British diplomats were involved in last-minute attempts to secure the surrender of two of the Tamil Tigers’ most senior political figures as the war in Sri Lanka reached its climax, one of the UN’s top officials revealed on Friday.
The plan backfired when the two men were shot dead as they tried to give themselves up to the Sri Lankan army.
Balasingham Nadesan, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) political leader, and Seevaratnam Pulidevan, head of its peace secretariat, were killed in the early hours on Monday despite the involvement of British officials and the UN secretary-general’s chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, in the delicate talks. Britain said its involvement was at most indirect.
“We made no specific representations on behalf of members of the LTTE but we consistently urged the UN to play an active role in mediating an end to the conflict, including protecting civilian lives,” a senior British official said.
While British diplomats were part of a chain of intermediaries between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, sources rubbished suggestions that they had tried directly to negotiate a deal.
Nambiar said he had “direct contact” with British diplomats at the UN in New York and with a British minister, but declined to give further details of the conversations.
“There was a ministerial demarche [a formal diplomatic representation] to the secretary-general from the UK office in New York,” he said.
The initial contact from the LTTE is understood to have been made through a British journalist.
“I received a telephone call through the situation center in New York asking me to convey certain messages to the [Sri Lankan] government,” Nambiar said.
He said he passed on the information to the Sri Lankan authorities and spoke to Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona about the matter.
But he said the attempts were unsuccessful: “The Sri Lankan government did not say that they would accept the surrender. They said it may be too late.”
Sri Lankan officials have previously accused Britain of meddling in the war and of exhibiting pro-Tamil bias.
Demonstrations were mounted outside the British high commission in Colombo following a controversial visit by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
Unlike the Tamil Tigers leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was killed by government troops on Monday, many of the so-called “civilian members” of the LTTE wanted to hand themselves in.
The Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed that they were aware of the surrender offer and that they had been in contact with an aid organization which had passed on a number of messages from the LTTE men.
A text message from Kohona to the Red Cross read: “Just walk across to the troops, slowly! With a white flag and comply with instructions carefully. The soldiers are nervous about suicide bombers.”
The LTTE’s head of international relations, S Pathmanathan, said that the men did so, but were shot by the Sri Lankan soldiers.
The Sri Lankan military disputes this, claiming that they were shot by their own forces.
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