GoSL to ban Tigers, abrogate CFA, says Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 December 2007, 15:10 GMT]
Misquoting the failed talks between a delegation of Tamil Liberation Movements and Sri Lanka Government in August 1985 as "Thimpu Agreement," Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary and brother of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in an interview to state owned Daily News said that the Sri Lankan government would "give a solution" to the Tamil people after proscribing the LTTE, abolishing the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's statement comes as Sri Lankan forces were preparing for an all out war with the Tigers in the North.

Gotabhaya told the paper, "So many Governments have signed a number of Ceasefire Agreements in the past since the Thimpu Agreement.

"Once you sign a Peace Agreement and then you come to the next Ceasefire Agreement or whatever agreement, you must abolish the other [previous] one. It had never happened. From the Thimpu Agreement there are so many peace agreements including the Indo Lanka Agreement," Rajapaksa added, the paper said.

He said that the Lankan president can come out with new proposals for resolving the grievances of the Tamil people after the Ceasefire Agreement is abrogated and the LTTE is banned.

"We should not give solutions to the LTTE which is a terrorist organisation. The LTTE is just a part of the Tamil people and solutions should be given to the Tamil people," the paper quoted Gotabhaya Rajapakse as saying.

At Thimpu, in July 1985, all six Tamil Organisations, consisting of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation (EROS), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), and the Parliamentary Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), walked out of the talks after jointly and unanimously declaring:

"It is our considered view that any meaningful solution to the Tamil national question must be based on the following four cardinal principles -

1. recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nation
2. recognition of the existence of an identified homeland for the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka
3. recognition of the right of self determination of the Tamil nation
4. recognition of the right to citizenship and the fundamental rights of all Tamils who look upon the island as their country.

Although the talks failed, the Thimpu declaration continues to represent a watershed in the Tamil national liberation struggle as it crystallized the political issues of the Tamil struggle.

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Thimpu Talks - July/August 1985