LTTE's Constitutional Affairs Committee meets in Oslo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 June 2006, 15:59 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) delegation led by its Political Head, S.P. Thamilchelvan met in Oslo with legal experts from the Tamil diaspora, Saturday, Tamil sources from Oslo said. The discussions focussed on the status quo between the Sri Lankan and the LTTE forces, including the territorial sea rights, and formulated recommendations to the LTTE leadership on the future course of action on these matters. Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) during Friday's meeting had confirmed SLMM's position on sea-activities that officials of the SLMM will not travel on board the Sri Lankan vessels until the sea dispute is resolved between the parties.

Liberation Tigers Political Head S. P. Thamilchelvan, chaired the sessions that began at 9:30 a.m. and concluded at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Asked to comment on the outcome of the Jevnaker meetings on Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission related issues, the LTTE Political Head said that the truce monitors will not travel on board the Sri Lankan vessels till the dispute related to sea rights is resolved between the parties to the Ceasefire Agreement.

Commenting further, Mr. Thamilchelvan said that the Tamil leadership was firm on "principled issues."

"Status quo between the Sri Lankan and our forces on all levels must be maintained as of the date we entered the Ceasefire Agreement," Thamilchelvan said.

"Similarly, on the political front and in any engagement between the parties to the CFA, the parity of status has to be respected and maintained," he said.

"We have also communicated our position with regards to the officials of EU Member States participating in any formal engagement that affects the Liberation Tigers," LTTE's Political Head added.

Asked about the moves to strengthen the SLMM, Thamilchelvan said, "LTTE leadership is of the view that the key issues I articulated above need to be addressed and fundamentals that form the basis for these disputes need to be established before we takeup other secondary issues."



Director of the LTTE's Peace Secretariat, S. Puleedevan said that "we have to first set a fundamentally correct framework for the monitoring effort before we discuss the numbers of monitors."

"You have to look at the pattern of violence."

"If we look at the graph of number of civilian casualties, LTTE casualties and the Sri Lankan Armed Forces casulties, and observe the pattern of escalation after Geneva I, numbers have already exceeded the resources currently available with the SLMM monitors. More importantly, increasing the numbers of Monitors is unlikely to result in reduction of violence," LTTE's Director of Peace Secretariat said.

Mr. V. Rudrakumaran, the New York based attorney, said the Constitutional Affairs Committee "explored future course of actions." He did not reveal details to the media.

The Constitutional affairs committee includes Mr. Siva Pasupathy, former Attorney General of Sri Lanka, Prof. Ramasamy Palanisamy, former professor of politics at the University of Malaysia, currently visiting academic at the University of Kassel in Germany and at the Institute for South-east Asian Studies in Singapore and Dr. Manuelpillai Paul Dominic, Professor of Law, University of Sydney, Australia.

Several Tamil Diaspora experts took part in sessions of the Constititutional Affairs Committee meetings at Radisson SAS Plaza Hotel Conference hall in Oslo, Saturday.

LTTE's Constitutional Affairs Committee was instrumental in working out the blueprint of the LTTE's proposals for an Interim Administration for the Northeast, the ISGA, submitted by the Liberation Tigers on November 01 2003.

The Tigers Friday released "Oslo Communique," stating their political stand.

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