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Is the LTTE setting the stage to veer away from the Ceasefire Agreement?
Indications emerged after the LTTE released a six-page document titled the “Oslo Communiqué” on Friday night.

This came after the LTTE refused to sit down for talks with a Sri Lankan Government delegation and urged monitors from EU member nations to withdraw from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) because of the EU ban on the Tigers.

Asked whether the LTTE would pull out from the Ceasefire Agreement, its spokesman Daya Master told The Sunday Times on the telephone from Kilinochchi yesterday, “We are awaiting the response of Norway. We will then decide.”

He also said the “LTTE Oslo communiqué” was the last opportunity it was giving President Mahinda Rajapaksa to address vital issues.

On Thursday, Norway’s International Development Minister Erik Solheim handed over letters to President Rajapaksa and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, seeking clarification on five important questions:

(1) Their stand on the CFA,

(2) whether they need the continued presence of the SLMM,

(3) whether they are able to provide security guarantees to the SLMM,

(4) whether they are in favour of amendments to the CFA which deals with protection of SLMM members, and,

(5) until such amendments are made whether the two sides would give security guarantees to the SLMM.

The “LTTE Oslo Communiqué,” formulated like a legal document with each paragraph beginning with the word “noting” has answered some of the questions raised by Mr. Solheim.

Whilst saying that the LTTE went to Oslo “in good faith to discuss ways and means to ensure the safety and security of the SLMM monitors”, the “communiqué” says it could be “met without amending the CFA.” It also says the CFA need not be amended to address the LTTE’s concerns either.

The six page “LTTE Oslo Communiqué” traces the history of the ethnic conflict and blames successive governments. It says that talks in Oslo are not to be Geneva Talks II which requires prior meeting of the central committee of the LTTE and compliance with the Geneva I agreements. These prerequisites have not been satisfied due to the continued intransigence of the government, the communiqué charged.

The communiqué says “the international community’s recent misguided attempt to differentiate the Tamil Nation from the LTTE, the sole interlocutor of the former in the negotiations, is injurious to the peace process.”

However, the LTTE document ends with the message to the international community with no mention of what it proposes to do next. LTTE sources say a further statement is due after the delegation returns to Kilinochchi.