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Power struggle over tsunami aid to Tiger territory
Sunday, 30 January 2005 - 8:13 PM SL Time
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COLOMBO (AFP) - A battle for control of tsunami relief aid has dimmed prospects of reviving Norwegian-backed peace talks between Tamil Tiger rebels and the Colombo government, sources close to the rebels said.
The top negotiator of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Anton Balasingham, left here early Sunday without agreement over the handling of international help for tsunami relief, a source said.
`The LTTE is proposing a structure in which it will have a majority control (in the Tamil-dominated east and northeast), but the government is opposed to that,` the source said.
The LTTE has also made it clear any discussion over handling of tsunami relief will be kept separate from the peace process which remains stalled since the Tigers pulled out of talks in April 2003.
`The Tigers want to receive foreign aid to their areas without the central government interfering, but the government says it can`t bypass the treasury,` the source said.
The Tigers were also seeking the establishment of a special tsunami relief panel through a presidential decree rather than through parliament where the ruling party`s majority is in doubt.
Diplomatic sources said the initial euphoria that the tsunami that lashed the island on December 26 causing extensive death and destruction could bring the warring parties together had now evaporated.
`Even at a perilous juncture in the wake of the unprecedented tsunami disaster, the government seems to be more engaged in subtle political moves and exert its power,` Balasingham said last week.
He told tsunami survivors in the rebel-held coastal region of Mullaitivu that the government was trying to use massive foreign aid to rebuild its military.
`All moves of right thinking people at this time should be focussed in alleviating the hardships of the displaced people and providing them the wherewithal to rebuild their life,` he said.
Both sides had expected a breakthrough in setting of a `structure` to manage relief aid, but Balasingham, according to sources close to him, expressed disappointment that no decision could be reached before he returned to London.
He arrived last week in time for the visit by Norway`s Foreign Minister Jan Petersen and two top peace envoys Erik Solheim and Vidar Helgesen.
The Tigers made it clear they did not want aid given to them directly, but instead wanted international agencies to carry out the work on their own in areas of the island`s northeast held by the Tigers.
A press report said Colombo and the LTTE have had seven rounds of talks on tsunami aid, but failed to reach an agreement.
`These discussions (with Colombo) differ from the usual political negotiations, in that it is at the LTTE and Government Peace Secretariat level and confined to rehabilitation and reconstruction matters,` Balasingham said.
Aid officials from the European Union (news - web sites), Japan, Norway and the United States who met in Brussels to review the island`s peace process after the December 26 catastrophe, which killed 30,957 people by official count, stressed the need for unity.
The four co-chairs of the so-called Tokyo Conference on Sri Lanka, welcomed `the ongoing effective response` to the tsunami from Colombo and the LTTE.
The Tigers and government troops, after battling for decades, have been observing a truce which Norway arranged in February 2002. But talks have been deadlocked since April 2003.
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