Dear Prime Minister...

"Dear Prime Minister,

In accordance with the decision of our leadership I am advised to bring to your urgent attention the deepdispleasure and dismay felt by our organisation on some critical issues relating to the on-going peaceprocess.

You are well aware that the Ceasefire Agreement that has been in force for more than one year and the sixrounds of peace negotiations between the principal parties has been successful, irrespective of the occurrenceof some violent incidents that endangered the peace process. The stability of the ceasefire and the progressof the peace talks, you will certainly appreciate, are the positive outcome of the sincere and firmdetermination of the parties to seek a permanent resolution to the ethnic conflict through peaceful means. Thecordial inter-relationship, frank and open discussions and the able and wise guidance of the facilitatorsfostered trust and confidence between the negotiators and helped to advance the talks on substantial levels.The negotiating teams were able to form important sub-committees on the basis of equal and joint partnership.During the early negotiating sessions it was agreed that the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE should worktogether and approach the international community in partnership. The Oslo Donor Conference held on 25November 2002 turned out to be an ideal forum for such joint endeavour.

The LTTE has acted sincerely and in good faith extending its full co-operation to the government of SriLanka to seek international assistance to restore normalcy and to rehabilitate the war affected people of thenortheast. The LTTE to date has joined hands with the government and participated in the preparation of jointappeals and programmes. In spite of our goodwill and trust, your government has opted to marginalize ourorganisation in approaching the international community for economic assistance. We refer to the exclusion ofthe LTTE from the crucial international donor conference held in Washington on 14 April 2003 in preparationfor the major donor conference to be held in Japan in June. We view the exclusion of the LTTE, the principlepartner to peace and the authentic representatives of the Tamil people from discussions on critical mattersaffecting the economic and social welfare of the Tamil nation, as a grave breach of good faith. Yourgovernment, as well as our facilitator Norway, are fully aware of the fact that the United States has legalconstraints to invite representatives of a proscribed organisation to their country. In these circumstances anappropriate venue could have been selected to facilitate the LTTE to participate in this important preparatoryaid conference. But the failure on the part of your government to do so gives cause for suspicion that thisomission was deliberate. The exclusion of the LTTE from this conference has severely eroded the confidence ofour people in the peace process.

As you are aware, considerable optimism and hopes were raised among the people when your government,shortly after assuming power, entered into a ceasefire agreement with our oganisation, bringing to an endtwenty years of savage and bloody conflict. Expectations were further raised when both sides began directnegotiations with Norwegian facilitation. In particular, there was a justifiable expectation that the peaceprocess would address the urgent and immediate existential problems facing the people of the north and east,particularly the million people who are internally displaced by the conflict and are languishing in welfarecentres and refugee camps.

As such, the Ceasefire Agreement included crucial conditions of restoring normalcy which required thevacation, by occupying Sri Lankan troops, of Tamil homes, schools, places of worship and public buildings.Despite the agreed timeframe for this evacuation of troops, which has since passed, there has been no changein the ground situation. We have repeatedly raised the issue of continuing suffering of our people at everyround of talks with your government. Your negotiators' repeated assurances that the resettlement of thedisplaced people would be expedited have proven futile. The negotiations have been successful in so far assignificant progress has been made in key areas, such as the agreement to explore federalism on the basis ofthe right to self-determination of our people. But this progress has not been matched by any improvement inthe continuing hardships being faced by our people as a result of your government's refusal to implement thenormalisation aspects of the Ceasefire Agreement and subsequent agreements reached at the talks. As a result,considerable disillusionment has set in amongst the Tamil people, and in particular the displaced, who havelost all hope the peace process will alleviate their immense suffering.

Though there is peace due to the silencing of the guns, normalcy has not returned to Tamil areas. Tens ofthousands of government troops continue to occupy our towns, cities and residential areas suffocating thefreedom of mobility or our people. Such a massive military occupation of Tamil lands, particularly in Jaffna -a densely populated district - during peace times denying the right of our displaced people to return to theirhomes, is unfair and unjust.

Your government, in international forums, continues to place poverty as the common phenomenon affecting theentire country. The Poverty Reduction Strategy forms the essence of the document ëRegaining Sri Lanka' whichdefines the macro-economic policy of your government. Though poverty and poverty alleviation constitute thecentrality of the new economic vision of your government as exemplified in ëRegaining Sri Lanka' the documentfails to examine the causality of the phenomenon of poverty, the effects of ethnic war and the uniqueconditions of devastation prevailing in the northeast.

In our view, the conditions of reality prevailing in Tamil areas are qualitatively different from southernSri Lanka. The Tamils faced the brunt of the brutal war. Twenty years of intense and incessant war has causedirreparable destruction to the infrastructure in the northeast. This colossal destruction augmented bycontinued displacement of the people and their inability to pursue their livelihoods due to militaryrestrictions and activities have caused untold misery and extreme poverty among the people of the northeast.Continued displacement has also depleted all forms of savings of these people disabling them from regainingtheir lives on their own. The war-affected people need immediate help to regain their dignity. They needrestoration of essential services to re-establish their lives. Reconstruction of infrastructures such asroads, hospitals, schools and houses are essential for them to return to normal life.

The poverty that is prevailing in southern Sri Lanka is a self-inflicted phenomenon, caused by thedisastrous policies of the past governments (both the UNP and the SLFP) in dealing with the Tamil nationalconflict. In its fanatical drive to prosecute an unjust war against the Tamil people, the Sinhala state wastedall national wealth to a futile cause. The massive borrowings to sustain an absurd policy of ëwar for peace'by the former government caused huge international indebtedness. The economic situation of the south has beenfurther worsened by the mismanagement of state funds, bad governance and institutional corruption. Therefore,the conditions prevailing in the south are distinctly different from the northeast where the scale andmagnitude of the infra-structural destruction is monumental and the poverty is acute. Ignoring thisdistinctive reality, your government posits poverty as a common phenomenon across the country and attempts toseek a solution with a common approach. This approach grossly under states the severity of the problems facedby the people in the northeast.

The government's ëRegaining Sri Lanka' document completely lacks any form of identified goals for thenortheast. Statistics presented for substantiating the policy totally ignore the northeast and solelyconcentrate on southern Sri Lanka. However, this has been promoted as the national strategy to theinternational community to seek aid. It is evident from this that the government lacks any comprehensivestrategy for serious development of the northeast. The Poverty Reduction Strategy fails to address the povertyof the northeast as distinct from the rest. In seeking international assistance your government disingenuouslyspeaks of reconstruction being needed in all areas, thereby masking the total destruction of theinfrastructure of the northeast which has resulted from the militarist policies of the past three decades.

As we pointed out above, the exclusion of the LTTE from critical aid conference in Washington, thenon-implementation of the terms and conditions enunciated in the truce document, the continuous suffering andhardship experienced by hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamils, the aggressive Sinhala militaryoccupation of Tamil cities and civilian settlements, the distortion and marginalisation of the extremeconditions of poverty and deprivation of the Tamils of the northeast in the macro-economic policies andstrategies of the government have seriously undermined the confidence of the Tamil people and the LTTEleadership in the negotiating process. Under these circumstances the LTTE leadership has decided to suspendits participation in the negotiations for the time being. We will not be attending the donor conference inJapan in June. While we regret that we were compelled to make this painful decision, we wish to reiterate ourcommitment to seek a negotiated political solution to the ethnic question. We also urge the Government of SriLanka to restore confidence in the peace process amongst the Tamil people by fully implementing, withoutfurther delay, the normalisation aspects of the Ceasefire Agreement and permit the immediate resettlement ofthe internally displaced people of the northeast. We also request the government to re-evaluate its economicdevelopment strategy to reconstruct the Tamil nation destroyed by war."