LTTE rejects government offer as 'calculated ploy'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 August 2001, 09:06 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Thursday rejected the Sri Lankan government's offer of a "mutually agreed ceasefire" as "a calculated political duplicity to divert the attention of the people and the world from the deepening crisis in Colombo." Mr. Anton Balasingham, the chief negotiator and political advisor of the LTTE told TamilNet Thursday that "the LTTE is not prepared to enter into negotiation with a corrupt, inefficient, unstable government which does not have a majority in Parliament."

"Peace talks are not a crisis management exercise to be invoked at the pleasure of a government which is on the verge of collapse," he said further. "The LTTE is not naive to jump on a sinking ship."

Mr. Balasingham stressed the Sri Lankan government has consistently opposed peace moves. "The government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga has rejected, on several occasions, our call for ceasefire and peace talks because of her misguided policy of militarism and conquest of Tamil lands."

"Now the government is facing a serious crisis politically and is compelled to seek desperate measures to cling onto power. Having failed to work out an agreement with the main opposition, the Chandrika regime is offering a new peace bid, claiming that this is a 'reassessment of policy'," he said.

"As far as the LTTE is concerned, it is a ploy, an act of calculated political duplicity to divert the attention of the people and the world from the deepening crisis in Colombo," Mr. Balasingham observed.

"By this tactic, President Kumaratunga is hoping to split the Tamil parties from the joint opposition," Mr. Balasingham felt.

"Having consistently thwarted efforts to de-escalate the conflict, the government is exploiting the peopleís desire for peace as a distraction from its unpopular rule," he said.