Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels pm Tuesday condemned President Chandrika Kumaratunga's alliance with a Marxist party as a hammer blow to Norwegian efforts to broker peace.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said the deal between Kumaratunga's minority government and the leftist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, "strictly forbids" any discussion on ending the island's bloodshed.
The LTTE's chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, told the London-based Tamil Guardian weekly that neither the government nor the JVP had a coherent vision to end a war that has killed 60,000 people in three decades.
Balasingham described as "utter nonsense" claims by Kumaratunga and Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar that the deal by the ruling People's Alliance (PA) with the JVP did not imperil Oslo's peace bid.
"The truth is that the PA-JVP agreement has made the peace talks an impossible task," Balasingham said.
The PA was forced into an alliance with the JVP, which opposes Norway's involvement in the peace process, after losing its parliamentary majority in June.
"The utterances made by the president and the foreign minister are simply propaganda stuff intended for the consumption of the international governments who are disillusioned with the unholy matrimony between a corrupt, weak government and the orthodox Marxist die-hards who are opposed to peace and international facilitation," the LTTE official said -- COLOMBO (AFP)
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