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Norway blames EU for Sri Lanka talks crisis. 9 June 2006

Tracking the Norwegian
Conflict Resolution Initiative

Oslo Talks - June 2006

Undue emphasis on direct talks
sidelined key issues - Thamilchelvan

Tamilnet, 8 June 2006

Preoccupied with bringing Sri Lankan government and the LTTE delegations to face-face talks, Norwegian facilitators had placed less emphasis on engaging with key issues at stake, and more on convincing the two sides to sit opposite to each other, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan, told reporters Thursday evening. He said that the LTTE had come to Oslo, at Norway’s invitation, to discuss issues related to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) with Norway, which is responsible for the SLMM.

Mr. Thamilchelvan said whilst there was no obligation on part of the LTTE to meet the Sri Lankan delegation, the head of the Tigers' Peace Secretariat was prepared to meet his counterpart, Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat Head, Palitha Kohana, who was leading the Sri Lankan delegation, which did not include any senior government figures.

Mr. Thamilchelvan expressed regret that Norwegian facilitators, whilst criticising the LTTE for not agreeing to face-to-face talks, had not pointed out the Sri Lankan government delegation’s refusal of the LTTE offer, and GoSL delegations' insistence that they meet senior LTTE officials.

Mr. Thamilchelvan further said that his delegation would Friday discuss the issues related to sea movement and convey the LTTE leadership's responses to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and the Norwegian facilitators.

Responding to a question how LTTE viewed the international response to the escalation of violence, Mr. Thamilchelvan said although the international community was expressing concern over extra-judicial killings by the Sri Lankan armed forces, it had stopped short of taking action against the government of Sri Lanka.

“This situation should change in order to create the necessary environment to engage the Sri Lankan government in a peace process,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said. “It should be borne in mind that the whole process has been blocked by the non-implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement, in particular, the basic issue of disarming the military’s paramilitary groups.”

The International Community has failed to exert credible pressure on Sri Lanka to disarm the paramilitaries, Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

Mr. Thamilchelvan pointed out that facilitating peace in Sri Lanka was a difficult task, cited comments by the late Major General Trond Furuhovde, the first head of the SLMM, who argued in an article shortly before his death earlier this year that a facilitator must act not just reactively in relation to the two parties but follow a strategy that allowed Norway to become a constructive partner for peace.
 

Sri Lanka Talks With Rebels Collapse - the spin?
Doug Mellgren, The Associated Press, 8 June 2006

OSLO, Norway -- Talks intended to shore up the fraying cease-fire on Sri Lanka collapsed before they could start Thursday when ethnic Tamil rebels refused to sit down with government officials from the South Asian island nation.

Comment: But see LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan statement  above "Mr. Thamilchelvan said whilst there was no obligation on part of the LTTE to meet the Sri Lankan delegation, the head of the Tigers' Peace Secretariat was prepared to meet his counterpart, Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat Head, Palitha Kohana, who was leading the Sri Lankan delegation, which did not include any senior government figures.Mr. Thamilchelvan expressed regret that Norwegian facilitators, whilst criticising the LTTE for not agreeing to face-to-face talks, had not pointed out the Sri Lankan government delegation’s refusal of the LTTE offer, and GoSL delegations' insistence that they meet senior LTTE officials."

Both sides sent delegations to Norway for what was to have been two days of talks on security issues concerning the team of 60 cease-fire monitors from Nordic nations who are deployed on the island off India's southern tip. In a surprise, the rebels refused face-to-face meetings with representatives of Sri Lanka's government. The Tamil Tiger rebel movement said it preferred that each side discuss issues separately with the Norwegian mediators.

The breakdown left Sri Lanka in its deepest crisis since the two sides reached a truce in 2002 with the help of Norwegian mediators. The truce halted large-scale fighting in a nearly 2-decade civil war with 65,000 deaths, but intensifying violence has killed at least 375 people since April. Norwegian officials urged the parties to negotiate.

"Our appeal is very simple: Come to the table now. If you do, many lives will be saved," Norwegian Aid Minister Erik Solheim said.But there was no indication that would happen. The government delegation was preparing to leave Friday.
"The failure of the sides to meet ... shows we are in the deepest crisis in the peace process," Solheim said.

Solheim, who brokered the cease-fire, had earlier warned of "low expectations" ahead of the meeting, stressing it would only cover the security of the international observer force. He said that in addition to refusing to meet with government officials, the rebels also demanded that members of the international monitoring team from Sweden, Denmark and Finland - all members of the European Union -  be excluded from the mission because the EU lists the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist group.

"We asked them to reconsider," Solheim said, noting that the individual monitors represent the international mission, not their home countries. The other members of the observer mission come from Norway and Iceland. Excluding monitors from EU members would sharply reduce their number and require months to recruit others, Solheim said.

The two delegations arrived earlier in the week. The five-member Sri Lanka government mission was headed by peace secretariat chief Palitha Kohona, while the rebels were led by S.P. Tamilselvan, the Tamil rebels' political chief. Tamilselvan said he had wanted to use the talks to discuss with the Norwegians the issue of the monitors and the EU's listing last week of the Tamil Tigers as a terror group. Discussions "at this crucial juncture would be productive when the delegations raise the issues separately with the Norwegian facilitators," he said in a statement.
 

Mariam Manuel Pillai, Matottam, Tamil Eelam, 9 June 2006

Thank you for publishing the 5-point letter sent to Rajapakse and Talaivar from the Royal Norwegian Government. The interview given by Thamilchelvam from Oslo to the Diaspora media today was clear and succinct. As an Eelamite however, I'm profoundly concerned as to the current position taken by the SLMM and Norway regarding the Tamils.

By sending this letter are both parties: the interlocutors and the Monitors agreeing to the fact that the Thamil Defacto state is a legitimate representative of the Tamil Nation and therefore their presumed Freudian-slip of "non-state actors" rhetoric was inappropriate. Furthermore, it was mentioned in the media that the Nordic countries are involved in the SLMM but in the same breath they inadvertently excluded Iceland. Iceland states in their government publications that they have sent "observers" to two countries 1) Northern Afghanistan 2) Sri Lanka.

Is there a legal distinction between an observer and a truce monitor? We should be grateful if tamilnation.org could enlighten us please. Can Norway confirm and guarantee to the Tamil people that the SLMM would play a neutral role. In the light of the current situation that seems to be paramount. SLMM's track record unfortunately is quite muddled and much to be desired.

Response by tamilnation.org

The 'observer' from Iceland is a 'truce observer' and is a member of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. The terms 'observer' and 'monitor' are sometimes used interchangeably in the context of the Sri Lanka - LTTE ceasefire. The SLMM is also sometimes referred to in common parlance as the 'observer mission'.

The real question may not be whether Norway 'can guarantee that the SLMM would play a neutral role.' The question that must be asked why it was that the Ceasefire Agreement stipulated in clause 3.5 that the SLMM 'shall be composed of representatives from Nordic countries'.  It was because these Nordic countries  had not banned the LTTE unlike for instance the US, UK or India - and that therefore, hopefully the neutrality of the SLMM may be secured by Nordic representation.

Now with the ban imposed by Sweden, Denmark and Finland (of the EU), that neutrality can no longer be assured. It is understandable that the Norwegian Development Minister Erik Solheim has sought to smooth over the problem created by the EU ban and has suggested that the 'individual monitors represent the international mission, not their home countries'.

But the fact is that individual monitors, though members of an 'international mission' continue to be citizens of the countries to which they belong and are bound to obey the laws of their countries and the international obligations that each of their countries has signed up to. And indeed, the monitors are themselves chosen after consultations with the countries concerned and with their acceptance.

The question therefore is not simply one of who the monitors represent, but also one of securing neutrality in action. And here, even apart from any thing else,  the track record of the SLMM even before the EU ban was by no means exemplary as evidenced by its effort to water down its report that 'Government Security forces have, in the North and the East, been involved in extrajudicial killings of civilians.'

In the case of the monitors from Sweden, Denmark and Finland there will be a clear conflict of interest between their role as monitors and their duties as loyal citizens of the countries to which they belong - countries which have listed the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and who have undertaken to freeze LTTE assets and so on. 

It was because Norway foresaw the difficulties that a EU ban will cause to the peace process, that Norway itself  made a public announcement in January 2006 that it will no longer align itself with EU List of Banned Individuals & Organisations. If it had not done so, Norway would have had no option but to give up its facilitator role. It is perhaps important for all concerned to recognise that it is not only facilitators but also monitors (or 'truce observers') who must be both neutral and be clearly seen as being neutral. As the old adage goes - justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. It would be simplistic to assume that this can be achieved by guarantees by the Norwegian government, however well intentioned such guarantees may be. After all if it was a question of guarantees, there would have been no need for Norway to have made the public announcement that it did on 4 January 2006.