Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE by K M de Silva

Author:K M de Silva [Silva, K.M. de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184757118
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

The Cease Fire Agreement and Peace Talks

One of the principal political developments that followed the UNF’s accession to power was a strengthening of the peace process. An informal ceasefire took effect in December 2001. On 22 February 2002, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, signed a Cease Fire Agreement (CFA1) for an internationally monitored indefinite ceasefire period, with the Norwegian government serving as facilitator. The CFA committed the two sides to specified courses of action and stipulated the conditions required for the commencement of peace talks.2 A Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), operated by several Scandinavian countries and led by Norwegians, conducted the supervision of the implementation of the CFA.

The assumption was that the two parties would abide by the ceasefire agreement and commence peace talks on or before 2 August 2002. This deadline was missed, but the cessation of hostilities was maintained. On 4 September, the UNF government removed the official ban on the LTTE, a condition that the LTTE had insisted upon as a prelude to negotiations. The three-day peace talks began nearly two weeks later in Thailand. During the negotiations, the LTTE unexpectedly gave signs of abandoning their long-standing demand for a separate state3 and appeared to be prepared to accept regional autonomy and regional government. These apparently successful talks ended with both sides agreeing to establish a committee to deal with the return of more than 8,00,000 internally displaced people to what was declared as High Security Zones (HSZs) operated by the Sri Lankan military. An agreement was also reached to form a joint task force for humanitarian and reconstruction activities. As for these latter purposes, it was decided to make an appeal to international donors for support. These talks in Thailand were continued in October–November 2002 and again in January 2003.4

Talks were also held in Norway in December 2002, in Germany in February 2003 and in Japan in March 2003. However, the LTTE abruptly withdrew from the talks in April 2003 and did not participate in any further peace negotiations. While the governing coalition elected in February 2004 seemed anxious to continue with the talks, the LTTE did not reciprocate.5

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.