Prabhakaran wants peace talks |
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/11/29 11:47 Shanghai Daily |
Sri lanka will not descend into civil war, the government said yesterday, despite an apparent threat from a top Tamil Tiger rebel leader to revive an armed struggle unless stalled peace talks quickly resume. "There is no threat of reviving the war," said government spokesman Harim Peiris, reacting to the speech by Tiger chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran. "In fact his speech shows how keen he is to resume the negotiations." Delivered on Saturday from the rebel-held north and broadcast over Voice of Tigers radio, the reclusive guerrilla leader urged the mainly Sinhalese government to unconditionally resume the peace process and give his Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam greater autonomy in Sri Lanka's north and northeast, where most of the island's 3.2 million Tamils live. "If the government rejects our urgent appeal and adopts delaying tactics perpetuating the suffering of our people, we have no alternative other than to advance the freedom struggle of our nation," Prabhakaran said. The rebels began fighting in 1983 to create a separate state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils. Some 65,000 people died in the conflict before a Norway-brokered cease-fire was signed in February 2002. But peace negotiations have been stalled since April 2003. Prabhakaran said on Saturday the Tamil people could not continue to live in a political vacuum without a permanent settlement. "The Sinhala nation neither assimilates our people to live in coexistence nor does it allow our people to secede and lead a separate existence. We cannot continue to live in the darkness of political uncertainty, without any prospects for the future," he said. (The Associated Press) |