President faces fire but firm on peace

The joint statement issued after the two day talks in Geneva came under heavy fire by opposition parties at the all party conference yesterday -- deepening the confusion over the peace process, though President Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed he would go ahead with it.As the third round of the APC held at the Presidential Secretariat to brief the political parties on the Geneva talks, the opposition parties complained that Chief Government Negotiator Nimal Siripala de Silva’s opening comments were not in accordance with what was stated in the joint statement, at the end of the Geneva meeting. Addressing the conference President Mahinda Rajapaksa however pledged to adopt a broader approach at the next round of talks with the LTTE on April 19, 20 and 21. Minister de Silva in his opening speech at Geneva had said certain clauses in the Ceasefire agreement violated the Constitution of the country. However at the end of the meeting the two parties released a statement saying they would abide by the ceasefire agreement. The main Opposition UNP’s Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya said contradictory statements were made by Minister de Silva. “Talks were started saying the CFA is against the Constitution. But the talks closed on a note accepting the CFA. The joint statement is contradicting the views of the Co-chairs to the peace process”, he said.He said that UNP would prefer to hold direct talks with the President rather than saying a few words facing the camera at a meeting like the APC. Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya said the government or the Opposition alone could not bring a final solution to the ethnic conflict. “ The government with a mandate of 51% or the main Opposition that claimed a mandate of 48% cannot rule out this reality. Both parties should stop hunting for scapegoats when things go wrong”, he said.The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) told the Daily Mirror that they welcomed the talks but that the delegates should now stand by the result without “marring” its effect. The party also stressed that the Tamil people of the South did not need a representation at the talks. The country’s third force, the JVP yesterday urged the government to strengthen the armed forces as a means of compelling the LTTE to continue negotiations.“We firmly believe that it is better to walk away from the negotiation table without any progress being made, rather than agreeing to any conditions detrimental to the sovereignty of the country,” the JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe told the All Party Conference.He also urged that the government team should actively work towards rectifying the mistakes made at the Geneva talks.The JVP leader said the government and the people were hopeful that the next round of peace talks would lead towards a lasting solution to the armed conflict.The Government ally, Jathika Hela Urumaya threatened to withdraw support and even vowed to take to streets if the government fails to rectify certain mistakes they did at the last round of talks. Blaming the government for taking over the responsibility to disarm the Karuna faction, the JHU called it a mistake on the part of the government to do so. SLMC spokesman Hasan Ali told the Daily Mirror they too believed there were major contradictions in the statements made by Minister de Silva. “It is not only the military who are at the receiving end of violence but a lot of Muslims were also killed though not signatories to the ceasefire agreement”, he said.Mr. Ali said the SLMC insisted on the need to have a separate Muslim delegation at the talks. CWC’s Deputy Leader R. Yogarajan said, “We welcome the talks and firmly believe that the CFA is the basis of the peace process. The criticism of all parties is towards the joint statement. We congratulate the delegation and the President and think that the two statements made before the talks were good. The pragmatic movement of the talks by the Government brought the meeting to a fruitful conclusion. However the future of the talks depends on the implementation of the agreement in full. Therefore we urge the Government to take all possible measures to ensure this.”“The CWC disagrees with Western Province People’s Front MP Mano Ganeshan’s suggestion of sending a separate delegation to the talks on behalf of the Tamils in the South. Our stance is that there is no constitutional need for devolution of power to find solutions for the issues facing the Tamil population in the South as in the North and East. Their problems can be solved through the administrative powers vested in the President,” he said.