Sri Lanka agrees tsunami aid deal with Tamil Tigers

Sri Lanka’s government today signed a deal to share international tsunami aid with the Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said, despite bitter protests by critics who said it threatened the country’s sovereignty.

MS Jayasinghe, secretary of the reconstruction ministry, signed the pact on behalf of the government, and Norwegian peacebrokers then took the document north to the rebel-held capital of Kilinochchi for the Tigers to sign, according to an official involved in the signing.

The official said he could not be quoted by name ahead of a formal announcement of the accord later today.

Sri Lanka’s influential Buddhist clergy, a powerful Marxist party and other key critics say the deal raises the rebels’ legitimacy in the international community, boosting their separatist agenda and undermining Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

The Marxists pulled their 39 politicians out of President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s ruling coalition over the issue, reducing the coalition to a precarious 81-seat minority in the 225-member Parliament.

The government could collapse if other parties side with the Marxists in a no-confidence vote.

The signing today came despite protests by hundreds of Marxist demonstrators who marched near Parliament to demand that the aid-sharing plan be dropped. Police fired tear gas to disperse them, and two protesters were injured.

The aid-sharing pact was later presented to the legislature for debate after months of secrecy, and raucous protests by Marxist politicians prompted legislative leaders to suspend the parliamentary session until July 5. However, the accord does not need legislative approval.

More protests were planned for later today.

Kumaratunga has promoted the plan as a golden opportunity for the government to forge peace with the guerrillas as the country recovers from the December 26 tsunami, which struck both government- and rebel-held areas and killed at least 31,000 people.

The rebels say areas under their control have been overlooked in reconstruction efforts and have demanded more say in how international donations for Sri Lankans are spent.

A 2002 ceasefire halted the nearly two-decade civil war between the Tigers and the government that left nearly 65,000 people dead. Subsequent peace talks have deadlocked.