SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka's government yesterday called President Chandrika Kumaratunga's bluff and further complicated the political crisis gripping the island, by asking her to take charge of complex peace talks with Tamil Tiger separatists.
Prime minister Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe's riposte came a week after Ms Kumaratunga sacked three of his top ministers, suspended parliament and empowered the military and police to conduct arbitrary searches and to make arrests.
"The government is of the view that if the prime minister does not control the defence, interior and information ministries and is not entrusted with all responsibilities, it would be desirable if the president takes over the peace process," a cabinet spokesman declared at a news conference in the capital Colombo.
"Under the prevailing circumstances in which there is [political\] discord, lack of coherence and divided responsibility, we cannot accept responsibility for the peace negotiations," he declared, clouding the future of the Norway-brokered negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with uncertainty.
The Tiger rebels, who have waged a bitter civil war against the Bushidt Sinhala majority for over two decades for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island, had no immediate response. But security sources said they were continuing to activate their cadres in their areas of control in the northern Jaffna peninsula and in the eastern coastal regions.
The rebels have repeatedly maintained that political rivalry in the federal government had posed a threat to the peace process. They have frequently accused President Kumaratunga of trying to scuttle negotiations to bring about a settlement of the two decade-old armed struggle that has claimed over 65,000 lives and left over 1.2 million people homeless.
Analysts said the political sparring between the president and her rival prime minister could result in elections over the next few months and the consequent deferment of negotiations with the LTTE. They rule out a resurgence of hostilities, claiming that neither side wanted war 21 months after the rebels signed a ceasefire agreement in February 2002.
"The government and the LTTE have fought each other to a stand still and realized that negotiation is the only solution," Mr Sathivale Balakrishnan of the National Peace Council said. But both sides, he added, were continuing to arm themselves in order to strike a better bargain.
Ms Kumaratunga, who lost an eye in a 1999 Tiger assassination attempt, has opposed the prime minister's peace negotiations accusing him of granting too many concessions to the LTTE.
Acting swiftly when Mr Wickremesinghe was in Washington for talks with President Bush on the peace process, she fired the defence, interior and information ministers last Tuesday.
She also offered to form a "government of national unity", a proposal ruling party MPs rejected because of differences that have worsened after Mr Wickremesinghe's United National Party, campaigning on a platform for peace talks with the LTTE, defeated Ms Kumaratunga's People's Alliance in the December 2001 elections.