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India will help rebuild Tamil areas
The new Lankan government will take India's help to rebuild war ravaged Tamil areas, reports PK Balachanddran.
The new Sri Lankan government will take India's help to rebuild and develop the war ravaged Tamil areas of North and East Sri Lanka, says Lakshman Kadirgamar, tipped to be Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister.
Speaking to Hindustan Times here on Thursday Kadirgamar said that India
would get "directly involved" in the peace process in Sri Lanka by participating in such rehabilitation and development works.
There was a "conceptual change" in the way India was looking at the ethnic question and the peace process in Sri Lanka, he said.For long, India was in the shadows and that this was not good, he added. "It is now coming out of the shadows. This is an evolutionary process and therefore takes time," he explained.
"It would be an excellent thing to address the problems of the bottom
line. The Tamil people of the North East are suffering. Houses and roads, schools, and rural hospitals could be built for them. The people of the North and East are waiting for such tangible support," Kadirgamar said.
Clarifications on the JVP
On the attitude of the radical/Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) to India's involvement in the peace process, he said that the JVP considered it to be "absolutely vital."
On the JVP' alleged rigid stance against any devolution of power to the Tamils, Kadirgamar said that it had made it very clear that it would ultimately abide by the will of the people, whatever that might be.
"The JVP is definitely not for war," Kadirgamar said. "Everybody here wants peace. But differences arise on the question: what kind of peace?"
The JVP was not a majoritarian party of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists, Kadirgamar, who is a Tamil Christian, said.
Peace talks outside the public gaze
Both the new government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE were interested in resuming peace talks and these would take place "as soon as feasible", Kadirgamar said.
The talks, he said, would be held outside the public gaze. "There will be no TV extravaganza. The less of public talking we do, the better," he said.
In another major departure from the style of the previous Ranil Wickremesinghe government, the talks would not be held outside Sri Lanka, Kadirgamar said. Previously, all the six rounds of the talks were held outside Sri Lanka, in Thailand, Norway, Germany and Japan.
On the participation of other parties and groups in the peace talks, Kadirgamar said that all that he could say now was that the process would be "inclusive" and not "exclusive", unlike the talks during the Wickremesinghe regime.
On the demand by some that the government should exploit the split in the LTTE brought about by the Eastern Commander Col.Karuna, Kadirgamar said that it was an "internal matter" of the LTTE and that it was too "dangerous" for any outsider to intervene. "We have to be circumspect," he said.
