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Colombo wants to buy peace at any cost: Kadirgamar

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI Jan. 12. ``The price of peace may be too heavy,'' Lakshman Kadirgamar, Senior Adviser to the Sri Lankan President on Foreign Affairs, said today about Colombo's ongoing peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Mr. Kadirgamar, who will meet a number of Government functionaries here in the next few days, said that the Tigers were "simply dictating terms'' and that the Wickremesinghe Government wanted to "buy peace at any cost.''

The former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister told The Hindu that such a process could well lead to the division of the country. Asked about the latest round of peace talks between Colombo and the LTTE in Thailand, Mr. Kadirgamar said there had been no agreement on the military standoff between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.

Contradicting the Wickremesinghe Government, Mr. Kadirgamar said that an LTTE ship "did land up.'' The episode showed what the LTTE was actually doing on the ground — contrary to what its leadership had been saying during the peace negotiations. Mr. Kadirgamar also faulted the Norwegian facilitators for providing radio equipment to the LTTE adding ``the Norwegian Government is falling over backwards to placate the LTTE.'' (Fears have even been expressed that the Tigers will use this equipment to broadcast their propaganda to India).

The other issue of concern was the LTTE demand that the Sri Lankan forces withdraw from the high security zones around the Palaly air base and Kankesanthurai harbour in the Jaffna peninsula. Mr. Kadirgamar said the LTTE wanted to place some "Tiger war families'' in the zones so that they became immune to both mortar and howitzer fire. Essentially, they wanted to put up a "human shield'' to protect these areas. The Sri Lankan Army had taken a strong position against the withdrawal and, "for once," even the Norwegian Government had supported this position. The Army had also insisted on the de-commissioning of weapons being held by the Tigers. (As is known, the Tigers have said no to such a possibility).

Mr. Kadirgamar felt that it was already one year since the peace process began and there was need to resolve the ethnic problem in the island. Some kind of power-sharing deal was acceptable, but it should take into account the rights of Muslims living in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. The Muslims feared that they would be left to the LTTE's "mercy'' and this had even led to a split in the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).

Mr. Kadirgamar is likely to meet the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Congress leaders, Sonia Gandhi and Natwar Singh, and the Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal.

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