S.Lanka Tigers say no firm dates for key talks

By Peter Apps

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, angry
at what they say was the army-linked abduction of eight Tamil
aid workers, said on Friday they had not agreed a firm date for
peace talks, contradicting a minister who said a date had been
set.

Weeks of suspected rebel attacks on troops had pushed the
island in January to the brink of a new civil war, but tension
eased last week after Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim brokered an
agreement for the two sides to meet in Geneva. If those talks
fail, many expect war.

The Tigers said earlier in the week that the abduction of
eight workers from the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO)
– effectively the humanitarian arm of the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) — might make talks difficult. They would
not say on Friday if the meeting was still on at all.

“The LTTE chief negotiator is discussing this issue with
the facilitators and we are in regular contact, but there are
no firm dates at the moment,” head of the rebel peace
secretariat S. Puleedevan told Reuters by satellite phone.

That contrasted sharply with the official government line
from Trade and Commerce Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, who
minutes earlier had said he would be leaving on February 14 for
talks in Geneva starting the following day.

“The President has informed me that peace talks are on the
15th,” he said by telephone.

The government denies any involvement in the case of the
eight missing aid workers, whose agency said they were grabbed
near an official checkpoint. The Tigers blame either the army
or army-linked paramilitaries.

Some diplomats say they suspect the kidnap story may be in
part Tiger propaganda but, whatever the truth, say they fear it
may lead to the talks failing and herald a return to a
two-decade-old war that has already killed more than 64,000.

The TRO said that two women kidnapped with one of the
groups of aid workers but then released had made a statement to
police, but that with no legal counsel present the statement
had effectively been made under duress.

NOT AN IMPROVEMENT

The army said the Tigers had kidnapped the principal of a
Hindu school in the east, but the rebels angrily denied this
and said it was the government that was abducting people.

The Tigers said when they agreed to go to Geneva that they
expected army abuses against Tamil civilians to cease. The
military denies any abuse ever took place at all, but the
rebels say they are continuing.

“Still cordon-and-search operations are going on,” said
Puleedevan. “There is harassment. A peaceful demonstration was
stopped by the army attacking the Tamil civilians by firing
bullets. The situation has not improved.”

Police said they had no knowledge of any firing incident,
but pro-rebel website Tamilnet reported that police troops had
fired over the heads of a crowd protesting against the apparent
TRO abduction in the east.

The military, preparing for a huge show of strength in an
Independence Day parade in Colombo on Saturday with armored
vehicles, attack jets, rocket launchers and warships, said it
was showing restraint but search operations in the Tamil north
and east were vital.

An army spokesman said two claymore fragmentation mines and
several grenades had been recovered on the army-held Jaffna
peninsula, while a Tamil man had been arrested after another
grenade was found in a compartment on a Colombo-bound train.

“But we are not attacking anyone now,” an army spokesman
said. “We are going for peace.”

(Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal)