Britain mulls banning Tamil Tigers, backs peace bid

Britain mulls banning Tamil Tigers, backs peace bid
AGENCE PRESSE FRANCE

COLOMBO, NOV 23: Britain on Thursday urged Sri Lanka to immediately open peace talks in a bid to end decades of ethnic bloodshed and said that London was also considering a Colombo Government request to ban Tamil Tiger rebels. Britain's Junior Foreign Minister Peter Hain said. He also added that the Sri Lankan Government had asked them to proscribe the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels who maintain offices in London. "We are considering it very seriously," Hain said, cautioning that the outcome will depend on interpretation of new anti-terrorism laws that will go into effect in Britain next year and a decision by the Home Secretary.

At the same time, Hain said he was asking both the Tamil Tigers and the Colombo Government to begin a dialogue in line with an initiative by Norway to bring the two parties to the negotiating table. "It is in everybody's interest to end the military conflict," Hain said. "We have given a strong message to the LTTE that there is no alternative to peace talks. And that has been my advice to the government too."

He said he had the impression after talks with Sri Lankan leaders that they were awaiting signals from LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran to begin a talks process under Norwegian facilitation. Tiger leader Prabhakaran is expected to make a policy statement on Monday at the end of a week-long commemoration of their war-dead.

Hain said it was not realistic to expect the LTTE to abandon their main objective of a separate state called Eelam, but the guerrilla leadership appeared convinced that there was no international support for a such a move.

Sri Lanka's minority Tamils were in a better position to win a greater degree of autonomy with the right of self-determination in almost all aspects of their day to day life through talks, he said.

"Tamil people don't want a fancy constitutional structure," Hain said. "They want jobs.. to go about their business in peace... The interests of all parties can be reconciled if the parties are willing to sit down and talk." There was a sense of war-weariness among the majority Sinhalese community as well as among minority Tamils, he said adding that both the government and the LTTE too were tired of war.

He said LTTE leaders should also take advantage of the latest peace bid as the setting up of a international court under the United Nations could leave rebel leaders open to prosecution. The LTTE, he said, had committed "brutal acts of war." "If the LTTE turns its back on brutal acts of war and come to the negotiating table, they will be spared being brought to the international court..." he said.

Britain, which was Sri Lanka's former colonial ruler till 1948, was in a position to help the island's peace process, Hain said adding that they were in consultation with the US and India over the developments here. The US banned the LTTE as a "foreign terrorist organisation" in October 1997 while India banned the LTTE after the group was implicated in the May 1991 assassination of former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi.