SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka's political crisis deepened yesterday after President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency, triggering fears that this could jeopardize the fledgling peace process with Tamil Tiger rebels.
The declaration of emergency, that allows detention for up to one year without charges, comes a day after the president sacked three of the country's top ministers, suspended parliament and deployed troops around key government installations across the capital Colombo.
Officials said the state of emergency would last 10 days, the maximum period permitted under the constitution without parliament's approval.
Presidential adviser Mr Lakshman Kadirgamar told reporters that Ms Kumaratunga would not end the 20-month truce with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, despite her disagreement with prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over the peace process. "The president has no intention of resuming or provoking the resumption of hostilities," he said.
Top peace negotiator Mr G. L. Peiris declared that the government would go ahead with talks with the LTTE, adding that they had asked peace broker Norway to proceed with arrangements for an initial round of consultations with the rebels later this month or in early December. "There are no changes in our plans and we are going ahead to arrange that preliminary meeting," Mr Peiris said.
But worried residents in the Tamil-dominated regions stocked up on food and essentials while LTTE cadres under the command of top rebel leader Mr Velupillai Prabhakaran were placed on high alert following emergency meetings.
Serpentine queues formed outside provision shops and petrol pumps in Jaffna, the de facto capital of the Tamil state, that has witnessed some of the worst fighting since 1983. Many parents did not send their children to school, fearing violence could break out or curfew be imposed. "People are worried here," Mr Jeya Devadasan, a Tamil schoolteacher in Jaffna said.
Ms Kumaratunga's sudden moves, that are widely seen as a "constitutional coup" against her bitter rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, have been made while the latter is in the US to discuss the LTTE peace process with President George Bush. Mr Wickremesinghe has called Ms Kumaratunga's actions desperate claiming that they could lead to "chaos and anarchy". A US State department spokesman said Washington was concerned the events could have a negative effect on the peace process.
These developments come days after the Tamil Tigers, fighting discrimination at the hands of the Buddhist Sinhalese majority, ended an eight-month long boycott of the Norway-brokered peace talks by submitting a plan for an interim administration in the island's war-ravaged north and east.
At the weekend the Tigers had proposed powers to collect taxes and to control the regions administration where a majority of Sri Lanka's 3.2 million minority Tamils live, a scheme Ms Kumaratunga opposed on grounds that it was a "foundation for partition".
The president's Sri Lanka Freedom Party has been in opposition in parliament since 2001 but Ms Kumaratunga, who was elected separately, has frequently criticised Mr Wickremesinghe's government for giving too many concessions to the rebels without ensuring that they abandoned their armed struggle.