Asia Times: India, Norway begin peace bid in Sri Lanka


	May 13, 2000	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

India, Norway begin peace bid in Sri Lanka
By Mahesh Uniyal

NEW DELHI - Amidst conflicting military claims by the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels, India and Norway Thursday began the first multilateral peace bid to end the two decade-old internal conflict in the Indian Ocean island nation.

However, both New Delhi and Oslo played down the initiative that is also said to involve the United States. ''The purpose of this visit is to brief India about what Norway has been doing. We will assist both India and Sri Lanka to find a peaceful solution to the problem,'' Erik Solheim, special advisor on Sri Lanka to the Norwegian government said on arrival here Thursday.

At a meeting between the Norwegian envoy and Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, New Delhi made clear its stand that it would mediate only if requested by both sides in the conflict. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose government had earlier made an offer to mediate in peace talks between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on Thursday also repeated that New Delhi would do so if both sides wanted this.

Talking to reporters later, Solheim said that Oslo recognized that New Delhi had a key role in finding a peaceful solution to the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since the early 1980s.

The Tigers are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils, alleging discrimination by the majority Sinhalas.

New Delhi made it clear that it believed that a solution would ultimately have to be found by the Sri Lankans themselves, ''must be acceptable to 'all communities' and be consistent with ''the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity'' of Sri Lanka.

Solheim said that Norway would regularly brief India of Oslo's efforts. According to unnamed senior Indian foreign ministry officials quoted in media reports, New Delhi sees Solheim's visit as vindication of its stand that any international bid to resolve the Sri Lankan domestic crisis would need Indian support.

Solheim was in New Delhi after having travelled recently to Washington where he held consultations with senior government officials on Norway's peace bid for Sri Lanka. The authoritative The Hindu newspaper, quoting unnamed senior Indian government officials, said Washington has been in ''continual touch'' with New Delhi and has ''apparently conveyed its backing to a collective international effort on Sri Lanka led by India''.

Oslo is believed also to be in touch with representatives of the Tamil Tigers. Norway had successfully persuaded Colombo and the Tigers to come to the negotiating table with the two sides agreeing to meet in Oslo this month or next before the current fighting broke out in the northern Jaffna peninsula.

The New Delhi-Oslo talk comes close on the heels of the Indian offer to mediate in peace talks if Colombo and the Tigers wanted this. The offer has received wide political support in Sri Lanka. Although the LTTE has not responded to the offer, political observers in Sri Lanka noted that the Tigers would be willing if Norway too was involved.

But much depends on the outcome of the current fierce battle for Jaffna. The Tigers claimed in a press statement issued from London that they were close to taking Jaffna town. They claimed having captured the strategic Navatkuli bridge just three kilometers before the city of half a million, which was once the cultural home of Sri Lanka's minority Tamils.

However, in a statement issued in Colombo Thursday, the government denied the claim. ''Troops in strength continue to hold the bridge at Navatkuli. Many attempts by the terrorists to advance toward the bridge have been repulsed by the troops,'' the government asserted. More than 30,000 government troops are locked in close combat with the Tigers who overran the peninsula's only land link with the country late last month.

Responding to Sri Lanka's appeals for military support, arms from abroad have started reaching Jaffna. The Indian Prime Minister told parliament that foreign military equipment had begun landing in Sri Lanka but did not say which countries were sending this.

The Hindu newspaper Thursday reported that arms are being supplied by Pakistan, Israel, South Africa and North Korea. Quoting unnamed top defense officials, the daily said that the Indian Navy and Coast Guard were planning a naval exercise near the northern Sri Lankan coast.

The exercise was meant to send a ''graduated message'' of ''operational readiness'' to the Sri Lankan rebels, the paper quoted its sources as saying. India had last week ruled out military intervention in Jaffna to help Sri Lankan troops.

New Delhi has been wary of military involvement after a controversial bid to disarm the Tigers in the late 1980s at Colombo's invitation.

(Inter Press Service)

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