Peace in Sri Lanka

Presenter:	Here with us now is Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP). Welcome and thanks very much for your time indeed. Well is there a peace process? – or are you now redundant?

Prof. Wijesinha:	No I think it is very important at the moment. Or rather, there is no point talking of a peace process, there has got to be a political solution. We found that the Tigers were not responding politically. But fortunately, particularly in the last six months, we had a number of minority groups, Tamil groups, willing to come into politics and take to the democratic path.

Presenter:	But from outside there seems to be ominous signs that the government and the Tigers now seem really determined to fight to the death.

Prof. Wijesinha:	Well the Tigers have always been determined to fight to the death if they could not get a separate state. I think the heartening fact is that many Tamils are coming over, and are recognising that the way to achieve the political goals of Tamils is through politics and not through a military solution.

Presenter:	What about the government? Is it coming over as you put it?

Prof. Wijesinha:	Well the government in a sense was liberated after the abrogation of the ceasefire, particularly because – partly given the importance of western ideas - the view has sprung up that the Tigers are the only representatives of the Tamils. But, as you know, the Tigers have killed lots of moderate Tamils. But now I think one very important fact is that the moderate Tamils will not be betrayed again. If they are willing to come into politics they will be given every chance, and I hope they do.

Presenter:	It is obvious that the government is trying to solve this problem militarily. Having said that the Tigers tend to hide in civilian areas, and when the government attacks and bombs those areas civilians get killed and more disaffected civilians join the Tigers.

Prof. Wijesinha	On the contrary, you should know that the number of air strikes for the last 18 months since the Tigers came back to start fighting is 170 air strikes, but there have actually been very few allegations even of civilians being killed, there were allegations in only 6 instances. I think that is a pretty good record from any force as you will know from what happens when they strike against terror.

Presenter;	I mean you are in a very good position you know but you sound if I say so very optimistic, more than anybody else. Why?

Prof. Wijesinha:	Because I am a natural optimist. But there are reasons for optimism too. For instance we heard so much that was negative when the elections started in the East, in fact the EU called our Ambassador in and said don’t have elections as there will be problems and some of the election monitoring anti-government NGOs actually came up with a wonderful line, they said we don’t see weapons in the streets except in the hands of the soldiers. But we know that they are there. In fact the final outcome of that election was peaceful, and this will also be a peaceful election. It will not be perfect we know that. But it actually shows that people want peace and I think the provincial election campaign so far has been wonderful.

Presenter:	What do you make of the news that just came in to us during the past couple of hours from the Crown Prosecution Service in Britain, that it will not bring charges against Col. Karuna. As we saw in reports, it now seems likely that he would be deported back to Sri Lanka. Doesn’t it?

Prof. Wijesingha	Well I think it always occurred to us that he will not be prosecuted, not because the British did not try tried to do what they could, but because the people who wanted him to be prosecuted to make a political point suddenly realised that, if he had committed any crime, it was when he was part of the LTTE.

Presenter:	What do you expect him to end up as the Chief Minister of the East as it reports?

Prof. Wijesingha:	Well one of the reasons he came to Britain is that perhaps he felt that he wasn’t ideal for a political role. After all the poor chap has been brutalised as a part of the LTTE. He did come over here and he has allowed his party to come into politics, without him. I think you should keep him here and look after him and you should do the same with Prabakaran. It will make it a lot easier for us.

Presenter:	Unfortunately that’s not my decision. Thank you Professor. (Ends)