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more try by Norway Norwegian diplomat and Special Advisor Erik Solheim told The Sunday Times this week by telephone from Oslo that such a "fresh initiative" was on hand. But, then, he declined to say what it was. Solheim arrives in London tomorrow for an important meeting in this regard with LTTE Chief Negotiator Anton Balasingham. The LTTE ideologue will have to deviate from his now busy schedule of his Tour de Europe together with the rebel group's political wing delegation to meet with the Norwegian emissary to discuss the "new initiative". Balasingham is busy on two matters -- putting the finishing touches to his 514 page book titled 'War and Peace' a la Tolstoy, that recounts the LTTE experience on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. The new material in the book has hitherto undisclosed encounters between the LTTE and the Indian Government; a critique on the Oslo Statement and the Tokyo Declaration as well as many personal anecdotes. On top of this, LTTE Political Wing leader, S.P. Thamilselvan, who met Balasingham conveyed a special message from his leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. That was to draft a good speech for this year's "Maveerar" or Grand Heroes day. The occasion this year will mark Prabhakaran's 50th birthday. After tomorrow's meeting, Solheim is rushing back to Oslo to be on hand for the arrival of the LTTE delegation led by Thamilselvan. Currently, the LTTE delegates are in Finland and will visit two more countries before reaching Oslo on Wednesday. Solheim answered some more questions put to him by The Sunday Times. We asked him whether the LTTE was amenable to discuss any alternative to its demand for an Interim Self Governing Authority. This was particularly in the wake of remarks in London on Thursday by a senior LTTE member that "there is no need for us to consider counter-proposals from the Government." He was responding to Government Spokesman Mangala Samaraweera who declared the same day this week that the Government was ready with counter-proposals (to the LTTE's proposal to set-up ISGA). Solheim replied: "The LTTE has made clear its demand for ISGA is not a 'take it or leave it' position. Of course, it insists its proposal (ISGA) should be discussed. There will be hard bargaining and the Government will be able to state its own position." The Sunday Times: Is there going to be any fresh initiatives to break the deadlock and resume peace talks? Solheim: There is, but I cannot speak about it. Quite clearly a new formula, which awaits the approval of both sides, is emerging. Some of the key international players like Canada, the United States and India seemed to be in the loop. Solheim said both in Canada and the United States, there was full support for the peace process and for Norway's role as a facilitator. They also made two important requests -- to ensure the Ceasefire Agreement remains intact and the two parties return to the negotiating table soon. Similarly, the same sentiments were expressed by the Indian Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This was during talks Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen held with his Indian counterpart. Solheim said Helgesen's visit was to review bi-lateral relations and focused on a number of matters besides the peace process in Sri Lanka. That included Norway-India relations, the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Solheim said after his meeting with the LTTE team in Oslo he would head for Colombo. This was for talks with President Kumaratunga and opposition leaders among others. However, he said no dates have still been fixed. Diplomatic sources say the visit would take place in early November. In the meantime, the LTTE delegation, wearing their flannelled blazers rather than their camouflage uniforms are meeting and greeting European diplomats - other than those in the UK, where they remain banned as a terrorist organisation. In Geneva they had the audacity to hang a portrait of their leader at the hotel they booked for a meeting with Swiss Foreign Ministry officials who thought nothing of the event. The issue was taken up with the visiting Swiss Foreign Minister last week in Colombo by her counterpart Lakshman Kadirgamar, but it was dismissed as a trivia. In Finland, a previous LTTE delegation had been taken to Aaland Islands where the Government of Finland is very keen to promote its own example of devolution and self-determination. Our Defence Correspondent was among a group of Sri Lankan journalists also taken there recently. We publish alongside a critique of the Aaland Islands example by our former Ambassador to the UN, H.L. de Silva. So we have various countries around the world, be it Switzerland, Canada, South Africa or Finland trying to export their shining examples of devolution and self-determination to this miserable country, and virtually holding those examples to the visiting rebels like some merchants exhibiting their wares to a group of visiting business magnates, offering them for sale. The price to be paid will be by future generations. In India, meanwhile, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe paid the routine courtesy calls. It is now quite well known that though the Indian Government in New Delhi had urged President Chandrika Kumaratunga not to hold the April snap polls, its then envoy in Colombo, Nirupam Sen, was instrumental in backing the JVP-PA alliance that forged ahead to an electoral victory in those elections. Wickremesinghe's visit was, partly, to assess the mood in New Delhi, both viz-a-viz the peace process in Sri Lanka as well as their attitude towards him and his party, now languishing in the opposition. He reports two things. That the Indian Government is only now gradually re-focusing on Sri Lanka, and that at least by what Congress leader Sonia Gandhi told him, they consider the UNP a friend, not foe. With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh increasingly tied down with consensus-building to run a coalition government like what he leads, the onus has fallen on the Brahmins of the Foreign Ministry to keep an eye on Sri Lanka. Jyothindra Nath Dixit, the one-time High Commissioner in Colombo, leads the pack though External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh is the official head of the South Block that houses the Ministry. Dixit has seemingly not forgotten the 1987 Indo-Lanka Pact and the reception accorded to Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi by the JVP at the time, nor the reception accorded to the Indian Army (IPKF) by the LTTE a little later, either. Wickremesinghe had told the Indian leaders that his UNP stands by its always stated (though not always convincingly stated) stance, that peace talks with the LTTE must be resumed on the basis of the Oslo Statement and the Tokyo Declaration, and ISGA being the LTTE's proposal. The Indian side had agreed that they can live with that line, but certainly not with ISGA period. No one, clear, unequivocal line has emerged from the LTTE as to what it will do with the so-called counter-proposals of the Government of Sri Lanka (please see Editorial comment ), and whether the LTTE insists on the implementation of ISGA before other matters are discussed. Sometimes the same LTTE leader says different things to different reporters and foreign representatives. Confusion seems to be the name of the game. Somehow, LTTE's Supreme Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has not said a word about this entire exercise -- whether it’s ISGA first or any such mundane issue. And nobody seems to have asked him either for clarification. No, not even Erik Solheim. The
Aaland Islands autonomy and the ISGA The Aaland province of Finland consists of more than 6500 islands and skerries with a land area of 599 square miles and a population of about 25,000. Ninety percent of the population live in the largest and main island Fasta Island. Because of its strategic location in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland, and the dominant access to St. Petersburg it is of great importance for the defense of all three states. The inhabitants of the islands speak Swedish and the linguistic difference between them and the Finnish led to the establishment of autonomy after the rejection of a demand made in 1920 for the Aaland Islands to be incorporated with Sweden, soon after both Finland and the Aaland Islands became independent and ceased to be under Russian control at the end of the first World War. Both countries were part of the Russian Empire under the Tsars since 1809 when Sweden lost both Finland and the Aaland Islands to Russia. The Council of the League of Nations recognized Finland's sovereignty over the islands on a report submitted by the International Committee of Jurists appointed by it to investigate the status of the Islands with regard to the establishment of the Finnish Republic in the confused state of affairs that prevailed after the dissolution of the Russian Empire. In the view of the Committee of Jurists this did not take place "until a stable political organization had been created and until the public authorities had become strong enough to assert themselves throughout the territories of the State without the assistance of the foreign troops". In the early part of 1920, the Finnish Diet itself attempted to resolve the matter by granting autonomy to the Aaland Islands. This autonomy however was rejected by the Islanders. In September 1920 and the Council of the League of Nations appointed a Commission of Rapporteurs to study the problem and made recommendations for its solution. The Commission of Rapporteurs found that. Finland was definitively constituted "which excluded any role for self-determination" for the Aaland Islands. That the new state of Finland was simply the part of the autonomous Territory of Finland which had always included the Aaland Islands. That Sweden had recognized Finland without making any reservation in its text as to the boundaries of the new State and concluded that " the right of sovereignty of the Finnish State over the Aaland Islands is incontestable and their present legal status is that they form part of Finland. Having
regard to the foregoing facts in regard to its own history can Finland
suggest a different approach for Sri Lanka ? "The Commission decided that Aaland Islanders unlike the Finns, were not a "people" but simply a "minority". "Minorities" the Commission declared could not be treated "in the same manner or on the same footing as a people as a whole and in particular they were not entitled to claim any right of self-determination".(pg 36) The Report stated: Is it possible to admit as an absolute rule that a minority of the population of a State which is definitely constituted and perfectly capable of fulfilling its duties as such, has the right of separating itself from her in order to be incorporated in another State or to declare its independence? The answer can only be in the negative. To concede to minorities, either of language or of religion, or to any fraction of a population the right of withdrawing from the community to which they belong, because it is their wish or their good pleasure., would be to destroy order and stability within States and to inaugurate anarchy in international life, it would be to uphold a theory incompatible with the very idea of the State as a territorial and political entity. Musgrave points out that another important consideration was that Aaland islanders, unlike the Finns had not suffered oppression at the hands of the Finns. The Commission of Rapporteurs had concluded that oppression would be a factor in allowing a minority to separate itself from one State and seek union with another State. ( or as an independent entity) ( my brackets) However this radical step would be considered only as a last resort when the State lacks either the will or the power to enact and apply just and effective guarantees of religious, linguistic and social freedom. This was not the case in the Aaland Islands dispute. The Commission of Rapporteurs noted that Finland had already offered guarantees of a very substantial nature in the form of the law of Autonomy of 7 May 1920 in order to reassure the Aaland Islanders and dispel their fears of majority domination and gradual denationalization and made further recommendations. They were incorporated with the legal system by the 1922 Aaland Guarantee Act and further amended several times with major amendments introduced in 1951 and 1991. Under the autonomy granted, the introduction of changes into the regimes requires an Act of the Finnish Parliament adopted in accordance with the specific procedures for amending the Constitution as well as the approval of the Aaland Legislative Assembly by at least a two-thirds of the votes cast. The collaboration or agreement between the central authorities and the province was indispensable. Despite the population of the Aaland Islands being virtually homogeneous with 95% of them being Swedish speakers, the autonomy arrangements leave the Finnish Central Government authorities with a substantial degree of control and supervision. In contrast the ISGA virtually ignores the right of the GOSL and does not appear to even pay lip service to its existence. It is therefore highly unlikely that these such autonomy arrangements will be acceptable to the LTTE who have hitherto rejected with disdain even the prodigal bequests offered them in 1995, 1997 and 2001. |
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