KILLING FIELD: 17 years for Ireland, So far Just 5years in Eelam

May 8, 2007
Power Sharing Begins in Northern Ireland
By ALAN COWELL and EAMON QUINN

BELFAST, Northern Ireland, May 8 — Paying tribute to the thousands who died, the leaders of Northern Ireland drew a formal line today under decades of hostility and bloodshed, re-establishing a power-sharing local authority made up of once implacable foes.

Watched by dignitaries from Britain, Ireland, the United States and elsewhere, the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the dominant party among Northern Ireland’s Protestants, and Martin McGuinness, the deputy head of the republican and mainly Catholic Sinn Fein party, were sworn in as leader and deputy leader of the Northern Ireland executive government.

“Today we will witness not hype but history,” Mr. McGuinness said as he arrived for the ceremonies. Mr. Paisley told reporters that “while this is a sad day for all the innocent victims of all The Troubles, yet it is a special day because we are making a new beginning. I believe we are starting on a road to bring us back to peace and prosperity.”

Formally, the events today at the Stormont Assembly building in a suburb of Belfast were simply the end of a suspension of the local authority declared in October, 2002, in a dispute over allegations of espionage by the Irish Republican Army. The province has been ruled from London since then, but direct rule ended today and politicians hailed the moment as historic.

The ceremonies today were dominated by two parties — the republican Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party, which wants continued union with Britain — once seen as the most hard-line adversaries.

Their agreement to share power, struck in March, followed years of hard-nosed negotiation during which the Irish Republican Army, affiliated to Sinn Fein, abandoned its armed struggle and said it would embrace politics as the means of securing a united Ireland.

Peter Hain, Britain’s Northern Ireland Minister said the deal to restore local government “is going to stick” because “these are the two most polarized forces in Northern Ireland’s politics, they have done the deal.”

In 30 years of violence known as The Troubles, over 3,500 people died in bitter sectarian fighting and conflict with the British Army in Northern Ireland that sometimes spilled onto the British mainland in bomb attacks.

Since ceasefires in the 1990s, successive British governments have struggled to cement peace, enshrined in the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, attended the ceremony today, both pursuing political goals of their own.

Mr. Blair is expected to announce this week that he will step down as leader in June or early July and is seeking to build a legacy of achievement to survive his record-breaking 10 years and three straight election victories as Labor Party leader.

Asked by the BBC why he had devoted such energies to a settlement, Mr. Blair said: ”I had a sense or an instinct that the time was right.”

“It’s a tremendous thing for me which I do feel emotionally,” he said.

Mr. Ahern is also seeking a third term in Irish elections on May 24 where Sinn Fein, which has a toe-hold in the Irish parliament, is seeking to expand its influence, challenging the prime minister’s own party.

At the ceremonies, Mr. Paisley was sworn in as First Minister with Mr. McGuinness as his deputy — a once unthinkable constellation of personalities. Mr. Paisley long accused Mr. McGuinness of being an I.R.A. “terrorist.” He acquired the nickname “Dr No” for his rejection of the Good Friday agreement and of cooperation with his adversaries.

Significantly, the oath today included a commitment to the police force in Northern Ireland. This had long been resisted by Sinn Fein because the force was seen as part of the unionist enemy.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, is not a member of the local executive, but he attended the ceremonies. “It’s a good day for Ireland, a good day for all the people of this island,” he said, repeating Sinn Fein’s commitment to bringing together the two parts of Ireland — the Republic in the south and the British province made up of six counties in the north. “ We are going to change the political landscape from here out,” he said.

At various stages in the negotiations, the United States played an important role in pushing the two sides together.

President Bill Clinton made three high-profile visits to Northern Ireland and President George W. Bush came here in 2003.

In 2005, however, both President Bush and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy snubbed Mr. Adams during a visit by him to Washington to register their distaste at the murder of Robert McCartney, a Northern Ireland Catholic, in a Belfast pub by a group that included members of the I.R.A.

As he arrived for the ceremony today, Sen. Kennedy, part of an American delegation, said: “This is an extraordinary example that Northern Ireland is really showing to the world that you can disband the militias, the private armies, you can put aside the bomb and bullet and through political reconciliation hopefully carry through the hopes and dreams of the people.”
Note: Highlights ENB


UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils invites Leader of LTTE’s Political Wing S.P. Thamilselvan to address British MPs

In an unprecedented gesture, British ruling Labour Party MP Keith Vaz last week said that the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG) had agreed to invite Leader of LTTE’s Political Wing S.P. Thamilselvan to visit Britain and address parliamentarians.
At a debate on the conflict in Sri Lanka, in the British House of Commons, last week, Vaz said that Thamilselvan had been invited to attend parliament to obtain his views on the ethnic conflict. Thamilselvan is also the chief negotiator of the LTTE.
“We were determined to take the issue [of peace] forward, and on that basis we agreed on three things,” Vaz said.
“First, at the end of September a delegation of all party members should visit Sri Lanka, particularly the areas under the control of the Tamil Tigers, to engage in a dialogue in a positive and constructive way.
“The third thing that we agreed upon was to hold a summit meeting here in July at which all parties could participate as a means of exploring how to take the issue forward,” he added.
A day before the debate, British lawmakers from all main parties formed Westminster’s first ever all-party group for Tamils with the stated aim of “promoting peace with justice and dignity for the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka.”
Keith Vaz MP of the Labour Party and Simon Hughes MP of the Liberal Democrats were elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG).
According to media reports, amongst the group’s plans are: “(i) Arranging a summit in London between representatives of the Sri Lankan Government, the LTTE and the Norwegian Government, (ii) invite the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Donald C McKinnon, to meet with the group to discuss the situation on the island and (iii) visit Sri Lanka; in particular the worst affected areas of the conflict.”
On Wednesday, opening the three hour debate at Westminster on Sri Lanka’s conflict, junior Foreign Minister Kim Howells said the LTTE had to stop causing violence before UK’s ban on the terrorist could be lifted.
“We have repeatedly urged the LTTE to move away from the path of violence. In the absence of a full renunciation of terrorism in deed and word, there can be no question of reconsidering its proscribed status,” he said.
Referring to the extensive contributions Britain’s Tamil community was making to the country and their efforts to lobby the government, Vaz said that the ban on the LTTE should be lifted. “I firmly believe that the ban on the Tamil Tigers—certainly as regards to the way in which they operate in this country—should be lifted as soon as possible,” said Vaz.
“The proscription by the Government of various organizations in 2001 happened because of certain events that were occurring worldwide at the time, and we reacted by imposing that ban on a number of organizations,” he said.
“I know that governments sometimes have to react in a knee-jerk manner, but six years have now passed and it is time to reconsider the ban and look at ways in which we can help to ensure that the dialogue proceeds.”
Lawmakers from the ruling Labour party and opposition Liberal Democrats, Britain’s third largest party, argued that the ban on the LTTE was preventing dialogue towards a solution to Sri Lanka’s conflict. They pointed out that the ban prevented engagement with the LTTE and Tamils and added that the latter refrained from speaking out for fear of falling foul of anti-terrorism laws.
During the debate MPs from the main opposition Conservative Party supported the ban but endorsed dialogue with the Tigers regardless.

Web : uktamilnews.com Sunday, 06 May 2007

US State Department’s Richard Boucher in Sri Lanka to talk on unit of devolution, human rights and IDPsTue, 2007-05-08 14:47
Daya Gamage – US Bureau Asian Tribune

Washington, D.C. 08 May (Asiantribune.com): Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs in the United States Department of State undertakes his third visit to Sri Lanka May 8 through 10.April last year when Richard Boucher was in Sri Lanka he pronounced that to bring a lasting peace to Sri Lanka a devolution package should include a homeland for the country’s minority ethnic Tamil.
According to the American Embassy press release, “he will discuss the peace process, humanitarian issues, and human rights with President Rajapaksa, government ministers, senior military officials, and civil society leaders in Colombo and Jaffna.”

April last year when Boucher was in Sri Lanka he pronounced that to bring a lasting peace to Sri Lanka a devolution package should include a homeland for the country’s minority ethnic Tamil. Colombo and international media missed Boucher’s important and controversial statement about ‘Tamil Homeland’ but when ‘Asian Tribune’ highlighted the pronouncement it led to wide range of discussion among Sri Lanka’s political circles.

Nevertheless, his boss in the State Department deputy secretary Nicholas Burns subsequently made a hard line statement against Sri Lanka’s terrorist outfit in Washington addressing a press conference following the ‘Co-Chair’ meeting.

In his August 17 press briefing in Colombo following meetings with government leaders, Steven Mann, the principal deputy assistant secretary who functions under Boucher, reiterated to the media that the U.S. principles toward Sri Lanka conflict were very well known and that they were fundamentally unchanging. However, in his second visit to the island in early March this year Mann declared that his country has a limited role or ‘less direct role for U.S. at this moment.’

Whether the United States has a limited role or not, Ambassador Boucher’s third visit to Sri Lanka is at a time the principal political party of President Rajapaksa’s governing coalition has proposed the ‘administrative district’, a faction of larger province, as the unit of devolution.

With the use of ‘air power’ by the separatist Tamil Tigers, Richard Boucher’s third visit to Sri Lanka is at a time a micro group is capable of having a macro impact in Sri Lanka and beyond its shores.

The Rajapaksa administration during the past several months has stepped up its overseas public diplomacy campaign to convince the international community, especially the United States, that Sri Lanka’s democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity is under severe attack by the Liberation Tigers due the latter’s ability to freely engage in the fund raising in western nations through front organizations. Foreign Minister Bogallagama in his March visit reiterated this factor to senior Bush administration officials, and how the Tamil Tigers use these funds to procure weapons to battle his government forces. Sri Lanka’s foreign minister said in his audiences with the officials and congressional leaders that curbing fundraising is the key action the international community could take to force the LTTE to give up terrorism and come to the negotiating table.

Bogallagama, during his U.S. visit declared that several U.S.-based charities in the garb of Tamil cultural organizations are raising funds for the U.S. proscribed Sri Lanka Tamil Tigers.

Richard Boucher is visiting Sri Lanka May 8 through 10 to have talks with government leaders and civil society activists at a time the United States, through many official reports, has accused the Rajapaksa regime of engaging in human rights violations.

‘Asian Tribune’ understands that the State Department officials are dissatisfied with the Rajapaksa administration for its emphasis of the ‘administrative district’ as the unit of devolution when the United States has already expressed that it was not supportive of separating northern and eastern province into two units and that ethnic Tamil minority in those two provinces should get a larger unit in the devolution package.

When the Rajapaksa administration at present endeavors to separate LTTE terrorism from genuine Tamil grievances, the pronouncements and actions of the senior officials of the United States Department of State amounts to awarding legitimacy to LTTE terrorism ignoring the following scenario that has emerged in recent time: That, (a) Tamil Tigers losing its grip on its captive Tamil people in the north and east regions of the country (b) Tamil Tiger defeats in the east by Sri Lanka military (c) a 54% of ethnic Tamils are now settled in Sinhalese majority districts outside the north and east, and many are moving away from Tiger-controlled areas (d) the rapid rise of its breakaway Karuna group in the east destabilizing the LTTE in that region (e) the ethnic composition in the eastern province is equally divided among the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims (f) the claim that the Tigers are the ‘sole representatives of the Tamil people’ has become a myth (g) there are several other organizations that represent the 12.5% Tamil community in Sri Lanka (h) the plantation Tamils (5%) are a distinct nationality in Sri Lanka’s demography (i) the socio-economic grievances of the Tamil and Muslim communities are similar to that of the rural Sinhalese. (j) the issue in Sri Lanka is a ‘National Issue’ and not an issue that is confined to one ethnic group but to all ethnic groups in the country that warrants a ‘national solution.’

Colonel R. Hariharan, a retired military intelligence specialist on South Asia and who served the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka during its deployment in 1987 as Head of Intelligence came up with this analysis on U.S. attitude toward Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger terrorism: “Or in simple term, U.S. policy continues to remain the same: when it comes to fighting terrorism, all terrorists are abominable; but some terrorists are more abominable and the U.S. will fight only those more abominable ones.”

The Sri Lanka media will get the opportunity to raise many unanswered questions from Richard Boucher when he presents himself before the press in the late afternoon on May 10 at Cinnamon Grand Hotel in the company of the American ambassador who had a kind word for the Tamil Tigers following the Tiger attack on his aircraft in Batticaloa several months ago.

- Asian Tribune -

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