The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) participation in the Tokyo donor conference, scheduled for 9-10 June, remains in doubt as of the end of May. Unless it compromises, the LTTE has set a virtually impossible challenge for the government with its condition that Colombo should take concrete steps to establish an interim administration for the north-east prior to the Tokyo meet. Unless the LTTE recaptures the flexibility it showed at the outset of the peace process, when it accepted a federal solution and partnership with the government in newly established institutions, Colombo will be hard pressed to meet its terms.
The government cannot go beyond the limits set by the constitution. Either the LTTE accepts a government statement accepting in principle the concept of an interim administration, or it accepts an interim set-up within the framework of the constitution. As neither of these seems likely, the prospects for advancing the peace process in Tokyo seem slim.
But that the conference will be held appears not to be in doubt, given Washington DC's announcement that its deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, will be attending. The statement on Armitage's participation made the point that the Tokyo conference will be an important forum for the international community to demonstrate its support for the peace process. The US preponderance in the post-Iraq war period is too great for even an unorthodox organisation such as the LTTE to ignore when powerful countries such as Russia and France appear to have caved in.
For the past three years, since the commencement of Norwegian facilitation in the peace process, the US has been showing a strong interest in peace in Sri Lanka. The unprecedented amounts of World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans to Sri Lanka this year are a consequence of this interest. If Norway's facilitation has been indispensable in maintaining communication links between the government and the LTTE in the present time of crisis, US interest has provided Sri Lanka's peace process with a global dimension.