Govt will not draw first blood - Kohona

Rashomi Silva

COLOMBO: Government Peace Secretariat Chief Dr. Palitha Kohona on thursday stressed that the Government will not be forced into drawing first blood despite the brazen provocation by the LTTE.

"We will not be the first party to draw the sword, despite the LTTE's provocative attempts at creating an ethnic backlash" he said speaking to a group of Lake House journalists at an informal gathering.

Dr. Kohona said the Government only believed in a negotiated settlement which would be just and fair, and asserted they could not be lured into an armed conflict.

He said incidents like Kebethigollewa are meant to create an uproar in the South and plunge the South into large scale strife.

"All out war is absolutely inconceivable," he said, and explained how an armed conflict would create insecurity, arrest development and create misery to the country as a whole.

"To any logical minded person an all out war would only signal disaster," the Head of Secretariat of Coordinating the Peace process (SCOPP) observed. He said "people of the North-East would be among those who suffer most."

"Acts of Terrorism will not help to achieve political goals," he said. He pointed out the LTTE was a banned organisation in the world's most powerful countries, and the European Union was the latest to proscribe the LTTE. The LTTE has no support or sympathy from the International Community, and they have to understand the global realities, Dr. Kohona pointed out.

He said the SCOPP was doing its utmost to keep the peace process alive and believed that the facilitator Norway would also do their best to get the talks back on track.

"I'm confident they (Norway) would take the initiative to bring the LTTE back into the negotiating table," he said. The Government he explained has never abandoned negotiations, and informed the LTTE through Norway's good office who would comprise the delegation.

"They raised no objections at that time and one can only guess why they came to Europe if they do not want to take part in the talks," he added.

Commenting on Government efforts towards a negotiable settlement, the SCOPP chief said the Government has invited nominations to a Constitutional Committee from parties represented in Parliament.

The idea of the Council he said was to make suggestions and recommendations to the higher level negotiators. "We hope there would be participation from the Tamil National Alliance members," he said.