Solheim and Sri Lanka: Q and A Today

Padma Rao Sundarji  courtesy of Asian Tribune, 20 August 2017, where the title reads Ërik Solheim : “Regret we could not spend more time with Prabhakaran”

Erik Solheim, Norwegian peace mediator in the 30-year-long Sri Lanka civil war breaks his silence on his controversial role to Padama Rao Sundarji.

If we had spent more time with him (Prabhakaran), we would probably be able to influence him more,’ said Solheim

Padma Rao Sundarji: How and when did the government of Norway decide to mediate in Sri Lanka and why did they pick you?

Erik Solheim: We were invited in absolute secrecy by the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga. At the time, only two people in Colombo knew — she and foreign minister Lakshman Kadiragamar. It stayed like that for one-and-a-half years. Only later, it became public. I believe we were invited because we could potentially be acceptable to India as a small nation. And, we were invited because we had, at that time, seen some successes in the Middle East. They were small successes. But as a small, faraway nation it was felt that we could not really mess up Sri Lanka and could be acceptable to both the Tigers and the government of Sri Lanka at the same time.

PRS: And were you acceptable to New Delhi too?

Solheim: There was a lot of skepticism in Delhi. What will these pink, Christian Europeans with no real knowledge of South Asia make of problems on this continent? But at the end, we were not only acceptable to India, we had the closest relationship. After every visit to Sri Lanka, I went to New Delhi to inform the political leadership and the Indian intelligence about what I’ve achieved or not achieved.

PRS: Take us back to your first and earliest effort at peace mediation in Sri Lanka. When was that and what was the result?

Solheim: It was when I went to meet Prabhakaran for the first time. Again, that was not known to anyone in Sri Lanka; not even the PM was aware that we were allowed to go there by the President. We met him in an area controlled by the Tigers. We went by helicopter. Flying low over the fields and up again if it was mountains, it was kind of scary. Because neither the army nor the LTTE cadres on the ground knew we were there, they could have easily shot us down. Then we met with Prabhakaran. It was a good meeting. They confirmed their interest in the peace process. But it was a little bit difficult to understand how Prabhakaran got this enormous standing among Tamils, how he could be seen as their god, creator and savior at the time. He had this huge following. But we couldn’t really understand why people were following him like that.

PRS: What proved to be the biggest hurdles during all the years of peace mediation?

Solheim: The first of two main hurdles was the fact that the Sinhala community was divided into two main parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP). Through independence, these two parties fought for power and both were much more consumed by the power struggle than with outreach to the Tamil community. Whenever one party was in power, the other party would oppose whatever the rival party did. Then the power would shift and so would positions. That was a huge problem. The Tamil community couldn’t really place any confidence in any single offer from the Sinhala leaders because they didn’t know whether it would last. And then the more important issue: everyone knew that the only solution would be not a separate state but a federal organization of Sri Lanka; in which the Tamils would have a lot of say and self-rule in the Tamil-dominated area but within one Sri Lankan state. And then, was Prabhakaran really ready for anything but a separate state? Could he embrace federalism? The LTTE did that in one meeting in Oslo in 2002. But Prabhakaran was not consistent on acceptance of federalism. Still we do not know whether he would have later accepted it. So, working with that was difficult. These were the two main difficulties.

PRS: There are a lot of allegations against the Norwegian mediators. One is that even though the LTTE, within years of the struggle, were acknowledged to be an armed separatist group, the Norwegians turned a blind eye to that fact. And that the Norwegians to date maintain connections to many overseas ex-LTTE groups like the “Transnational government of Tamil Eelam” that sprung up even after the war ended. Could you address some of those allegations?

Solheim: Remember that during our many years in Sri Lanka, we never ever did anything which we were not asked to do by the government of Sri Lanka. We worked with the government and the Tamil Tigers. We did not come with a lot of Norwegian opinion because we realized that our knowledge of Sri Lanka is limited. I don’t speak Tamil, I don’t speak Sinhala. I am not a Buddhist, I am not a Hindu, how can I really understand Sri Lanka? So what we could do is to see what the government wants, what the Tigers want and — bring that together. That was our role.

PRS: Since you mention it — the leadership of the LTTE were Christian…

Solheim: Yes, but the LTTE leadership was not really religious, and those who were, were Hindu. But I don’t think religion was important to them. The driving energy for Mr Prabhakaran was his Tamil national view. He took the names of the Tigers from historical Tamil kings. And they really adored the Tamil language. Some of his advisors would often say that all the southern Indian languages be it Kannada, Malayalam or Telugu — were all versions of Tamil. So, it was a very very strong Tamil nationalism. Of course, it was also based on the fact that Tamils have been enormously successful. The Tamil diaspora is the most successful anywhere in the world: stockbrokers, doctors, lawyers, they do very very well. Even in India, the state of Tamil Nadu is doing better than others. So, the Tamils have a lot to be proud of and that was the driving energy for Prabhakaran and the LTTE, not a religion.

PRS: Indeed, that is another allegation. That there is a sizable Norwegian population of Sri Lankan Tamils in Norway and that they are the reason why the Norwegian government — and Erik Solheim — got involved in Sri Lanka. After all, you have been a politician in your country too.

Solheim: To the contrary. We kept a very limited contact to the Tamil community in Norway for this very reason. Also because our main point of contact with the LTTE was their chief political advisor Anton Balasingham in London, whom I met every week. Simultaneously, our ambassador in Colombo would meet Chandrika Kumaratunga, Lakshman Kadirgamar and later Ranil Wickremesinghe every week too. Balasingham did not want us to involve the Tamil expat community. So, the Tamil community neither had any influence on the peace process nor was kept in the loop. Indian leaders were — I went to Delhi all the time. But we didn’t inform the Tamil community in Norway for this reason.

PRS: I remember speaking to your successor, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, the evening the Norwegians decided to pack their bags and leave the peace process. What was the last straw for the Norwegians? When you finally threw up your hands and said look we’re not touching this anymore…

Solheim: We actually never did that. We said till the last day that if we can be useful to the government of Sri Lanka, to the Tamil Tigers, we are there for you. And we were being criticized for that attitude. People were telling us: you should have stayed, you should have done more, that we had the wrong attitude. Here is a small nation, trying to assist two communities — the Tamils and the Sinhalese, in a country where thousands are dying every month and every year, there is no way you can give up, you mustn’t give up — as long as they want your support, you should support them. That was the one constant message from Delhi and from Washington (but Delhi was more important to us): please don’t give up, please continue, never give up. Even if you can’t do anything big, if you can do something small, please continue. I remember during my first visit to Delhi. Jaswant Singh was the foreign minister. After a long chat he said: I have only one question. Are you patient? I said, no, no, I’m not patient, how can we be, when people are dying in Sri Lanka every month? Mothers are crying, children are dying, how can we be patient? To that, Singh said: do you know the way to Indira Gandhi International Airport? Go. Buy a ticket — making sure it’s a one-way ticket — to Europe. Because if you’re not patient, you’ll only run into problems here. If you take a 10-15 year perspective on the Sri Lankan conflict, then you may do something good. Of course, he was right, I was wrong. We learned our lessons and became patient. But still, the fundamental issues in Sri Lanka — the status of Tamils, and the influence of Tamils within the state of Sri Lanka are not resolved.

PRS: Tell us more about your relationship with LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. I remember you told me once that you went fishing together. Was it a friendship or more of a business relationship?

Solheim: What I regret with the benefit of hindsight is that we could not spend more time with him. I met him more often than any other foreigner did in the world because basically he just met Tamils, only once met a Muslim delegation in Sri Lanka, met with a few Sinhalese but nearly always just met with Tamils. If we had spent more time with him, we would probably been able to influence him more. We did try to establish a more personal relationship with him by speaking about issues he really cared about — he was interested in films for sure, in food, he was known to be a good cook himself, he took some interest in nature. But it was hard to build a personal relationship because we had limited time and were not allowed to go up to the warring North by the Sri Lankan government too often. Then there was also a language barrier — his speaking in Tamil meant we needed an interpreter. And finally, he was the kind of a character who was not obviously open. Charismatic but more closed and cautious.

PRS: But didn’t the fact that the LTTE used child soldiers, practically invented the suicide bomb — didn’t these facts disturb you while you were negotiating with him? After all you come from the European/Scandinavian tradition which is so firmly embedded in human rights…

Solheim: Absolutely. But we also negotiated with people on the Sri Lankan government’s side who committed huge war crimes and evil acts. Despite all that I used to just ask myself one question: what do the victims of the crimes want us to do? I came to the conclusion that what the victims really wanted was for us to speak to these guys and put a stop to this war. So, more important than my feelings was the impact on the victims. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans died, thousands of young Tiger cadres but also young soldiers from southern Sri Lankan villages and, towards the end of the war — tens of thousands of Tamil civilian victims. So, what did the victims want? I feel that peace negotiators in Yemen, Syria and other parts of the world must also focus on that — what the victims expect of us, how can we put a stop to the war.

PRS: Why are Scandinavians and Europeans — and you all have constitutions embedded in the protection of human rights — so concerned about violations by the armies of other sovereign countries? In the case of Sri Lanka, there were certainly alleged violations of human rights by the Sri Lankan armed forces and they are still being investigated by the Sri Lankan army. But what about the wars that western nations are themselves involved in — like in the Middle East, in Iraq, Syria — where there are hundreds and thousands of human rights violations by your troops taking place on a daily basis? Why do they go unnoticed? Why do they not evoke that great an interest? Is it because these nations — like NATO states for instance — are involved in those wars themselves?

Solheim: If one has that perspective, it is obviously completely wrong. I went into politics to a large extent because of the war in Vietnam, a war where the US committed enormous crimes. A completely unnecessary war which achieved nothing. It merely killed 2-3 million Vietnamese, 55 thousand Americans. And of course today, Vietnam is a blossoming nation, rapidly moving economically — and — best friends with the United States! So, at the end of the day, all those millions suffered or died for — nothing. If the Americans had left Vietnam alone, this would not have happened. War crimes and all unnecessary wars by all sides should obviously be condemned and we should focus on the conflict entrepreneurs who start wars. The United States have started a number of unnecessary wars. Very few people today believe it was a good idea to attack Iraq. Even if Saddam Hussein was a most despicable, horrible dictator, the US war has created so many problems. If it weren’t for that war, we would probably not have the Islamic State today. So let’s keep an equal focus on western and non-western wars and on terrorists and armies.

PRS: But I will persist. The EU and the US initially looked upon the separatist war in Sri Lanka as a “freedom struggle”. They offered refuge to many thousands of LTTE cadres. And these overseas Tiger sympathisers armed and funded the LTTE — K Pathmanathan, their chief financer, told me this in an interview with WION earlier this year. Why do western countries sometimes live in ‘La-La’ land as far as faraway conflicts are concerned? Hasn’t the West made a mistake in nurturing and harbouring these groups?

Solheim: Let’s accept that the public in many western countries has limited knowledge about other parts of the world and quite often make mistakes. For many years, I was in Myanmar. The western world kept up a boycott, sanctions on Myanmar which didn’t work. When I spoke to westerners, they said yes, we know sanctions don’t work but we will still continue with them. So this ignorance, or lack of real concern, is definitely there. The answer to that is to try to understand more. And we should obviously find an amicable peaceful solution to any conflict. If the Sinhalese and the Tamil leaders had been able to do that in the 50s or 70s, the conflict would not have come. And of course, fighting for Tamil rights — I have a lot of sympathy with that but — I have no sympathy with suicide bombing or, killing Rajiv Gandhi or, planting bus bombs or attacking the holy temple of Sinhala Buddhism in Kandy.

Tamil Tigers made such horrible decisions, killing people. But we should all have some sympathy with the Tamils in Sri Lanka. If you are a Tamil there and you want to go to the police, the police just speak Sinhala so you can understand —that’s not easy.

PRS: There are Eelam separatist organizations regrouping within Europe, they frequently raise the LTTE flag and that flag symbolizes separatism, not merely Tamil rights. Why are your governments allowing this?

Solheim: European countries allow basic freedom of expression — some find that positive, others not so. But I agree with you. Part of it is naiveté about what different groups want to do and that naiveté must stop. But when we worked in Sri Lanka, we were constantly doing everything on the basis of what the Sri Lankan government wanted and what the LTTE wanted — we were concentrated within that and aware that our knowledge was limited. That’s why we consulted India all the time because Indian intelligence had much more information about what was actually happening on the ground in Sri Lanka than I could possess. So, it was useful to tap into their deep knowledge of the conflict.

PRS: The most controversial aspect of your involvement in Sri Lanka remains shrouded in mystery to most people. I remember you spoke to me about it briefly at the time but the details remain largely shrouded. Would you care to tell us about the ‘White Flag’ incident involving the killing of LTTE top brass Puleedevan, Nadesan and others, despite their willingness to surrender? And the allegation that will not go away that you personally tried to save LTTE chief Prabhakaran and his family?

Solheim: It was on the 17th of May. It is also Norwegian national day so I remember it since I was on my way to our parade in Oslo. I received a call from Puleedevan — he was one of the nicest members of the Tigers. He was the chief of the LTTE’s political wing. He told us they wanted to surrender to the Sri Lankan army and whether we could assist him. I didn’t speak to him directly but a Norwegian colleague told him that it was too late for us to intervene because the end of the war was very close. We pointed out that we had offered them opportunities in the past to give up the struggle at a time when it was still possible for us to intervene. But that it was too late now.

But what we can ask you, we told him, is to hoist a big white flag — that’s why it’s called the White Flag incident — and through loudspeakers and whatever means you have, make your intentions known to the Sri Lankan armed forces. We, on our part, will inform Sri Lankan leaders of your intention to surrender.

PRS: And did you inform the Sri Lankan leaders?

Solheim: Absolutely for sure. We informed Basil Rajapaksa, the advisor to President Rajapaksa. We were not alone —the Tigers did the same through some key Tamil and also — I think with some Indian interlocutors — to send a message to the Sri Lankan leadership. The day after, we were informed that Nadesan and Puleedevan were killed. The exact circumstances of the killing are still not known. I don’t think they were with Prabhakaran at the time but I don’t know this exactly. How Prabhakaran himself was killed, I do not know either. But we have a very very strong suspicion that the 12-year-old son of Prabhakaran was captured by the Sri Lankan army and later executed by it — a completely irresponsible and evil act. And unfortunately for the Sri Lankan armed forces and to put it very, very nicely, there’s a big question mark on these killings —why they didn’t accept surrender and bring these people into court, rather than killing them …

PRS: Are you still in touch with the current Sri Lankan government over these issues because there is an investigation on…

Solheim: No, I’m only in touch with them over environment issues now. But we now discuss the reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese after the war and how I, as a UN official concerned with environment, can assist on environment issues, setting up investment facilities, working on saving the elephants, water management and suchlike.

PRS: You have been environment minister, minister for international development of your country, the peace mediator in Sri Lanka, then the chief of the OECD in Paris and are now the chief of the UNEP. Which of these hats have you enjoyed wearing the most and which has been the most challenging?

Solheim: The most challenging was of course the peace process in Sri Lanka. Because that was a matter of life and death for people. We knew that our acts may increase the killings if we didn’t get it right. During two years, there was not a single political assassination in Sri Lanka —which was considered huge progress at the time. Later, it went out of control and tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed. But the challenge to mediate between these two – the Tigers and the Sri Lankan leadership —and also being criticized for whatever we did which is normal in times of both peace and war — that was the biggest challenge.

PRS: So you don’t regret playing the role of mediator at all?

Solheim: I have no regrets. The only regret is that we didn’t succeed, because if we had succeeded, tens of thousands of people, who are now dead, would have been alive. Now when I look into the eyes of the women who lost their husbands or mothers who lost their children, whether they are Sinhalese or Tamil, I always ask myself, could we not have given them more. But if you ask what I enjoy the most, that’s my present position. Because working for the global environment is in my view the defining issue of our time.

PRS: Are you planning to return to Sri Lanka in the near future? We hear you’re writing a book on that experience…

Solheim: I’m not writing a book on Sri Lanka. I would be very happy to go back. But I will not go back in any way which is seen as a problem for the peace-makers, the reconciliators in Sri Lanka. I have so many friends there — Chandrika, Ranil, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Tamil National Alliance leaders, the Muslim leader Rauff Hakim — I want to see them all. But I will go at a time when it does not create problems for anyone.

PRS: Did Sri Lanka become a kind of a second home to you?

Solheim: Absolutely. It’s a place I care about the most other than my home country.

Padma Rao Sundarji is an award-winning veteran foreign correspondent who covered the Sri Lankan civil war for nearly two decades. She is the author of ‘Sri Lanka: The New Country’ published by HarperCollins India in 2015 and is currently the Senior Foreign Editor at WION (World Is One News)

– Asian Tribune –

Erik Solheim at Anton Balasingham’s funeral in London

A COMMENT by MICHAEL ROBERTS:

Solheim’s reading and pitch must be supplemented by his hagiography via Mark Salter (see below) and my critical comment on the latter book besides the participation of the Norwegians (and in effect USA) in the attempts by KP Pathmanathan in Kuala Lumpur at an meeting organised in February 209 to explore possibilities in effecting a rescue of the Tiger leadership within the framework of a so-called humanitarian operation to save the Tamil civilians

The humanitarian gloss presented by these powerful forces and Snowhite Solheim has to be comprehended  in the context of the LTTE strategy set up by 2008 to use the civilian population that they corralled within their retreating system of defense as (A) so many sandbags in their defensive formation and, more vitally, (B) as a ploy to induce international intervention to avert än impending humanitarian catastrophe.”

Thus any person or institution that answered this call became a party to the conflict on the side of the LTTE. Any such partisan party cannot be a party assessing that scenario as judge and jury because they became players in the scenario on the side of the LTTE (even as they glossed their intervention as “humanitarian”).

This is an outstanding illustration of the dictum: “pure white moralism is a blinding force.”

  Mark Salter

 A SELECT BIBLIOGRPAHY

Al-Jazeera 2009b “SL Army closes in on Tamil Tigers,” 1 February 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZc_Am5HUSs

Balachandran, P. K. 2015PK Balachandran on Overt and Covert Paths in Indian and American Policies towards the Sri Lankan War, 2008-09”, 16 September 2015, https://thuppahis.com/2015/09/16/pk-balachandran-on-overt-and-covert-faces-in-indian-and-american-policies-towards-the-sri-lankan-war-2008-09/#more-17752

Bavinck, Ben 2011 “Pirapaharan as uncompromising killer prone to vengeance: testimonies from the Jaffna heartland, 1989-91” http://thuppahi.wordpress. com/2011/11/01/as uncompromising killer prone to vengeance: testimonies from the Jaffna heartland, 1989-91

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2009 “The Battle for the Vanni Pocket,” Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, March 2009, Vol. 35/2, pp. 17-19,

Hull, C. Bryson 2009 “Sri Lanka opens eye in the sky on war zone,” 20 April 2009,http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSCOL450259

Hull, C. Bryson & Ranga Sirilal 2009aSri Lankan War in Endgame, 100,000 escape rebel zone,” 23 April 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-srilanka-war-idUSTRE53J0IZ20090422

Hull, C. Bryson & Ranga Sirilal 2009b “Sri Lanka’s long war in bloody final climax,” 17 May 2009, http://mg.co.za/article/2009-05-17-sri-lankas-long-war-in-bloody-final-climax

IDAG [i.e. Citizen Silva] 2013 “The Numbers Game: Politics of Retributive Justice,”  http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/document/TheNG.pdf.

Mango 2014 “Sri Lanka’s War In Its Last Phase: Where WIA Figures Defeat The Gross KIA Estimates,” 14 February 2014, https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lankas-war-in-its-last-phase-where-wia-figures-defeat-the-gross-kia-estimates/

Marga 2011 An Analysis and Evaluation of The Report of the Advisory Panel to the UNSG nn the Final Stages of the War in Sri Lanka, https://www.dropbox.com/s/0eybj1ynej6spaa/The%20Darusman%20Report-%20Final%20doc-2.doc

Narendran, Rajasingham 2014 Harsh Ground Realities in War: Decomposing Bodies and Missing Persons and Soldiers,” 28 January 2014,https://thuppahis.com/2014/01/28/11702/

Reddy, B. Muralidhar 2009c “End Game,” Frontline 26/10, 9-22May 2009

Reddy, B. Muralidhar 2009d “An Escape from Hellhole,” http://www.hindu.com/ 2009/04/25/stories/2009042558390100.html.

Roberts, Michael 2014 “Generating Calamity, 2008-2014: An Overview of Tamil Nationalist Operations and Their Marvels,” 10 April 2014, http://groundviews.org/2014/04/10/generating-calamity-2008-2014-an-overview-of-tamil-nationalist-operations-and-their-marvels/

Roberts, Michael  2013 “BBC-Blind: Misreading the Tamil Tiger Strategy of International Blackmail, 2008-13,” 8 December 2013, https://thuppahis.com/2013/12/08/bbc-blind-misreading-the-tamil-tiger-strategy-of-international-blackmail-2008-13/#more-11221

Roberts, Michael  2013d “Towards Citizenship in Thamilīlam Sri Lanka’s Tamil People of the North, 1983-2010,” South Asia Research, 2013, 33: 57-75.

Roberts, Michael  Ättempts To Rescue Pirapāharan et al in 2009, https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/attempts-to-rescue-pirapaharan-et-al-in-2009/

Salter, Mark 2015 To End a Civil War. Norway’s Peace Engagement in Sri Lanka, London: Hurst & Company.

Salter, Mark 2016 Confusion Reigns: Roberts On The War’s Final Stages”, 20 April 2016, https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/confusion-reigns-roberts-on-the-wars-final-stages/

Salter, Mark 2016 “Messing up on Mahinda,’9 November 2016, http://www.marksalter.org/messing-up-on-mahinda/

Saravanamuttu, P. 2009 “Unending End Game,” 9 March 2009,http://www.thesundayleader.lk/archive/20090308/issues.htm

Shanmugarajah, V. 2014 Dr. Veerakanthipillai Shanmugarajah’s Affidavit Description of Conditions in the Vanni Pocket in Refutation of Channel Four,” 5 January 2014,https://thuppahis.com/2014/01/05/drveerakanthipillai-shanmugarajahs-affidavit-description-of-conditionsin-the-vanni-pocket-in-refutation-of-channel-four/

 

 

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7 responses to “Solheim and Sri Lanka: Q and A Today

  1. Eddie Wijesuriya

    Solheim should not be allowed into SrI Lanka. He should be declared “PERSONA NON GRATA”

    On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 9:42 PM, Thuppahi’s Blog wrote:

    > thuppahi posted: “Padma Rao Sundarji courtesy of Asian Tribune, 20 August > 2017, where the title reads Ërik Solheim : “Regret we could not spend more > time with Prabhakaran” Erik Solheim, Norwegian peace mediator in the > 30-year-long Sri Lanka civil war breaks his silence” >

  2. Michael Robert’s response to Padma Rao’s recent TV interview with Erik Solheim deserves closer examination.

    First, the fact in early 2009 that the LTTE leadership were attempting to engage international actors such as the Norwegians and Americans in efforts to reach a negotiated settlement for their own avowedly non-humanitarian ends does not self-evidently discredit international efforts in this regard. That is, unless you believe – as Roberts appears to – that the only relevant factor is the motives of the belligerents.

    This is indeed a curious position that fails to hold up in either logic or fact. Logic, because it completely ignores the fact that the Norwegians and other internationals had their own well-identified and perfectly legitimate reasons for engaging with the LTTE leadership, not least humanitarian concern for the huge number of Tamil civilians corralled into the shrinking zone under LTTE control. Fact, because the Norwegians, in particular, were well aware of the LTTE leadership’s thinking and motivations – they spoke on the phone regularly right up to the end of the fighting – yet continued to pursue contact with their Pullideevan et al for their own independent reasons.

    In addition, it should not be forgotten that the original call to seek a negotiated settlement was something the Norwegians and their fellow Co-Chairs officially tabled on 2 February 2009. In particular, the Co-Chairs statement called on the LTTE to initiate discussions on ‘the modalities for ending hostilities, including the laying down of arms, renunciation of violence, acceptance of the (GoSL’s) offer of amnesty, and participating as political party in a process to achieve a just and lasting solution’. (Quoted in my To End A Civil War, p. 344.)

    Second, Roberts suggests that ‘any person or institution that answered [the LTTE’s] call became a party to the conflict on the side of the LTTE’. This is arrant nonsense. First, because as noted above, the LTTE’s motives were not the same as international actors: even if on one issue – intervention to prevent civilian casualties – there may have been a coincidence of objective, it simply does not follow that e.g. the Norwegians’ motives can be reduced to or subsumed under those of the LTTE. Right up until the final stages, international actors such as the Co-Chairs repeatedly called for a negotiated settlement, emphasizing in particular the humanitarian imperative of saving and protecting the lives of Tamil civilians – the majority of whom were by the final stages suffering appallingly from a sustained air- and land-based bombing campaign by government forces on the so-called ‘No Fire Zone’.

    All in all, if Roberts wants to obtain a better grasp of the Norwegian facilitators’ – and in particular Erik Solheim’s – thinking and approach to the countless difficult issues that confronted them throughout the Norwegian peace facilitation effort in Sri Lanka, he might want to consider reading my book – ‘hagiography’ as he rather amusingly calls it – on the subject. If and when he does so he will discover a picture that is a good deal more nuanced – in particular highly critical of the LTTE when occasion demanded it – than that suggested by his latest comment.

    I don’t necessarily expect a response here. To date and to my knowledge, Roberts has not responded to any of my Sri Lankan media commentaries on his writings.

    • EMAIL NOTE from MURALIDHAR REDDY [who was the Correspondent for The Hindu in Colombo in 2008/09]
      For right or wrong reasons, the Rajapaksa Government in Colombo had declared that Norway is no longer the facilitator of talks or any other engagement between his government and the LTTE. Once Norway was derecognized, all its actions vis-à-vis LTTE or any other with regard to the peace or war process lacked any legitimacy.

      LTTE on its part was desperately engaging the services of Norway as well as influential sections of the Tamil Diaspora to put pressure on the Sri LanKan Government to halt the hostilities to give the Tigers much needed respite particularly after the fall of Kilinochchi in January 2009.

      But Colombo had no obligation to pay heed to any advice from such forces as it had succeeded in convincing the rest of the world that it was engaged in putting down the military might of the LTTE.

      The concern of the rest of the world was limited to ensuring that the Tamil civilians caught in the cross fire were not adversely impacted on account of the hostilities between the Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE.

      The Rajapaksa Government in its way engaged the international community to convey assurances from time to time that it was mindful of the welfare of thousands of civilians stuck in the battle zone. That was the reason why it could continue to wage war against the LTTE till the last mile.

    • sach

      Mark Slater,

      First of all thank you for your book, it was a real eye opener for me. I never knew Norway had attempted to meddle into SL issue since early 90s. So your book is of great value to us.
      And it explains very well how Norway supported LTTE big time working as LTTE’s diplomatic door opener in western capitals, internationalizing SL issue and undermining SL.
      All these years since 80s, LTTE had shown without any doubt that LTTE will never ever drop separatism and agree to any negotiated settlement. All they wanted was a separate state. And it was not simply a separatist force but one of the MOST brutal terrorist org. You can refer to another British journalist, Paul Harris who worked in SL as correspondent for Daily Telegraph but was sent away from SL by then PM, Ranil W. Because he was allegedly a threat to the so called peace process when the only thing he did was being realistic and showed the CFA for what it really is.

      Norway supported LTTE in several ways. One as a heaven for LTTE activities in Europe, refuge for fund raising, propaganda work. Norwegians even took LTTE members for a tour in a Navy camp in their country. Recently Sumanthiran a TNA mp was targetted by a former LTTEer under the advices of LTTE remnants working in NORWAY. Apart from these support, Norway helped LTTE to whitewash its murderous record while striving to give them international sympathy and attention. Norway did everything to show LTTE in a positive manner.

  3. Murali Reddy, who as Hindu and Frontline correspondent during the final stages of the Sri Lanka conflict knows the story of that period better than most, offers a clear-eyed assessment of the Rajapaksa regime’s largely successful attempt to convince the international community that success in a supposed local version of the wider ‘war on terror’ (aka military victory over the LTTE) was both justified and possible.

    On one important point, however, I believe his reading of things is not strictly accurate. Reddy suggests that, once the GoSL announced its abrogation of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), in early January 2008, Norway was ‘derecognized’ and as a consequence, ‘all its actions vis-à-vis LTTE or any other with regard to the peace or war process lacked any legitimacy’ thereafter.

    A broader discussion of the concept of ‘legitimacy’ aside, the important point is that from January 2008 right up until the end of the war, the Rajapaksa government continued to talk to the Norwegians: not only that either. In fact, as previously, Colomno continued to use Oslo as a channel for communicating with and sending messages to the LTTE leadership.

    Stand-out examples in this respect include Basil Rajapaksa’s offer of amnesty to the LTTE leadership, communicated to Prabhakaran via Norwegian Ambassador Tore Hattrem in January 2009, and a further proposal for an ‘organized ending to the war’, initiated by the Co-Chairs, endorsed by the GoSL and communicated directly to the LTTE’s KP by senior Norwegian officials at a secret meeting held in Kuala Lumpur in February 2009. (The meeting was explicitly endorsed by Basil, and Norwegian Ambassador Tore Hattrem reported back to him directly on the outcomes.)

    If credibility is judged on the basis of an actor’s standing in the eyes of the main parties then it would appear that, contra Reddy’s assertion, right until the end of the conflict, the Norwegians appear to have continued to enjoy a clear legitimacy in the eyes of both the GoSL and LTTE.

    A final point. Issues of legitimacy aside, the discussion here should not obscure the fact that judgement of the Sri Lankan military (and indeed LTTE’s) conduct in the final stages of the conflict needs to be based as much on the principles of international humanitarian law, the Geneva conventions and other related humanitarian instruments as realpolitik assessments of who had the upper hand in the international ‘war on terror’ debate. Might is not necessarily right – a fact amply borne out by the final stages of the Sri Lankan conflict

    • sach

      The Sri Lankan government was MADE to engage with Norway because Norway would otherwise play a different game to save LTTE. The so called organised end had NOTHING about civilians life. If it was that mattered, Norway could have pushed LTTE into releasing the civilians whom they had kept as a human shield by use of force.
      LTTE even shot at fleeing civilians, but Norway did not pressure the LTTE into releasing the civilians. Did not even say a word against this. Because Norway too accepted LTTE needed the civilians as a shield. If Norway really wanted to save civilian lives as repeated here by Mark, they could have simply forced the LTTE to release them.
      But they did not do that. Because it was not the civilians lives that mattered to Norwegians but that of LTTE leadership. I remember Solheim mentioned this in one of his interviews. He stated if their plan went ahead, LTTE leader could go to a different place and live to fight. So this whole negotiated end of war for so called ‘humanitarian’ concerns was nothing but an attempt to save LTTE.

  4. Pingback: Ken Dharmapala’s Pessimistic Evaluation of the Sri Lankan Situation–2016 and Now | Thuppahi's Blog

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