SLMM Says Good Bye

(January, 04, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Thirty observers from Norway and Iceland who had been monitoring a failed peace process in Sri Lanka have been ordered to leave the troubled country within 12 days.

The 20 monitors from Norway and 10 from Iceland, all of whom have been working for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, must move out of the six offices they'd set up around Sri Lanka.

"It's a major process, but we will be packed up and out within the deadline, which is set for January 16," Pia Hansson of the Monitoring Mission told theMedias.

"On a personal level, we are all disappointed," she added.

The monitors must leave Sri Lanka after government officials formally announced this week that they are terminating a ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The ceasefire had been hammered out nearly six years ago by Norwegian peace brokers.

Its termination threatens a sharp escalation in the violence that has plagued Sri Lanka for years. It had been expected that Norwegian peace workers still in the country would have to leave.

Norway isn't formally losing its role on the island, however. Norwegian diplomats have been working for years to settle the violent conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the government, and they haven't been asked to end their efforts.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said, however, that the Sri Lankan authorities must now "redefine" Norway's role.

However Norway and Iceland are among the few countries in the world who haven’t stamped the LTTE as terrorists.