Responding to calls from many parties and despite afterthought caveats introduced by the Sri Lankan Government (SLG), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said that his organization is ready to resume stalled talks on a peaceful future in the island. The SLG said that it has gotten “positive signals” from the LTTE and directly from the leader Vellupillai Prabakaran through Norwegian facilitators in “some form a commitment.” Apparently, the Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka visited Kilinochchi to obtain this commitment in a bid to assuage Colombo ’s “concerns” about “factual accuracies” in a statement by the facilitating Co-Chairs in Brussels .
The LTTE also had some concerns that the SLG will not use this opportunity to rearm and adhere to the territorial demarcations and the terms and conditions of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA).
The SLG had also complained that the LTTE was not allowing supplies to the population in Jaffna , but the LTTE has refuted this claim saying that they had already informed International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that it would cooperate fully to transport humanitarian supplies through demarcated land routes. In turn, it accused the SLG of not opening the supply routes and operating an unannounced embargo.
Local activists who are able to communicate to the outside world talk of unending stream of human rights violations including abductions, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and extra-judicial killings. Many human rights activists in Colombo , who are not Tamils, say that white unmarked vans abduct Tamil merchants for ransom and many disappear. Prices of essentials and staples in the Jaffna Peninsula have sky-rocketed even as thousands uprooted from their homes due to indiscriminate air raids live under trees and the sick do not have access to medical facilities as the SL Army (SLA) will not allow them to leave the area.