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Sovereignty contestable: Thamilselvan
LTTE’s Tamilselvan on sovereignty, P-TOMs, ceasefire violations, the peace process and the killings
By Rajpal Abenayake
The LTTE’s Political Wing leader spoke to The Sunday Times soon after meeting a SLMM delegation headed by SLMM chief Hagrup Haukland at the LTTE’s political headquarters in Kilinochchi.

Haukland was also shown the bus in which LTTE officials and cadres were being taken to Batticaloa from Kilinochchi. The bus was attacked last week with a remote-controlled landmine in Welikanda.

Tamilselvan, in a short interview limited by time constraints, answered questions on developments springing from this issue while also talking of the post P-TOMS scenario in general. Here are excerpts from the interview:

I understand that the LTTE has told the SLMM headed by Hagrup Haukland that the organization will be compelled to make its own travel arrangements in two weeks if the government does not respond to its request for escorts in government-controlled areas. We were told this was in view of the incident last week in which a bus, carrying some 40 LTTE cadres travelling under army escort was rammed by an explosive charge. What’s the exact story here?

The travel arrangement with the Sri Lanka military has been for an escort to be provided in Sri Lanka military-controlled areas, and this shock explosion is pushing the LTTE towards taking certain steps. If the government does not give an assurance in two weeks time we will find our own mode of transport. For the last three years we were able to have this travel arrangement, with the help of the SLMM. What has happened is unusual, and this is a provocative act carried out by one party. It’s only recently that we got to know from reliable information provided by our intelligence that there are plans within the military intelligence unit to make use of paramilitary groups and inflict heavy damage to the LTTE while transporting cadres in military controlled areas. We conveyed that information to the SLMM and the Norwegian facilitators. Transport of cadres arriving in the Wanni after a week’s programme from Batticaloa was over-delayed, due to this issue, for more than a month.

That’s because this information (…of a possible attack) was conveyed to the SLMM and we had to await a guarantee from the government that such eventualities do not take place.

The SLMM after interacting with the government, the defense authorities, and all parties involved provided us the guarantee that travel arrangements could be effectively carried out in this manner. We sent the cadres in the manner stipulated according to the ceasefire agreement, that goes with the guarantee that military escort will be provided.

But the blast took place last week exactly in the manner that our information (intelligence) indicated, and so invariably our conclusion is that military intelligence had a hand in this matter, and we have requested the SLMM today to review the situation taking into consideration the methodology that we have submitted now about the guarantee on the transport of cadres.

Can the LTTE come to this conclusion (that the blast was the work of military intelligence) because there was an escort that the army provided to this bus. The very fact that there was an escort from the army means that army casualties are also possible. So, is the army going to risk its own men?

Isn’t it reasonable to conclude that it is not the army which carried out this attack, because the army is not going to risk its own soldiers by planting explosives on the way of a convoy travelling with its own escort? Isn’t it possible that it is some other party and not the army that was responsible ?
That’s a reasonable point expressed by you, and we quite well understand it. The explicit understanding reached at the point of crisis when the travel was delayed, was that the military personnel also accompany the LTTE cadres by getting into the vehicle in which the LTTE cadres travel. But this was not done. So technically you can say that the army will not risk its own personnel being killed, but unfortunately the understanding with the LTTE, the SLMM and the Army that the Sri Lankan army personnel get onto the same vehicle in which our cadres are travelling, was not met.

To get to a different issue, after the tsunami related P-TOMS was signed, one government Minister, particularly, Dr. Sarath Amunugama, has been voicing the view that the LTTE has accepted the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan government. By way of clarification -- is it correct that the LTTE has accepted the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan government as Amunugama says.
That argument does not hold good when it comes to the logical conclusion on it. There are two parties to an agreement here. One party is the LTTE which holds territory and people. This reality has been earlier endorsed by the ceasefire agreement and now by the P-TOMS agreement.

The P-TOMS agreement stipulates that the government of Sri Lanka along with the Liberation Tigers are two power points. The term previously used for P-TOMS, the "Joint Mechanism’’ indicates that the two parties need to cooperate in matters involving tsunami affected people in Tamil territory. So the fact that there are two power points has been well established.
Therefore, technically the position that sovereignty is being accepted by the Tamil people is contestable.

On the Lankan government side it is said that the P-TOMS is a continuation of the peace process, at least of sorts. As far as the LTTE is concerned does this whole P-TOMS arrangement have something to do with the peace process -- or is it a totally separate matter that deals strictly with the relief and rehabilitation of tsunami affected people?

If one reads the tsunami mechanism proposals (P-TOMS) in its totality, between the lines, underlining the various focuses for which it is designed, technically it has no relationship whatsoever with the peace process.
But having said that, it must be underscored that in the same way as the ceasefire agreement envisages, this too visualizes not directly but indirectly an environment that can be seen as a confidence building proposal. This agreement can be seen as a confidence building measure that would invariably lead to a situation as the ceasefire agreement also envisages; a situation that is conducive to take forward the peace process, which has been stalled for some time. But there is no direct involvement whatsoever – a direct linkage – and if one were to split it into various parts one would not be able to see anything that links this (P-TOMS) document to the peace process.But the general expectation and human expectation is that this could pave the way to build up confidence between the parties.

If I may revert back to that earlier issue, the LTTE has told the SLMM about having to rethink travel arrangements, which means the ceasefire will be at great risk.

But the SLMM has itself stated earlier that the LTTE has violated the ceasefire agreement many more times (…2900 against 130) than the military. Yet, even though there was such a large number of ceasefire violations by the LTTE the Sri Lankan government did not ask the SLMM to call off the ceasefire. In other words, these violations happened on both sides, more so on the LTTE side.
In this context isn’t this kind of thing (the Welikanda bus incident) usual in the case of a ceasefire, as according to the SLMM itself, not according to me, the LTTE has violated the ceasefire many more times than the Sri Lankan government. Therefore the least you can say is that these things do happen in a ceasefire, and the LTTE should therefore not take such a hard-line in view of the mine blast in Welikanda last week. After all, this is what the LTTE itself has been guilty of, right?

Three years of the ceasefire was ample proof of the LTTE’s understanding of this problem, which is that it is possible that you get violations in such an agreement. Technical violations whether numerically, one party outnumbering the other or otherwise, are immaterial when it comes to creating a situation of losing confidence in the entire process.

Now, technically and numerically you may be right (your argument that technically these violations have been taking place all this while, and why the LTTE is taking such a serious view in the case.) But taking this particular incident and isolating it from the entire frame, we see that about 40 of the LTTE cadres were ambushed in a perfectly arranged transport routine with the explicit understanding and guarantee provided by the military that they will not only provide the transport but they will provide the security and that they will also ensure that the road is free of any danger to these cadres.

The guarantee is because this route is completely under military control.
After providing all these guarantees and with so much of delay involved in making these arrangements, if such a thing has happened, it denotes the serious intent to violate the ceasefire. We say ‘intent’ because there is no sincerity of purpose visible in agreeing to ensure that these cadres should be transported safely. Rather we would say that there was a coup, that there was a hidden intention of throwing these people into this trap and killing them.
That is the seriousness with which we view this matter and this is what necessitates a notice of this nature.

Point A is that you say that it is a breach of trust. But point B is that if you are talking of ‘intent’, many Sri Lankan army intelligence operatives were killed. The SLMM too regards these killings of army intelligence operatives as ceasefire violations at least in a lot of instances. Such killings happened in large numbers.

So if you are talking of ‘intent’ can you isolate this one incident last week, because to any objective observer the ‘intent’ to violate is very much there in the case of the deaths of intelligence cadres also?

It is not relevant for you to place this incident vis-à-vis the military intelligence people being killed. As per arrangement in the ceasefire agreement and the explicit understanding reached after intelligence reports that there is a plan to kill certain of our cadres whilst travelling, last week’s incident was a violation that was accomplished specifically for this purpose.

On the other hand, military intelligence people targeted in fully military controlled and Sri Lanka government controlled areas, is a matter that the people who are responsible for law and order in those areas are responsible for. The LTTE under no circumstances provided, technically or otherwise, any guarantee that they will provide security to the military intelligence. The military intelligence people seek security from the government itself, and from their own people. As a complementary point we would like to say that it is the military that is giving shelter to the different paramilitary groups for all sorts of activities such as gathering intelligence and for all sorts of underworld activities. These are all matters that create a situation that is more complex than simply equating the LTTE of targeting military intelligence to what happened this week.

These killings you referred to are all taking place in areas in which there is full military control and the law and order arm and the government are fully responsible for anything that takes place. The LTTE definitely cannot provide that security guarantee, and keeping away from that situation is something that the LTTE can normally be expected to do.

The LTTE, repeat, under no circumstances, provided a guarantee that they would provide security to the military intelligence.

No, no -- that’s not the point -- but these killings are also ceasefire violations and the LTTE has provided a guarantee not to violate the ceasefire.

If it is proved that the LTTE did it then it’s a violation but it is purely on speculation that it is being said that the LTTE is doing these things. It is no secret that the military is keeping with it, armed groups and underworld gangs, within its own set-up and it is something that’s known to everybody. Apportioning the blame on any military intelligence people being killed to the LTTE, is purely on speculation. Okay. (Indicating the interview is over.)

Can I ask one more question. There was the recent incident of journalist D. P. Sivaram who was abducted and killed. He was obviously liked by the LTTE given that his cortege was taken to LTTE controlled areas for the LTTE to pay its respects. Now some investigations have been done and they say the PLOTE is involved, so what is the LTTE’s view on this killing after two months since it happened. Who may have done it, do you think?

At this time we cannot say, because many people have been killed and what has happened to these investigations have serious implications.
No action has been taken against the individuals who have perpetrated these crimes against individuals within state facilities and otherwise, so given the situation in the past we will not be able to comment on whether we are satisfied with these investigations or not.

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