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| Sunday, 14 November 2004 |
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Muslims demand separate delegation for peace talks by Rashomi Silva Amidst government and international community fears, that the LTTE would backtrack from their earlier agreement to shed the demand for a separate state, Muslim legislators represented in Parliament, who are now meeting on a regular basis demand from the government to send a separate Muslim delegation for peace talks when the negotiations re-commence. Their argument is that, the community is an important stakeholder in the process as well as an important community in the country, they never took up arms or embarked on a violent path to win their rights and hence it was unfair to neglect them and their aspirations. The community without any doubt was affected by the two-decade long war and their grave fear is that, Muslims in the North-East would one day have to live under the rule of an LTTE dominated governing authority. The fears certainly have ground considering how the LTTE almost wiped out the community away from the North and chased them from certain parts in the East. Moreover, there is one generation of Muslim youths who grew up in refugee camps facing harsh treatment of the LTTE. All Muslim legislators agree on the issue of sending a separate delegation despite their different political opinions, says the Congress, who were the first to demand for a separate delegation when they were a part of the UNF administration, which engineered the present truce. Of course, the community is affected by the war and the government has to respect the rights and the aspirations of the Muslims. There is also no argument that, the country is facing today is a tripartite ethnic conflict and it needs a tripartite answer, as one Colombo-based political analyst once put it "Prudent management of the Sinhala-Tamil-Muslim relations is crucial for the success of any ethnic conflict. The bottom line, however, is that Sri Lanka has a tripartite ethnic conflict which needs a tripartite settlement". While everybody agrees on the need to send more Muslim representatives for talks, the question arises whether with a separate Muslim delegation, too many cooks will spoil the soup? The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) has also reportedly complained to the peace envoy Erik Solheim that they were being sidelined from the peace process despite being the major Muslim political party in the country. The party, which is giving final touches to their own set of proposals on an Interim Administration, demands equal attention to the Muslim community proposals at future talks. Meanwhile, in their latest efforts to kick-start the stalled peace talks, the Nordic facilitators last week met the government, the LTTE and the Muslim Congress to get each party's views and their suggestions to put the shaky truce into a better shape. The Congress was of the view that the biggest hindrance to re-start talks was the activities of the chauvinistic elements in the government and the government inability to speak in one voice. This view was shared by their TNA counterparts who said the government should first talk in one voice and have the courage to take the process forward. "All these problems are created because of the JVP's stubborn stance," said TNA parliamentarian Mavi Senadiraja. He reminded that the JVP had opposed the negotiating process from the beginning. When questioned about President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's statement expressing her willingness to re-start talks based on the ISGA proposals, Senadiraja said they would want a written assurance from the President through the Nordic facilitator. "If the President is willing to re-start talks based on the ISGA proposals, she should convey her stance in writing to us through the facilitator," he said. The LTTE which now seeks international community pressure on the government for resumption of talks, on a previous occasion however rebuked the international community for trying to pressurise them to re-start talks. |
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