LTTE Wants Leading Role in Sri Lanka's North, East

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 16, 2002

LTTE Wants Leading Role in Sri Lanka's North, East

The Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka's armed rebellious group, said Monday that it is fully committed to peace but wants a leading role in the country's north and east regions.

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The Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka's armed rebellious group, said Monday that it is fully committed to peace but wants a leading role in the country's north and east regions.

"Peace and stability are being restored in the island for the first time after nearly two decades of sustained and relentless war that has torn the country apart," Anton Balsingham, LTTE's top negotiator, said in a statement before the peace talks with Sri Lankan government in Sattahip naval base, 250 southeast of Bangkok.

"We are confident that the talks will progress successfully because of the fact that the principal parties in the conflicts aswell as the overwhelming majority of the people of the island state want peace," he said.

The talks between Sept. 16 and 18 are the first peace negotiations in 7 years between the Sri Lanka's government, dominated by the country's majority Sinhalese, and the LTTE, self-claimed defenders of the minority Tamils living in east and north of that country.

The event is aimed to set a framework for future rounds of talks in a process to end one of Asia's longest civil wars which has killed at least 64,500 people and displaced another 1.8 million during the past 19 years.

The LTTE has been fighting with the government troops for an independent Tamil state since 1983. In February, the two side signed a truce deal which silenced guns and paved the way for peace talks.

Balsingham blasted Sri Lanka's previous governments, which, he said, "rejected our conciliatory gestures and intensified the conditions of war, thus putting the country into the abyss of socio-economic disorder."

However, the new government which is led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and came into power in November last year, "reciprocated positively to our organization's unilateral cease-fire act at the end of last year," he said.

Normalcy of life is returning to the north and east of Sri Lanka, the "Tamil homeland", which has suffered the most during the war, he said.

"Immediate steps should be undertaken without delay, to embark on a comprehensive program of reconstruction," said Balsingham, also the LTTE ideologue.

"Leaders of Sri Lankan government have realized to embrace the Tamil Tigers as their equal partners in the economic reconstruction of the country," he said.

"The LTTE is the legitimate and authentic representative of theTamil people and has a comprehensive knowledge of the socio-economic needs of the Tamil people," said the negotiator.

"It is crucial that the LTTE should play a leading and pivotal role in administration as well as the economic development of the north and east," he said.

Analysts said one thorny issue of the talks is the political status of the LTTE. The Sri Lankan government has lifted a ban on the organization ahead of the talks and reportedly intends to handover the north and east to an interim administration controlled bythe LTTE.

However, a considerable number of Sinhalese voiced strong opposition to the idea of an autonomy of LTTE, saying that the LTTE has conducted many deadly suicide attacks during its history and even raided Colombo airport last year.

Also, unlike the north part of Sri Lanka which is purely Tamil,the east still has large Muslim and Sinhalese population.

The talks in Thailand will result in a joint statement, which is expected to be issued on Sept. 18

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