| Submit your comments on this article |
| Sri Lanka |
| Tamils Losing Faith in Peace Process |
| 2004-08-17 |
| Sri Lanka's rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said Tamils are ``losing faith'' in the peace process because of political bickering and power struggles among the country's political parties. ``Tamil people are losing faith in the value of the peace process due to the political contradictions and power struggles in the south,'' said S. P. Thamilchelvan, head of the Liberation Tigers' political division, according to the TamilNet Web site. He was speaking after meeting European Union representatives yesterday in Kilinochchi in northern Sri Lanka. Tamils want peace talks to resume without delay, Thamilchelvan said. The Tamil Tigers are calling for peace negotiations to resume based on their proposals for an interim self-government in the rebel-controlled north and east of the country. Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga earlier this month went back on an offer to accept the plan as a basis for talks. Her coalition government, which came to power in April, has partners opposed to autonomy for the Tamils. Sri Lanka's government is also allowing paramilitary forces loyal to a renegade commander to operate against the main Liberation Tigers group in the east of the country, Thamilchelvan told the EU envoys, according to the Web site. Peace talks between the government and the rebels stalled in April last year. Both sides are maintaining a cease-fire that came into force in February 2002. Two gunmen yesterday killed a member of the government in the capital, Colombo. The killing is the second this month, after a man said to have worked as a government military operative was shot in front of a department store in the city. The government said last week the political killings threaten the cease-fire agreement. Tamils make up less than one-fifth of the South Asian island nation's population of 19.9 million people. The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for a separate homeland since 1983 in a conflict that has killed at least 60,000 people. |
| Posted by:Steve White |