Feizal Samath

Sri Lanka was on tenterhooks on Monday after Tamil rebels came close to pulling the rug under a fragile 3-year long ceasefire. The country was close to bursting into conflict again after a week of hectic political and security activity. The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily restrained the government from proceeding with some key provisions of the P-TOMS or joint mechanism deal with the LTTE on a petition filed by a group of JVP parliamentarians. Then on Sunday, the LTTE said all hopes of peaceful negotiations had been shattered by the court ruling. The crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time for President Kumaratunga who has had her hands full in trying to steer forward a shaky government, badly dented by the exit of a key partner, the JVP. The week began with a massive show of strength by the UNP on Tuesday of a 11 day protest march from southern Matara to Colombo. Thousands of people gathered for the protest where UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe demanded the holding of presidential elections this year.

Kumaratunga has said presidential polls are only due in November next year. The dates have been in dispute for the past year ever since it was discovered that the president took a second oath of office calculated as the beginning of her second 6-year term. The UNP rightly rejects this claim and says her term began in December 1999 and must end in December 2005. Amidst this hullabaloo, the government was hit with a fresh scandal as prime minister Mahinda Rajapakse was accused of mismanaging tsunami funds. He has strenuously denied the allegations and says he is innocent but the pressure has been showing on the senior politician. As the most uncertain week went along, the LTTE began pulling out its political cadres from government-controlled areas and shutting down political offices. LTTE Political leader S P Thamilselvan said parliamentarians from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the LTTE have resolved to jointly explain to the International community the realities on the ground with regard to the current stalemate and controversy created by the court’s stay order.

Adding to Kumaratunga’s national woes, a buoyant UNP is putting pressures on various sections of the government. UNP leader Wickremesinghe has endorsed steps to be taken by the party to urge the government to undertake a full-scale investigation of the PM’s alleged misappropriation of tsunami funds and also against foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

The only positive news to Kumaratunga was that the Supreme Court said the president had every authority to sign an agreement with the rebels, an issue that was raised by the JVP and other anti-LTTE forces. The weeks ahead are critical. Going by the patience showed by both the government and the LTTE in the past when similar conflicting views and situations arose and the country was on the brink of war again, it is most likely that sanity will prevail once again with leaders on both sides riding out the present crisis without a shot being fired.

Samath, a freelancer, writes for THT from Colombo