UNP leader Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe’s plea to President Chandrika Kumaratunga to commence negotiations with the LTTE raises many questions, unless there is a special understanding between him and the LTTE which is not made public.

Mr Wickremasinghe says that the proposals made by his UNF government to the LTTE in July 2003 have not been rejected and in fact Velupillai Prabakran in his ‘Heroes Day ‘ speech in November that year had said : ‘though these proposals were unsatisfactory we did not reject them’. Mr. Wickremasinghe surmises: ‘Please note that the third set of proposals submitted by the government (UNF) in July 2003 was not rejected by the LTTE’.

These observations of the UNP leader need clarification. The LTTE, it has to be noted, called off peace negotiations with the government in April 2003, claiming that ‘nothing has been achieved’ . In November that year, after seven months has passed, the LTTE put forward its proposals for an Interim Self- Government Administration which had no references to the previous six rounds of talks between the two sides nor the July 2003 proposals of the UNF government. Then in November 27, Prabakaran says that he had not rejected the third set of proposals of the UNF.

The questions to be raised are: Why did not the LTTE accept or even comment on the UNF proposals from July to November— for more than three months. Why was no reference to these proposals made at all-even-oblique references in the ISGA proposals?
And even after ‘Heroes Day’ the LTTE maintained that negotiations must be only on the ISGA proposals, rejecting President Kumaratunga’s proposals to discuss ‘ core issues’?
Equally important is why Mr. Wickremasinghe, the UNP and the Norwegian Peace facilitators not point out that the LTTE had not rejected the UNF government proposals till Mr. Wickremasinghe thought it fit to raise it with president Kumaratunga this week?
The 2.4 billion dollar question is whether the LTTE has gone back on its intransigent position of negotiations only on the ISGA or no negotiations and are willing to negotiate on the UNF proposals.

Another vital question is that even if the LTTE is willing to negotiate on Mr. Wickremasinghe’s proposals will President Kumaratunga be willing? The well known axiom in contemporary Sri Lankan politics is: What Ranil proposes, Chandrika disposes and vice- versa. President Kumaratunga too had her own proposals, the Devolution Package which she presented to parliament in 2001 and it resulted in the UNP tearing the ‘Package’ up on the floor of the House and setting it on fire. The LTTE has true to form being consistently rejecting all such proposals from whatever quarters. Now will the president agree to negotiate on the proposals of the UNP leader?

Mr. Wickremasinghe now proposes that the president should go ahead and negotiate with the LTTE within the parameters of the Oslo and Tokyo Declarations. But the LTTE makes no reference to these declarations , which are based on a federal solution. The ISGA is a proposal to set up precursor to a separate state based on racist fascism, not federalism. This is very well argued in the book Abomination by lawyer, S.L. Gunasekera that is now currently being serialised in The Island.

Meanwhile, a report in The Hindustan Times , reproduced in yesterday’s issue of The Island raises related questions equally important. Mr. Milinda Moragoda, former minister and now Mr. Wickremasinghe’s advisor on foreign and economic affairs has said that India will have to be the guarantor of the final settlement between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE.

Whether India will want to perform this role having kept aloof of Sri Lankan affairs after the IPKF fiasco, is a matter of doubt. There are also further complications because on the ISGA proposals, the LTTE wants to have its own Navy sailing the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait which India will certainly not permit particuarly if India proceeds with the Sethusamuduram Project, over which Tamil Nadu politicians are now all Ga- Ga. On the other hand why should a sovereign nation call upon a foreign power, despite it being our neighbour and regional power, to underwrite an agreement, which is purely an internal affair? Such a step will be tantamount to internationalising the affair even more.