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| Sunday, 29 June 2003 |
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New impetus to resume peace talks by Ananth Palakidnar and S.SELVAKUMAR Moves to resume the stalled peace talks between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Government with the offer of a new proposal for the North-East interim council is expected to gather momentum with the arrival of former Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Jon Westborg this week. Westborg in his new role as special envoy will hold talks with the LTTE hierarchy in Vanni and will remain in Colombo until the new proposal for a North-East interim council is handed over to the LTTE. Informed sources said that the Japanese Ambassador in Colombo Seiichiro Otsuka will also visit Vanni this week and meet the LTTE's political head S. P. Thamilchelvan. The upbeat mood was reflected at the conclusion of the Pongu Thamil rally in Jaffna, on Friday where it was declared that an interim administration council with administrative powers to the LTTE could pave the way for the next round of talks. While details of the proposal are being kept under wraps, informed sources said that a top level team including the Attorney General C. Kamalasabeysan is currently involved in preparing the proposal with a legal frame work on the North-East interim council. The proposal is likely to be handed over to the LTTE before mid July. Earlier a high level delegation accompanied Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to the United Kingdom and held discussions with legal and constitutional experts on overcoming the crisis situation in the talks between the Government and the LTTE. Jaffna district leader of the LTTE, C. Anjaneyar alias Illamparithi at the Pongu Thamil rally said that an Interim Council with administrative powers for the LTTE could pave the way to enter the next round of talks and also rebuild the war-torn North-East. He also assured that the LTTE would not resort to militant activities and would use all its political resources with utmost determination to find a meaningful solution to the North-East crisis. Meanwhile, Tamil Net quoting a recent article in the pro LTTE Tamil Guardian said that the LTTE may seek jettisoning of Lankan bureaucracy from the North-East . The Sri Lankan Bureaucracy and the public institutions are corrupt, inefficient and subject to rampant clientilism or patron -client networks, states the Tamil Guardian article which also reports that development funding is channelled through existing bureaucratic structures, it will be inevitably consumed by established clientilistic networks. LTTE chief negotiator Dr. Anton Balasingham had also asked for a LTTE- dominated, politico-administrative structure, outside the Sri Lankan constitution, on the plea that the Sri Lankan bureaucracy was "inefficient and corrupt". |
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