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by Susantha Goonatilake

The keeper of the 'Hora givisuma', the Norwegian head of the SLMM Haukland revealed his true hand as he left the country. A 'Hora umpire', he made comments supporting the LTTE. Ignoring their barbarities, he called them "freedom fighters" and added that the Sri Lankan army could not defeat them. But this Hora umpire's comments were true to SLMM form.

In early 2003, the SLMM sided with the LTTE when an illegal arms shipment it was smuggling in against the CFA conditions, was sunk by the Navy. Later again, when the LTTE sank a Chinese trawler, it did not blame the LTTE as responsible but a "Third Force" hurriedly invented for the purpose by the SLMM itself.

It also had the gall to propose that the Sea Tigers be recognised as a legitimate naval unit (thus adding one more trapping of a separate state to the Norwegian-LTTE conspiracy to create a separate state). The previous head of SLMM Teleffen, again a Norwegian, leaked to the LTTE Sea Tigers that the Sri Lankan navy was about to sink an arms carrying ship, allowing it to get away.

And continuing to insult Sri Lanka, the SLMM spokeswoman with an Icelandic name Olafsdottir lied publicly last week in trying to defend Haukland. She was in line with the Norwegian Foreign Ministry official Lisa Golden who once said in Oslo that the Norwegian efforts in Sri Lanka were supported by the JVP and JHU. (I was there at the meeting.) Iceland from where this Olafsdottir comes from has a population roughly that of the Maldives.

The question arises why not have a Maldivian as a Third Umpire who would do a better job. The more serious question is why we, as a sovereign nation, continue to suffer colonial insults in this 21st century which the Maldives would not tolerate.

We must continuously remind ourselves that the CFA, the Givisuma was itself Hora. The CFA was a coup for the LTTE. The time was after 9/11 when the LTTE was shivering in its boots that the antiterrorism crusade would rapidly descend on them. Evidence in the public domain indicates that the CFA was crafted by the Norwegians probably on an original LTTE draft.

Then only had it been shown to Ranil Wickremasinghe who signed it after Prabhakaran had signed and given his imprimatur. And when Norwegian Deputy Prime Minister Helgesen was asked by the Island about the need to inform the then President about the CFA, he haughtily responded "only when the PM [Ranil Wickremasinghe] asks him to do so". No wonder the London Economist labelled the CFA as "Viking Rule".

Geneva 2

In a few days' time, the Geneva talks are set to begin again on this CFA.

The Colombo airport was the conduit - with the connivance of the Norwegians and the incompetence of then Ranil-Chandrika co-government - through which the LTTE returning from peace talks smuggled in war equipment. This was in addition to the equipment that came via the Norwegian diplomatic pouch. After the last Geneva talks, for the first time the LTTE had to go through normal customs and were checked.

Now they are asking for a sea plane to go for the talks, presumably to avoid the checks. What should be the response to this of a self-respecting government? Sri Lanka's territorial waters and sea are not ceded by the CFA to the LTTE - unlike the land territory illegally ceded by it. Any such illegal seaplane should be signaled to land at a Sri Lankan airport.

If they refuse, the only self-respecting course of action must be to shoot it down. It is understood that when Sri Lanka helicopters ferry the LTTE to Killinochchi from Colombo, a Norwegian flies in the helicopter. If then, an illegal seaplane carrying the LTTE delegation was to carry such a Norwegian, he then has to face the consequences.

If he gets killed, it would be unavoidable collateral damage.

The hoped for peace talks at Geneva 2 is also a time to ask unpleasant but necessary questions. It is necessary to consider the negative consequences of the present stalemate - of the continuing occupation by the LTTE of the lands ceded to it illegally by the CFA. They have got a piece of a real estate to call their own and recognized as such by the Sri Lankan government and the international community which they would not have got without the CFA. These consequences of the CFA should, and must be, terminated. Cyprus and Korea come to mind.

Cyprus and Korea

Cyprus is a small Mediterranean country which since 1974 has been de facto divided into two, two thirds controlled by the Greek speaking South and one third by Turkish Cypriots. The reasons for division are many. UN peacekeepers were initially deployed on the island from 1964 by invitation of the predominantly Greek Cypriot government.

This was to stop communal violence and people abandoning mixed villages to go to ethnically "pure" Turkish Cypriot or "pure" Greek Cypriot villages. Later in 1974, the military Junta then ruling Greece supported those Greek Cypriots who wanted "Enosis", a union with mainland Greece. The army from mainland Turkey now marched in to support the Cypriot Turks.

A de facto division took place and UN peacekeeping forces have since maintained a buffer zone between the two sides, treating each side as equal without going into any questions of morality or of justice about the issues concerned.

In the Cypriot example, we have an acute lesson for us and the consequences of continuing the ceasefire. A long ceasefire with definite borders is separatism. Our parallels with Cyprus are not exact. Apart from the ethnically cleansed parts of North Sri Lanka we have today relatively happy mixed communities living side by side. The best example of this is in the Western Province, especially Colombo District, where Muslims, Sinhalese and Tamils live as close neighbours.

The ceasefire with its de facto division into two areas controlled respectively by the LTTE and by the Sri Lankan government has gone on for four years now.

The longer this ceasefire goes on in its present form, the greater will the de facto state created by respectively Ranil Wickremasinghe, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Anton Balasingham, Prabhakaran and Eric Solheim, turn into a de jure state.

Continuation of the CFA and dividing the country into two parts also imply that the SLMM has to treat Sri Lanka and the LTTE, both the criminal and the victim, as equals. Like in colonial times, the SLMM with their white-skinned governors stand above the two equals and issue, unlike Solomon, false judgments. This equality of treatment also extends to the two Peace Secretariats.

Neutral public profile

The new head of the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat Kohonne appears refreshing compared to the earlier incumbents who had maintained almost a neutral public profile, not a pro Sri Lanka one.

Kohonne has said (Reuters, Daily News) that there are limits to the provocation that the government can take and emphasised the need to democratize the North and the East. These are excellent statements. However he has added that the CFA itself does not require revising.

But it is this very CFA, which recognizes the illegal control by the LTTE that allows it to deny democracy and to launch the gross provocations on the government. Kohonne has UN experience on the ceasefire made over 50 years ago between the two Koreas - North and South - supervised by the United Nations.

This has maintained relative peace but also has maintained the division between the dictatorial North and the democratic South.

Ceasefire

We must avoid the ceasefire coalescing into a Korean or a Cyprus one. If Sri Lanka cannot be totally regained for the legitimate government, then the ceasefire should - and must - be broken by the government.

The time frame is not years which will allow the LTTE to settle in and further consolidate but should be counted in the months. To regain the country, the government must be prepared to use "all means necessary". And where does one have a useful parallel for such possible military action? It is in Eric Solheim's unstinted advocacy of military action, (which included bombing), against Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbia.

And Milosevic's crimes were kids' play compared to those of Prabhakaran.

Editor's Note: This article is strictly the writer's personal perspective.

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