Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
New Delhi (Fides Service) - There may be new hope for the difficult path to peace in Sri Lanka: during a visit to New Delhi, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar obtained the support of India’s new Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a possible role of mediation in the civil war between the government in Colombo and Tamil rebels.
India could have determinant weight in treating with the Tamil minority since there are more than 56 million Tamils in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, who keep close ties with Tamils in the north of Sri Lanka.
The peace process on the Island stalled in April after the sides signed a cease fire agreement. Days ago Erik Solheim, Norwegian representative charged with mediating the peace returned to Norway having achieved nothing. The discordant point was a request by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to start immediately autonomous ad interim administration of the northern and eastern Tamil majority areas. This request met with firm opposition from many MPs belonging to the coalition government who see this as an opening towards secession.
India’s willingness to facilitate peace in Sri Lanka was seen earlier: in 1987, India sent a peace keeping force to the Island, withdrawn two years later after losing more than 1,200 men on the field. Moreover the then Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, who sent the troops, was assassinated by a Tamil suicide bomber in 1991. Since then India withheld any intervention political, military and diplomatic in the question of peace for Sri Lanka.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 1/6/2004 lines 24 words 294)
