Joint panel with rebels could firm Sri Lanka's peace, but analyst warns plan could fail

A top Sri Lankan official said Tuesday that the president's pledge to create a joint panel with Tamil rebels within weeks to distribute tsunami aid would help bring the two sides closer. But an analyst warned that opposition within the ruling coalition could derail the plan.
The comments came as delegates from 125 donor countries and aid agencies met for a second day to discuss ways of ensuring that some of the US$2.2 billion (euro1.74 billion) in aid pledged reaches areas inhabited by minority Tamils, who have long accused the Sinhalese-dominated government of neglecting them.
On Monday, President Chandrika Kumaratunga told the delegates that a joint agency between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels would be set up within weeks to distribute aid to the guerrilla-held north and east, meeting a key rebel demand.
``The proposed agreement will not only help people on the ground, but will go a long way to take the two sides closer,'' Jayantha Dhanapala, head of the government's Peace Secretariat, which handles negotiations with the Tamil Tigers, said Tuesday.
Kumaratunga's main coalition partner, however, has opposed the plan, saying it would help the rebels achieve their goal of establishing a separate Tamil state. The Marxist People's Liberation Front has threatened to withdraw from the coalition if the plan goes ahead, a move that could cause the government to collapse.
Jehan Perera, an analyst with Sri Lanka's National Peace Council, a think-tank, cautioned against too much optimism.
``The issue remains open whether the government can both sign and implement the joint mechanism,'' if it's opposed by her coalition, Perera said.
Kumaratunga also faces opposition from a political party of Buddhist monks that has nine seats in the 225-member Parliament. Most Sri Lankans are Buddhist, and monks are influential in state affairs.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam began fighting in 1983 for a homeland for the island's 3.2 million Tamils. A cease-fire halted the conflict in 2002 but subsequent peace talks collapsed in April 2003 over the rebels' demand for greater autonomy in the north and east.
The fragile truce still holds despite allegations of attacks on both sides.
``We have a large number of violations, but the cease-fire is holding because neither of the sides wants to go back to full scale conflict,'' Dhanapala said.
Decades of war and the Dec. 26 tsunami - which killed some 31,000 people and affected about 1 million more - have thrown 5 million of the island's 19 million people into poverty, the government has said.