LTTE terrorism faced by Lanka a global problem - Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke

Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US Bernard Goonetilleke interviewed by Masha Wickremasinghe of WCCA TV Massachusetts, expressed the view that the global community has recognised the LTTE for what it is, recognized the Tamil Relief Organisation (TRO) and front organisations for what they are, and banned or curtailed their activities that contribute to death and destruction in Sri Lanka.

He added that one has to be vigilant, and one has to be mindful, of the fact that a problem, that is taking place 10,000 miles away from the coast of the USA, is not a problem of Sri Lanka alone. It could visit us in the United States or any other country, sometime or later. Terrorist groups feed on each other. It is the same with the LTTE today.

They will establish links with other terrorist groups, which plan to harm the interests of, for example, the U.S. Therefore, you cannot say this problem is not a global problem. We live in a global village and we have to work together to eliminate terrorism.

The edited version of the TV interview of Sri Lanka Ambassador in the U.S. Bernard Goonetilleke by Ms. Masha Wickramasinghe of WCCA TV in Worcester, Massachusetts:

MASHA WICKRAMASINGHE: As you know, from time to time, I like to bring to you stories that have touched my heart. And, today, I welcome you to join me in a journey to explore another part of our world. If you look at a world’s map, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) is located in the Indian Ocean.

This beautiful island is the size of West Virginia and the population is about 20 million people. The majority of the people in the country is Sinhalese, mostly Buddhists, consisting of 73% of the population. The rest of the population consists of Tamils and Muslims.

But one day, the sleepy way of life woke up to a nightmare of death and devastation. I had the opportunity to talk to Sri Lankan Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke about the current situation in Sri Lanka. It was very informative and gave me a lot of insights into the conflict in the country.

Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke: I grew up during a particular time when the population was small in comparison to today. We had a population of about 12 million at that time. Today we have a population of nearly 20 million, and mind you, Sri Lanka is a small country. Sri Lanka is truly a multi- ethnic as well as a multi-religious country.

When we speak of the situation in the country, the tendency is to speak or describe it as an ethnic conflict. Many people think that there is a situation where various ethnic groups are fighting with each other. That is not correct.

Question: That is not correct, is it?

Ambassador: For example, we have Tamils living in the South. Today our calculation is something like 54% of the Tamil population lives outside the North and the East, in the South, with the majority Sinhalese, as well as the Muslims.

Again, in the South, in the Colombo area, there is a fairly large percentage of Tamils. Traditionally, we had a situation where all these communities interacted very closely, amicably, with each other. There is no animosity or inter-fighting as a result of their religion or ethnicity.

Question: Do all the Tamils accept the LTTE, or it is just a certain group of the Tamils?

Ambassador: It cannot be said that all Tamils support the LTTE. And it cannot be established for the simple reason that we have never had a situation where the LTTE has come before a electoral process and judge what kind of support they have among the Tamil people.

In that kind of a situation, it is very difficult for us to believe that all the Tamil people are with the LTTE. We should also remember the fact that there are Tamil political parties, which are non-LTTE, represented in the Parliament.

So, we have to assume that there are Tamils, when they get the opportunity to vote, in areas other than the areas controlled by the LTTE, who would vote for parties which are not LTTE, but other Tamil political parties.

There is at least one Tamil political party which seems to go along with the thinking of the LTTE. Apart from that, there are other political parties, which seem to feel or which take the position that they are different and they do not have any truck with the LTTE. They see a different solution to the conflict we have today, without resorting to arms.

Question: I know many countries that have conflicts like Sri Lanka. They try to find solutions through war and violence. But, well, some call it they are freedom fighters. Then some call it is terrorism. Either way, I think it is people’s lives and it breaks down economy and social growth. How do you see all that in Sri Lanka today?

Ambassador: Well, freedom fighters exist in two different situations. One is in the context of colonialism or alien domination of a country or a society. You have individuals in such situations, which fight for their freedom. Sri Lanka does not belong to that particular situation.

There is no room for a freedom fighters to achieve independence or to go for a violent solution to solve their problems. What has happened in Sri Lanka is, there is a demand for a separate state, and that demand for a separate state is not based on reality, or on facts.

In 1976, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) demanded for a separate state based on a record left in 1779, by the first British Colonial Secretary of the country, in which he said that there was a separate state for the Tamils in the North, and the East of the country, which was in fact an erroneous statement.

Based on that particular statement in 1976, this claim was made. There have been situations where there were differences between the communities including the Sinhala community as well as Tamil community. There were attempts to resolve those problems in 1957, 1965 as well as later.

Since 1985 until 2006, on six different occasions, we have tried to sit down and negotiate with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and on all those occasions, the LTTE would sit down for negotiations, stay there for a while, and at a propitious time, they would walk away from the negotiations. That has been our experience since 1985, on six different occasions.

So, we do not see a situation or a rationale for a separate state, as claimed by the LTTE. But President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has very clearly said on the day of his inauguration on 25th November 2005, and subsequently on several occasions, that he is ready to grant maximum possible devolution to the minorities, (including Tamils and Muslims), within one country and that should be the basis for the Government to seek a negotiated settlement that would address issues confronting the minorities, Tamils as well as Muslims.

Question: By the sound of it, it looks like the Sri Lanka Government has been bending backwards in order to help start the peace process, and get everything solved. How do you feel about it? Is that true?

Ambassador: Well, one can say the Government has been bending backward. Or you can, on the other hand, say, LTTE has been coming to the negotiating table under the pretext that they were willing to negotiate and actually try to achieve certain kind of strategic objectives, and having achieved those objectives they would under some pretext or other, walk away.

Question: I have covered stories about child soldiers in other parts of the world, which is not acceptable to today or any day. The LTTE in Sri Lanka, do you think they are taking advantage of young people in Sri Lanka?

Ambassador: To state that the LTTE is taking advantage, is an understatement. Most of these children, we have reasons to believe, end up as fighters for the organisation, or else even as suicide cadres, who would wear a suicide vest and explode it with a view to causing maximum possible damage.

In 2003, I was functioning as Head of the Sri Lankan Government Peace Secretariat and we discussed this particular issue with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and they made arrangements to sign a tripartite agreement involving the Government and the LTTE, with a view to releasing the young men and women already in LTTE custody.

They said that they would like to train them for various vocations before they release them to their parents, and for that, certain facilities were provided. A large sum of money was provided by the UNICEF for that exercise.

So my office, that is the Government Peace Secretariat, LTTE Office, as well the UNICEF, signed that agreement. And many years later, we still find that the young men and women are still in custody as child soldiers and have not been released or are being released in small numbers.

Meanwhile, additional numbers are being recruited or abducted, and taken in forcibly, with a view to swelling their own ranks. So we found that they were not negotiating in good faith.

In 1998, we had the Special Representative of the Secretary General of UN for Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, and LTTE gave a pledge to him that they would not recruit children or use children in armed conflict below the prescribed age.

But that again was a promise that was made not with the intention of keeping. So we still have a situation, where children are being taken by force. We also have a situation, where a breakaway group of LTTE, the Karuna group, releasing child soldiers who were under him, when he broke away from the LTTE. That was in April 2004. We found LTTE going to the houses of those children and taking them again by force. So, these are the activities of LTTE, which have been noted by the Security Council of the United Nations.

During the last three years, the UN Security Council has cited LTTE as well as the Karuna group, which has also resorted to recruiting children.

Question: These acts of violence, is it unique of the LTTE, or do you see any commonality between the LTTE and Al Qaeda or other terrorist organisations around the world?

Ambassador: Well, the focus of the United States has been Islamic groups indulging in terrorism. The international community has also been generally speaking focusing on the so called Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places.

But the tactics that are being used by the LTTE are classic, for example, on 10th of this month, FBI made an announcement, which is found in the FBI website, about the LTTE as the organization which had developed or masterminded the suicide jacket and the suicide belt. That is not all.

For the first time, a US agency, like the FBI, has accepted the fact that there are other entities, such as the LTTE or similar organizations indulging terrorist activities.

The important aspect is that the methodology used by the LTTE is being duplicated or replicated by terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Hamas and other groups, as we find in the Middle East today. The other aspect, which the FBI site did not mention was the methodologies the LTTE use in attacking the Naval forces of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Navy.

The LTTE is also experimenting with nerve gas and various other forms of attacks and those methodologies will be available either for a fee or for other favours to terrorist organizations, which are operating in various parts of the world, attacking not only the interests of the United States but also the Free World. So, we have to be watchful of the LTTE problem in Sri Lanka, as it is also a problem for the international community as a whole.

Question: Part of me wonder, do they need all of these expensive weapons and engage in these mass operations. Because I know Sri Lanka is a small country. And you know the group that is engaged in these activities must not be very large. So, how can they get funds to purchase weapons to engage in these activities?

Ambassador: Well, they have expatriate Tamil populations in various parts of the world. May be over 750,000. If you look into the report written by the Human Rights Watch, in April 2006, it speaks of the methodologies adopted by the LTTE in raising funds in countries like Canada where there is a quarter million or more Tamils live and in the United Kingdom. They convince Tamils. They force Tamils and use various other tactics with a view to getting resources from them on a monthly basis. Even very recently, Janes Defence Review released a report in which it stated the amount of monies they collected came to 200 to 300 million dollars per annum. On top of that, they run shipping lines. They run other business activities including legitimate establishments, travel agencies and various kinds of other business enterprises. There are also reports with regard to their drug smuggling, human smuggling and various other kinds of activities to raise funds. So, there is no shortage of funds for the LTTE. If the Tamils said they did not have funds to pay monthly, they were told “Well, you have a bank account. You can take a bank loan, and we will give you a receipt that we will return monies to you”. They have perfected a system where all the payments made by Sri Lankan Tamils are computerized. Pin numbers are given to individuals to indicate that they have paid their monthly dues and if they do not pay, somebody will visit and remind them that their safety, their families safety or members of their families back at home, will be at stake.

Question: It is not only in Sri Lanka, it is connected to global terrorism. How has the international community responded so far?

Ambassador: Well, the international community has done what it can. Take for example India. It banned the LTTE as an organisation in 1992 immediately after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In 1997, United States did the same thing, in 2001 U.K., and in March/April 2006 Canada and the 27 member-EU followed the suit. So you have situations where the international community has taken action against the LTTE, and you also have situations, where, like in Canada, in the UK, and in other parts of Europe like Germany, France etc., law enforcement agencies are going against the front organisations of the LTTE. Of course, when the LTTE was banned, LTTE could not operate on the surface in those countries. The front organisations took the LTTE’s place and continued their activities.

Question: Do you see any possibility in the near future the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government coming to a peaceful solution or at least looking at it. How do you see that? How can we reach peace with one another?

Ambassador: President Rajapaksa made it very clear, abundantly clear, not once but many times, that his intention is to have a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Sri Lanka. What he said was that Sri Lanka being a democratic country, it is necessary to have a democratic solution approved by members of Parliament for which purpose, he established a committee involving all political parties in Parliament in 2006. Now we are in 2008. That Committee has been able to bring forth certain proposals with a view to meeting the demands made by the Tamils as well as other minorities.

Question: This a global community. Sri Lanka is not just Sri Lanka any more. It is a part of the global community. And if someone is watching and they feel strongly to restore peace in Sri Lanka, are there any actions they can take to help support this move?

Ambassador: Well, yes, the global community has done many things. They have recognised the LTTE for what it is, recognised the TRO and front organis ations for what they are, and banned or curtailed their activities that contribute to death the destruction in Sri Lanka.

One has to be vigilant, and one has to be mindful, of the fact that a problem, that is taking place 10,000 miles away from the coast of the USA, is not a problem of Sri Lanka alone. It could visit us in the United States or any other country, sometime or later. And as I said earlier, terrorist groups feed on each other. It is the same with the LTTE today. They will establish links with other terrorist groups, which plan to harm the interests of, for eg. the U.S. Therefore, you cannot say this problem is not a global problem.

We live in a global village. We have to work together to eliminate terrorism. The other aspect is the need to rebuild Sri Lanka. In 2003 June when the donor community met in Tokyo, they did a good job. They came up with resources to rebuild, the destroyed and damaged infrastructure in Sri Lanka. The international community came forward when the tsunami hit Sri Lanka. With all these difficulties in 2006, we were able to produce a growth of 7.4% which is tremendous for a developing country. If we did not have a conflict of this nature, our growth would have been much higher. We would have been able to address those issues, build infrastructure, build opportunities for youth to take part fully in the development process. Politically, economically as well as security-wise, there is a role for the international community to play. The international community has remained engaged with Sri Lanka all these years. We hope that their confidence in this process will continue to be so.

Asian Tribune