Sri Lanka lifts ban on Tamil Tiger rebels

The Sri Lankan government has lifted a ban on the Tamil Tiger rebels, paving the way for peace talks to end the island nation’s 19-year civil war.

Given the midnight hour (7pm Irish time yesterday) of the lifting of the four-year-old ban on one of world’s most feared militant groups, there was no immediate reaction in the capital early today.

Defence minister Tilak Marapone told the Cabinet that he used his powers to end the ban, conceding to a key rebel demand ahead of peace talks scheduled for September 16 in Thailand.

The Tamil Tigers had demanded the ban against them be lifted ahead of the talks, saying they would not come to the negotiating table as an outlawed group.

Calls to lift the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam had been on the rise since Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe assumed office after winning December 5 parliamentary elections.

Wickremesinghe is viewed by the rebels as more acceptable than the previous administration of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, which favoured a military solution to the conflict. Kumaratunga had suggested that the ban be lifted only after the start of peace talks.

Some Sri Lankans oppose any concessions to the rebels. Earlier this week, Buddhist monks and opposition Marxist party supporters took to the streets protesting plans to lift the ban.

The guerrillas have been fighting for a homeland on the island, claiming that the country’s 3.2 million Tamils suffer widespread discrimination by the 14 million Sinhalese. More than 64,500 people have been killed in the conflict.

The rebel group was banned after an attack on Sri Lanka’s most sacred Buddhist shrine in 1998 that killed 26 people and outraged the Sinhalese majority.

The bloodshed ended after the government and the rebels signed a Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement on February 22.

Since then, both sides implemented several confidence-building measures - under the watch of Scandinavian monitors.

Earlier this year, the government lifted seven-year-old economic sanctions on areas held by the rebels and allowed trucks to head to the northern jungles, carrying goods ranging from sugar to fertilisers.

It also reopened a road linking rebel-held areas to the rest of the island and allowed sea passage to rebels travelling from north to east.