The first was, obviously,
to cease fire. But, from the very beginning, the Ceasefire Agreement
was violated. In the over five years ending in April 2007, when the
SLMM stopped issuing determinations, the LTTE was ruled to have violated
the Ceasefire 3830 times, whereas the Government of Sri Lanka violated
it 351 times.
Recent statements by the new head of the LTTE political wing, suggesting
that the LTTE had not really violated the CFA, and was the target of
misleading allegations, may be credited by the pontificators. The SLMM
statistics prove the opposite. In fact there were 7669 allegations against
the LTTE, of which just short of 50% were ruled by the SLMM as violations.
There were 2053 complaints against the GOSL of which just over 17% were
ruled as violations.
A selection of some of the SLMM rulings, now available on the SLMM
website (www.slmm.lk), is attached to this statement. They include the
ruling of the SLMM where it 'questions whether there is still a Ceasefire
in Sri Lanka', a ruling issued on 13th January 2006 after "the
latest attack on Sri Lanka navy soldiers in Cheddikulam" which
the 'SLMM strongly condemns … The LTTE claims that 'the People'
are behind the attacks on the military. SLMM finds this explanation
unacceptable. It is safe to say that LTTE involvement cannot be ruled
out and we find the LTTE's indifference to these attacks worrying'.
Another ruling that should be studied is about what the SLMM termed
'The Tragic Delft Incident' of February 6th 2003 when an SLMM monitor
(Mr Skarkvik who recently served in Sri Lanka again) discovered
a) '1 x 23 MM Gun barrel (built as Anti-Aircraft)
b) 1 x Complete mechanism for the 23 MM Barrel
c) 1 x Complete steel mounting for the 23 MM gun
d) several hundred rounds of 23MM ammunition in a plastic barrel and
2 metal boxes
e) several hundred rounds of AK 47 assault rifle ammunition in a sealed
metal container'
These were on a 'trawler being towed by a speedboat with Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) crew on board … The Captain on board
the LTTE speedboat stated that both boats belonged to the LTTE'. Mr
Skarkvik found the guns when he 'went into the fish-hold where he removed
a new wooden panel with new nails and thus broke through a false wall
into a hidden compartment below deck'.
The Head of SLMM then 'suggested the following:
1. The trawler should be towed to the nearest port by the SLN.
2. SLN would confiscate the military equipment and do their own inspection
of the trawler.
3. SLMM should be responsible for the three LTTE cadres and transport
them in a SLMM vehicle to the LTTE controlled territory'.
However, following radio contact by one of the LTTE crewmembers 'with
his Headquarters…one LTTE crewmember went to the back of the trawler.
Just as the conversation was over, a second crewmember already had a
bottle and a lighter in his hands inside the wheelhouse. One monitor
took the lighter from him and threw it into the sea. At the same moment
the SLMM monitors saw that all the back of the trawler was already on
fire. Then the monitors ran to the front of the trawler and jumped into
the sea. The monitors were in the sea for 10-15 minutes until they were
picked up by the SLN vessel. According to the SLN personnel and the
SLMM interpreter on board the SLN vessel, the LTTE crewmembers took
their own lives while the monitors were in the sea.'
All this is strong stuff, but the pontificators do not care, just as
they do not care about the SLMM ruling about 'The Sea Incident on the
14th of June 2003' or the 11th May 2006 ruling, when the LTTE shot at
a vessel on which a Norwegian monitor was traveling, entitled 'LTTE
is seriously violating the CFA with sea movements and attacks on Sri
Lankan navy' or the ruling of April 2nd 2003 on 'The Attack on the Chinese
Trawler' or the ruling on the 14th July 2002 on 'Two SLMM Monitors held
against their will onboard a LTTE vessel' or the ruling on the 16th
June 2006 on the 'Claymore mine attack on a civilian bus near Kebetigollewa'.
So, when the pontificators claim to be sorry for the people of Sri
Lanka that the SLMM is leaving, it is clear they care not an iota for
the CFA, which had been violated with almost total impunity by the LTTE
over five long years. They ignore also the fact that the LTTE had thrown
out monitors from three of the five countries constituting the Mission,
which led the SLMM in May last year to stop making deliberations. Neither
when the Monitors were decimated, nor when the SLMM stopped delivering
deliberations, did our sanctimonious pontificators raise objects as
vociferously as they do today. Whilst we assume most of them are foolish
rather than malicious, it is possible that at least some of them were
not unhappy then that the categorical evidence provided by the SLMM
against the LTTE and its frivolous attitude to the CFA would no longer
mount up.
The second purpose of the CFA was to institute negotiations leading
to a peace settlement. The LTTE did come to negotiations for just over
a year after the CFA, but there seems to have been no continuity in
their approach. After they withdrew in March 2003, instead of there
being concerted attempts to bring them back to the negotiating table,
reactions from the pontificators generally sought to placate them by
urging both parties to negotiate. This unproductive bleating still continues,
the latest idiocy coming from Amnesty International which calls on 'the
Sri Lanka government to uphold the CFA ceasefire agreement and enter
into immediate talks with the LTTE'. Obviously - as the redundancy suggests
- they do not understand what CFA means, and that an Agreement must
be upheld by more than one person, and that you cannot enter into talks
with someone who has resolutely refused to talk for 14 months (or 57
if you exclude one and a half meetings in Geneva since, of the three
sessions scheduled by mutual agreement in 2006, one proved entirely
abortive when the LTTE refused to talk at all, while another saw just
one day of talks after which they were withdrawn after another infamous
call to their Headquarters in Kilinochchi).
There is however a third aspect of the Peace Process, which was made
clear when the GOSL in 2000 appointed a Facilitator. This was the understanding
that Sri Lanka's political problems required a political solution. Problems
of governance had elicited various responses, including terrorist ones,
but these last were not threatening until, in the early eighties, by
a process of hamfisted violence accompanied by belittling of democratic
forces, the then government indicated that confrontation alone was its
hallmark.
In the aftermath of that approach, negotiations proved unsuccessful,
in part because the LTTE tended to use negotiations to destroy less
extreme Tamil forces. This began with the decimation of TELO in 1986,
went on with the killing of the TULF leadership in 1989, and was repeated
with assaults on EPDP, PLOTE and the murder of Foreign Minister Lakshman
Kadirgamar during the current Ceasefire Agreement. Dignified as the
LTTE seemed to be by the CFA, other Tamils were sidelined, and it is
a tribute to the leadership of EPDP and PLOTE and of course the TULF
in the form of Mr Anandasangaree that they have continued to raise sane
voices. The abrogation of the CFA should lead the international community,
and in particular the Facilitator and the Co-Chairs, to treat them more
seriously and support their efforts to evoke a political solution that
will uphold democratic and pluralistic values.
Over a hundred years ago the distinguished novelist, George Eliot,
was reflecting on massive intellectual changes that had occurred in
her lifetime. When she was a child, she said, there had been three absolutes
that were absorbed in her upbringing, God, Immortality and Duty. Following
the scientific discoveries and the intellectual innovations of the Victorian
era, she said, the first was incomprehensible and the second inconceivable.
But, she said, that did not take away from the importance of the third,
indeed it made it even more essential.
A Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE has proved impossible if not incomprehensible.
Negotations with the LTTE are inconceivable. But the importance of a
political solution on the basis of negotiations with democratic pluralistic
forces remains absolute. The Government of Sri Lanka understands the
reality of all these aspects. Unless the pontificators, at least those
in the international community whose goodwill is genuine, do not understand
the whole reality, they will not be able to assist the peace process
in any meaningful fashion.
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process
13 January 2006
SLMM questions whether there is still a Ceasefire in Sri Lanka
http://www.slmm.lk/intros/press_releases.htm
10 February 2003
THE TRAGIC DELFT INCIDENT - COURSE OF EVENTS
http://www.slmm.lk/press_releases/100203.htm
28 June 2003
THE SEA INCIDENT ON THE 14TH OF JUNE 2003 - SLMM REPORT
http://www.slmm.lk/press_releases/20030628.htm
11 May 2006
LTTE is Seriously Violating the CFA with Sea Movements and Attacks on
Sri Lankan Navy
http://www.slmm.lk/intros/press_releases.htm
14 July 2002
TWO SLMM MONITORS HELD AGAINST THEIR WILL ONBOARD A LTTE VESSEL
http://www.slmm.lk/press_releases/140702.htm
02 April 2003
RECENT VIOLENT INCIDENTS IN SRI LANKAN WATERS - PREVENTION OF FUTURE
INCIDENTS
http://www.slmm.lk/press_releases/020403.htm
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