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Journalism of Courage
The Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels, riding a wave of breakthroughs in peace talks to end 19 years of war, plan to tackle human rights issues in their next meeting, a senior cabinet minister said on Monday.
‘‘Human rights is going to be one of the major topics to be discussed,’’ Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris said of next month’s peace talks set for a resort outside Bangkok.
‘‘We think that the discussions of human rights are going to be very important because they will lay the foundation for the donors’ meeting that is scheduled to be be held in Tokyo in May of next year,’’ Peiris said.
The Tigers run a ruthless one-party state in the area of northern Sri Lanka they control and have been accused of using child soldiers in the war that has killed 64,000 people and displaced more than one million.
But in peace talks held last week in Oslo, the government and LTTE agreed to work out a system of regional autonomy within a federal framework. The accord on a federal model with limited self-rule for Tamil areas is a big step toward ending the war and comes after the rebels dropped a cornerstone demand for independence for the north and east of the island. (Reuters)
