Probe how Norway, the US and the EU manipulated the CFA demands Sinhala editor well known for his racist comments.

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Editorial

Let the UN be urged to appoint a panel to probe how Norway, the US and the EU manipulated the CFA to aid and abet the LTTE against a UN member State.

Probe Co-Chair's Crimes
September 19, 2010, 12:00 pm
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's panel on Sri Lanka has commenced work, after a delay of six months, in time for the UNGA's 65th session, to probe the alleged war crimes during the Vanni offensive, which was concluded over one and a half years ago. While the UNSG, egged on by his western masters, is trying to embarrass President Mahinda Rajapaksa in New York, it has been revealed by a respected former Sri Lankan ambassador and scholar who was once involved in the now defunct Peace Secretariat that the war, only the final stages of which the UNSG wants probed at the behest of the US, the EU and Norway, could have been avoided, if Norway etc. had not rejected four proposals that Sri Lanka had made as regards the CFA, which they crafted in 2002.
Testifying before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), Dr. John Gooneratne said on Thursday the then UNP-led UNF government had presented those proposals aimed at making the CFA pave the way for evolving a negotiated solution, preventing arms smuggling, ensuring freedom of movement for political parties in LTTE-controlled Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu and ending the forcible conscription. Ironically, the same countries––Norway, the US and the EU––that rejected Sri Lanka’s proposals and thereby helped the LTTE abuse the truce with impunity, prepare for its eelam war IV and plunge the country into a bloody conflagration, now want only the final phase of the war probed!
What Dr. Gooneratne told the LLRC about a remark that the late Anton Balasingham had made during the LTTE's talks with the government is of interest. Cornered by former law professor G. L. Peiris on some point, LTTE spokesman Balasingham had cynically asked, "Now professor, supposing I agree to what you are asking of us, can you get it through Parliament?" This question warrants a comment as there is a misconception in some quarters that the LTTE did not agree to a political solution because the governments it dealt with were incapable of the implementation thereof.
In fact, what the LTTE did was to demand things that no government could grant! Its ISGA demand, which it used to justify its exit from talks, is a case in point. Even the then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Chris Patten were prompted to note very critically that 'the ISGA far exceedes the Oslo Accord and does not resemble any kind of known federalism'.
The political tug-of-war between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the UNF government from 2001 to 2004 was deplorable and condemnable but that was no reason for the LTTE's intransigence. Prabhakaran never wanted a political solution. He wanted only one thing––eelam. It may be recalled that by the time President Kumaratunga presented to Parliament in 2000 a draft constitution containing Regional Councils which envisaged devolution beyond the 13th Amendment, the LTTE had already rejected them out of hand.
From Dr. Gooneratne's revelation about the four proposals at issue, one sees that the present Opposition and UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe's predicament is mainly due to his pusillanimity, indecisiveness and servility to the international community. If he had taken people into confidence and told them that his government's proposals had been rejected by Norway etc. and explained to them his difficulty in defying the Co-Chairs, perhaps he would not have had to pay such a huge political price for signing the ill-fated, disastrous CFA. His mistake was to grovel before Norway, the US and the EU in a bid to be in their good books while biding his time as part of a grand plan to win the presidency, which he mistakenly thought was within his easy reach as Prime Minister, regardless of the adverse impact the CFA had on the country.
Ranil's approach was in sharp contrast to how President Mahinda Rajapaksa handled the Co-Chairs and the other meddlesome members of the international community. The latter had the intestinal fortitude to stand his ground in the face of unbearable pressure they brought to bear on him in a bid to stop the war and rescue Prabhakaran and other LTTE leaders. He went to the extent of avoiding telephone calls from the US State Department and the British government leaders. And the real objective of his visit to Jordan, while the war was raging, was to prevent the UNSG from coming here.
When a powerful Indian delegation consisting of Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, Indian National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan and the then Indian High Commissioner in Colombo Alok Prasad, under pressure from Tamil Nadu, visited President Rajapaksa on April 24, 2009, and sought an immediate end to the final assault on the LTTE, he saw red. Exasperated beyond measure, he minced no words when he told the visiting Indians that even if India were to violate Sri Lanka's air space and ‘drop lentil’ again–India, which saved Prabhakaran in 1987, had done by way of a dire warning during Operation Liberation in the North––he would go the whole hog to destroy the LTTE! Had he given in to Indian pressure and suspended the war, the international allies of the LTTE would have made use of the opportunity to rescue Prabhakaran.
It is a supreme irony that Norway, the US and the EU, responsible for loading the CFA in favour of Prabhakaran––who committed his first murder when he was still a teenager; massacred tens of thousands of civilians; assassinated an incumbent President (Ranasinghe Premadasa), a Foreign Minister (Lakshman Kadirgamar), an Opposition Leader (Gamini Dissanayake); attempted to assassinate another Head of State (President Chandrika Kumaratunga) leaving her critically injured; killed an Indian leader (Rajiv Gandhi); forcibly recruited children as combatants; blasted civilian targets; engaged in gun running, drug trafficking, money laundering and extortion and violently suppressed democratic dissent by murdering Tamil politicians including TULF leader A. Amirthalingam and Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam––pretend to be perturbed by the 18th Amendment!
Let the UN be urged to appoint a panel to probe how Norway, the US and the EU manipulated the CFA to aid and abet the LTTE against a UN member State and, in the process, helped the outfit with the launching of its eelam war IV, which left thousands of people dead and about 300,000 others displaced.