Norway peace bid in Lanka hits new snags

Norway peace bid in Lanka hits new snags
Agence France Presse

Colombo, Feb 11: Norway’s attempt to broker peace in Sri Lanka has hit a new snag with Tamil Tiger rebels threatening to pull out if they are outlawed by Britain this month, reports here said today.

The separatist Tamil tiger guerrillas who maintain their “international secretariat” in London have told Norway they fear proscription under Britain’s new anti-terrorism laws, The Sunday Times newspaper said. It quoted the Tamil Tigers’ London-based ideologue Anton Balasingham as saying they had information that the British government would proscribe the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.“He (Balasingham) had raised this issue with (Norway’s special envoy) Erik Solheim who met him in London... He had asked Solheim how the LTTE could be described as a terrorist organisation when it was fighting for the liberation of the Tamils”.

“In a war situation, the protagonists commit atrocities and that was natural,” Balasingham was quoted as saying in an interview with a Tamil weekly made available to the Sunday Times here.