Sri Lanka’s government signed a deal on Friday to share international tsunami aid with the Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said, despite bitter protests by critics who say it threatens 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 a top official involved in the signing.
The official said he could not be quoted by name ahead of a formal announcement of the accord later on Friday.
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, thus boosting their separatist agenda and thus undermining Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
The Marxists pulled their 39 lawmakers 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 on Friday 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.
Raucous protests by Marxist politicians inside later led legislative leaders to suspend the parliamentary session until July 5, minutes after the pact was presented in the legislature for debate after months of secrecy.
However, the accord with the rebels does not need legislative approval.
More protests were planned for later on Friday.
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 have said 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 cease-fire 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. -Sapa-AP