12:35pm, Tue: opinion The very recent two-day (July 13-15) international conference on Sri Lanka on the theme of reconciliation and nation-building organised by the Department of Strategic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), and the Malaysian Ceylonese Congress (MCC) was certainly a success.

Two days of intense presentations, discussions, plenary sessions and others drove home the point that the on-going ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka must be stopped through discussions between the warring parties - the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).

It was more than clear to the participants that the peace process cannot be established in the country without the government engaging in talks with the LTTE, the sole representative of Tamils.

The success of the conference needs to be seen from two perspectives - to what extent the intended objectives were met and the conditions under which it was held. It was clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the two-day meeting drove home the point of the imperative of peace and the necessity for negotiations on the part of the warring parties.

The other reason for the success of the conference was the hardship that was imposed on the conference organisers by the actions of the Sri Lankan government and its mission in Malaysia. From the beginning, the Sri Lankan government sought every possible means to stop the conference from being held in this country.

Conditions rejected

A few months ago, when the Sri Lankan High Commission got wind of the conference, a message was conveyed to its foreign ministry in Colombo. Not surprisingly, the foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgarmar apparently made a friendly call to the Malaysian foreign minister seeking his assistance in stopping the conference.

For Kardigarmar, the logic was simple - any event or conference that was organised on the countrys problem without the blessing of the government must be pro-LTTE. In fact, one of the organisers of this conference, the MCC, was depicted as the front for the LTTE.

It seems the Malaysian foreign minister gave his assurance that he would use his powers to stop the conference. But then things took a different turn.

Given the adverse publicity about the Sri Lankan governments interference in Malaysian internal affairs, the Sri Lankan High Commission met the head of the conferences organising committee and conveyed in no uncertain terms that the Sri Lankan government had nothing against the conference.

However, some conditions was placed by the mission only to be rejected by the head of the organising committee.

Terrible quandary

Following this assurance of Sri Lankan non-interference, organising work for the conference proceeded without any major hitches. However, two weeks before the conference, Wisma Putra (Malaysian Foreign Ministry) officials informed the organising committee that the minister was not too keen on the conference and that is should be stopped.

By the time this information came, most of the paper presenters had confirmed their participation, bought their flight tickets, and rooms had been reserved. The UPSK (Unit of Strategic and Security Studies, UKM), one of the organisers, was caught in a terrible quandary as to how to proceed with the conference given the stand taken by the government and foreign ministry in particular.

After consultation with top university officials, the Unit was advised to proceed with the conference but with references to the university removed. Thus, under this pressure, the name UKM was removed from the brochures to be replaced with Apis (Asia Pacific Association for Political and International Studies).

Before the conference, information was received that the Sri Lankan mission in the country called up other foreign missions and advised them not to send their representatives to the conference. This explains why many of the foreign missions, except for one or two, did not send their representatives.

This goes to show that the Sri Lankan High Commission in this country and others basically do not engage in normaldiplomatic work, but try to ensure that the Tamil cause does not get any recognition at all. To do this, the mission is prepared to engage in the most nefarious kind of work, even if this means interfering in the internal affairs of countries like Malaysia.

Eminent speakers

Credit must be given to the conference organisers both in UKM and in MCC who refused to be intimidated by the dirty tactics of the Sri Lankan government and their systematic application of pressure.

Despite the hardship, the conference went on without any problems. Some of the eminent participants were Prof Partha Ghosh from India, Dr Jayampathy Wickremarantne and Dr Jehan Perera from Sri Lanka, V Rudrakumar and Prof Amita Shastri from the United States, Father Emmanuel and Dr Chritian Wagner from Germany, Prof Peter Schalk from Sweden, Prof Sonnarajah from Singapore and many others.

The conference was organised under the following sub-themes: conceptualisation and definition of ethnic conflict; historical and political background to the conflict; perceptions of conflict; legal and constitutional aspects; social and cultural issues; economic issues and political and religious issues.