Shimali Senanayake in Colombo,  Mon Feb  6 10:52:50 EST 2006

    The Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels have agreed to resume
face-to-face talks on Feb. 22-23 in Geneva, Switzerland, officials
said on Monday.The talks _ on strengthening a tenuous four-year-old cease-fire _ will
be the first meeting between the two sides in almost three years.The agreement on the dates came after discussions between Norway's top peace envoy Erik Solheim and Tiger ideologue Anton Balasingham in
London.


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- The Academic

Finally the parties seem to have agreed upon a date. If LTTE show up nobody knows. Pottu Amman is keeping the kidnapped TRO personnel in Killnochs torture chambers and LTTE might try to use them as an excuse to withdraw from the negotiations, only the prostitutes in the Geneva brothels that will be sorry if Balasingham and the LTTE delegation decide to drink at home.

The big issue in Geneva will be if GOSL will sacrifice another group of Tamil dissidents, the Karuna group, to the LTTE butchers. GOSL will probably cave into LTTE demands of more land to the LTTE terrorists. The disputed land is already ethnically cleansed, so it is more or less a formality to hand it over to the LTTE.

What can we expect after Geneva? Will LTTE go for more territory in Sri Lanka or will they shift focus to Tamil Nadu? LTTE ideologue Balakumar latest speeches indicate Tamil Nadu will be next LTTE project. Balakumar want to make Tamil Nadu the New Kashmir. Prabakaran is getting old and he is in a hurry to achieve his vision and he is willing to sacrifice any number of other family’s children in order to achieve his goal.

No point in kidding.

The President and the government of Sri Lanka made a sigh of relief when tigers agreed for the talk. If the Govt is only looking at letting the LTTE know of the number of their cease-fire violations, it is better to cancel the talk. The results will certainly be SL ending up a “killing field”.

If the SL is not ready to take the LTTE seriously for negotiation then it must decide so and face the consequences, instead of trying to be “half pregnant”.

If SL considers that the international community is important then the good outcome would be to let the tigers walk out of the meeting and not for the Gov to whinge even before the meeting started. SL has to be careful not to get caught trying to engineer a walk out by the LTTE.

People on the payroll such as EPDP and just 200 Karuna people and one Anandasangaree are no Tamil representatives. If so Tamils will happily accept LTTE anytime. So better not push that barrel.

Tackling LTTE starts with winning over the moderate Tamil Diaspora and other Tamils. There is no commitment or any attempt from the SL Gov to do this. If the Gov is not making any serious attempt to win these groups then they are obviously giving up on all Tamils. If the moderate Tamils are only required for the purpose of carrying out propaganda against the LTTE then forget it.

Let the peace talk produce results. Gov is represented by able representatives and let us accept whatever the outcome our pragmatic leader churns out.

US Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead yesterday said that federalism, as a means of power sharing, may be the best opportunity for a non-violent solution to the country’s ethnic conflict

Speaking at a symposium titled `The future of Sri Lanka and the federal idea,` held by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Mr. Lunstead said information and communication were critical to advancing the peace process in Sri Lanka, the US embassy said in a statement.


The southern political parties and leaders, particularly the extremists, should understand, respect and act on what the only super powers says without cherry picking statements that are favourable to them only such as warning LTTE over the resumption of war, etc. and ignoring the more important statements such as this that is to provide just solution to the Tamils, not necessarily to LTTE.


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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin

You are right Diplomat. The super powers, Norway,,, all are consistent in what they saying. (that's why they are super powers)
Our southern hero's are consistent in opening the big mouth, shouting then hide or agree on anything when they is put on spot or put under pressure.
See below, they are shouting on utter unrelated thing about below. We have a big mess in our hand and these guys opening the big mouth making big talks like a super power. Heros(cardboard) put your house in order before advising what IAEA should for Iran.
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JVP protests to the President regarding GoSL’s support for IAEA resolution!

JVP has taken steps to protest against the support given by GoSL to European Union sponsored resolution by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report on Iran against its nuclear programme. General Secretary of the JVP Mr. Tilvin Silva is to send a letter of protest to President Mahinda Rajapakse explaining the JVP’s stand on this issue and protesting against the stand taken by GoSL said a JVP spokesman.
http://www.lankatruth.com/full_story/2006/feb/20060207/20060207_1.htm
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Negombo wrote:

You are right Diplomat. The super powers, Norway,,, all are consistent in what they saying. (that's why they are super powers)
Our southern hero's are consistent in opening the big mouth, shouting then hide or agree on anything when they is put on spot or put under pressure.
See below, they are shouting on utter unrelated thing about below. We have a big mess in our hand and these guys opening the big mouth making big talks like a super power. Heros(cardboard) put your house in order before advising what IAEA should for Iran.
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JVP protests to the President regarding GoSL’s support for IAEA resolution!

JVP has taken steps to protest against the support given by GoSL to European Union sponsored resolution by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report on Iran against its nuclear programme. General Secretary of the JVP Mr. Tilvin Silva is to send a letter of protest to President Mahinda Rajapakse explaining the JVP’s stand on this issue and protesting against the stand taken by GoSL said a JVP spokesman.
http://www.lankatruth.com/full_story/2006/feb/20060207/20060207_1.htm
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It is indeed very foolish statement by these extremists.  It said "JVP in its letter to the President tries to indicate that GoSL has made a serious mistake by agreeing to a resolution against another sovereign country"  

Why there is a UN according to these ..?  It is exactly for the purpose of dealing with sovereign countries.  Duh!Would any sane person take these fools seriously?  don't worry.

I guess JVP wants to vote with Cuba and wants to make Sri Lanka another Cuba with the kinds of soundly defeated economic policies all over the world!