(IPS) news focus

On the face of it, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels are sporting new political stripes those of peace.

Besides going public with its intentions to negotiate a peace deal with the recently elected United National Front (UNF) government, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the separatist group is officially known, was the first to cease fire on Christmas eve.

The new government here followed suit with its own unilateral halting of hostilities.

Recently, the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe implemented the lifting of a seven-year embargo on goods, food and medicines entering the northern rebel-controlled area of the country, the Wanni. The lifting of the embargo was a condition set by the Tigers for peace talks.

The economic reforms minister, Milinda Moragoda, was quoted as saying the government was taking things slowly in the peace process, going on a ''step by step'' basis.

This month, in a further demonstration of their peace intentions, LTTE chief negotiator Anton Balasingham appealed to the Indian government to enable him operate out of India's southern city of Chennai during the run-up to and the period of the talks.

Balasingham currently lives in London, and the LTTE has been deemed a terrorist organisation by New Delhi and has been banned in India.

Room for suspicion

Yet the Tigers are also giving room for suspicion about their commitment to talk peace this time, the fifth such attempt in the more than two decades long conflict between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in this civil war, where the LTTE is fighting to create a separate Tamil state of Eelam.

In Sri Lanka's eastern province, an area the LTTE claims for Eelam along with the northern province, Tiger cadres have used the cessation of hostilities to enter government-controlled areas to harass local Tamils for failing to obey previous Tiger commands.

Among the victims have been Tamil residents who had refused to pay large sums of money the Tigers had demanded as part of a regular pattern of extortion. Parents who protected their teenage children from being conscripted by the Tigers have also been at the receiving end of abuse, both verbal and physical.

Worse still, international monitors of the ground situation in the war-ravaged areas, such as the north and east of this South Asian island nation, have convincing evidence that the Tigers have not let up their forced recruitment of Tamil children into their military ranks.

''We have evidence that recruitment is going on now, even after the ceasefire,'' says a ranking official at an international humanitarian agency. ''This is a perfect moment for the Tigers to come out and show the world they have changed, that they have stopped recruiting children under 18. But that is not so.''

''They are using the ceasefire to maximise recruitment and children in the Batticaloa area (in the east) are facing the brunt of it,'' adds Rajan Hoole, who authors reports for the independent rights watchdog, the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna).

Systematic terror

According to Hoole, such violations of children's rights is among a number of human rights violations that the Tamil Tigers will have to address and come clean to appear convincing that they, indeed, are serious about their quest for peace.

Hoole's critique of the Tigers is not misplaced in light of the separatist rebels' human rights record, which has been ruthless at times both during hostile periods and during peace talks.

For instance, when the Sri Lankan government was involved in peace talks with the LTTE between May 1989 to June 1990, the Tigers used the occasion to kill leading Tamil politicians and also forced more than 700 unarmed policemen from their stations and shot them to death.

''LTTE terror is very systematic and far reaching, as opposed to the state's terror, which is vindictive, irrational and unpredictable,'' says Hoole.

''Since last year, they have been applying pressure for people in the north and east, particularly Tamil politicians, community leaders,heads of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to accept the Tiger version of events.''

The human rights issue the need for the Tigers to show greater commitment toward respecting rights for the fifth round of peace talks to be a success is also gaining currency among some peace activists here.

''Human rights concerns and commitments should be built into the talks, particularly if the government settles for an interim agreement with the LTTE that the Tigers will be given control of the north and east,'' says Jehan Perera, media director of the Colombo-based National Peace Council.

Most significant in this regard would be a Tiger pledge to end political assassinations, permit freedom of expression and dissent and stop conscription, particularly of children.

End harassment

If the planned peace talks address these concerns, they will mark a departure from all previous attempts, where human rights commitments on both sides of the political divide were never taken up.

''There has been little evidence of human rights issues being part of the previous talks,'' says Ketheshwaran Loganathan, a conflict and peace analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think tank. ''It has centred around rules related to the combatants and humanitarian concerns.''

Loganathan argues, however, that the government should also be called to display its stance on human rights to match the expectations from the Tigers. ''The government has to end harassment, stop collective punishment of Tamil civilians for LTTE attacks and change the harsh laws under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.''

Yet Loganathan wonders if it is premature to raise the human rights flag at such an early juncture in the country's latest attempts at peace. ''It may not be practical at an early stage of the talks, for it may bring up maximalist human rights positions,'' he explains.

But those like Hoole, think otherwise, asserting that delays would only help the LTTE. ''If the Tigers are serious about peace then they have to respect human rights from the beginning,'' he says.