The government immediately issued a statement calling for calm and strengthened security. The police imposed a curfew in the area and arrested over 100 Tamils. Thirty three of them were handed over to the police Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) and others were released. Fifty nine Tamil students at the University of Moratuwa were also taken into custody and seven were detained.
Some 50 people armed with knives and batons attempted to attack Tamil residents in the nearby Soysapura flats, but dispersed as soldiers arrived on the scene and fired in the air. A shop near the flats was smashed. Some Tamil-owned shops near the Ratmalana bus depot were also looted and damaged.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are believed to have carried out the suicide attack. The Tigers may have planned the strike to disrupt the event which was organised to raise funds for the war effort. Mr Gooneratne was a strong advocate of full-scale war to wipe out the LTTE. Amnesty International condemned the deliberate killings and called on the Tigers to respect principles of humanitarian law. Activists are appalled and say the murders are a blow to the international campaign for Sri Lankan minority rights.
Analysts point to the urgent need for lasting peace to prevent such killings. The ruling People’s Alliance (PA) and the main opposition United National Party (UNP) continued talks in June on constitutional reform, said to be aimed at achieving peace. But it is now clear that the two parties are engaged in the dangerous 50 year-old political game that has cost the lives of over 60,000 people.
According to reports, the two parties reached agreement on several issues, the PA going back on assurances to the Tamil political parties in order to satisfy UNP demands. Some observers say the new agreement is inimical to devolution of power and the promotion of human rights. Others believe that PA has agreed to many of the UNP demands, because President Chandrika is keen to adopt the new constitution, which will also contain interim provisions enabling her to continue as President for another six years, with the extensive powers that she currently enjoys, before the final abolition of the executive presidency.
The government proposals provide that a regional statute would become law when signed by the speaker of the regional council. The UNP wants the regional governor to be vested with the power to reject regional statutes, as in the case of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. (The governor would be an appointee of the central government). In 1991, the regional governor under the 13th Amendment, rejected a statute by the North-East Provincial Council to acquire the bus transport authority.
The government proposals also envisage national policy only in some areas such as finance and defence. But the UNP wants national policies for all areas, including those that are listed as regional subjects. The UNP has also opposed the inclusion of social, economic and cultural rights in the ‘Fundamental Rights’ chapter of the proposed constitution. Special rights for children, right to safe conditions of work, freedom from forced labour and other social rights will be included under ‘Directive Principles of State Policy’ and will not be enforceable.
An interim council in the north-east is also proposed, before a referendum in the Eastern Province to decide whether it would remain merged with the Northern Province. The interim council will be appointed by the President based on the ethnic ratio in the north-east. The Tamil political parties are adamant that the two provinces must remain permanently merged for the purpose of devolution and oppose a referendum in the east. They say that large-scale displacement of the Tamil population and government-led Sinhalese settlements in the eastern province will have a major impact on the outcome of the referendum.
The Tamil parties also insist that control over land in the region must remain with the regional council. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) told Norwegian peace negotiator Erik Solheim in Colombo in late June that any proposed solution without the consultation of the LTTE is unacceptable.
In an interview to London-based Tamil Guardian on 29 June, LTTE’s political advisor Anton Balasingham again rejected government proposals, alleging that they have been further watered down leaving only a ‘skeleton’. Mr Balasingham says the proposals fail to address the ‘key demands or the national aspirations of the Tamil people as articulated in the cardinal principles of the Thimpu declaration’.
The 1985 Thimpu principles demand the recognition of the Tamil right to self-determination, the north-east Tamil homeland and that Sri Lankan Tamils constitute a nation. Science minister Batty Weerakoon says that the government is determined to take forward its peace proposals even if it is not accepted by the Tigers or the UNP.