The first attempt at peace talks between the government of Sri Lanka and various Tamil groups: the ‘Thimpu talks’ are initiated by the Indian government. The government lifts the eight month long night curfew in the Northern Province.

The talks lasted two rounds and took place in Thimpu, the capital city of the Kingdom of Bhutan. The Tamil Delegation consisted of representatives from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), Eelam Revolutionary Organisation (EROS), Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). The LTTE, EPRLF, TELO and EROS were also constituent members of the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF) formed in April 1984.

The first round of talks took place from 8 July to 13 July and the second round of the talks commenced on 12 August and concluded on 17 August 1985. During the first round, the Sri Lankan government delegation proposed draft legislation for devolution of power, which the Tamil delegation rejected and response put forward its four main demands, or ‘cardinal principles’:

(a) Recognition of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a distinct nationality;
(b) Recognition of an identified Tamil homeland and the guarantee of its territorial integrity;
(c) Based on the above, recognition of the inalienable right of self-determination of the Tamil nation; and
(d) Recognition of the right to full citizenship and other fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils, who regard Sri Lanka as their country.

The Sri Lankan government rejected the first three of these demands arguing that they violated Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

Sources
An Analysis of Thimpu Talks (1985) and the PA-LTTE Talks (1994-95) – Some Lessons on Processes of Negotiations in Armed Conflict, Ketheshwaran Loganathan (2001), presented at Exploring Possible Constitutional Arrangements for meeting Tamil Aspirations within a Unified Sri Lanka, Switzerland, 11-14 June 2001; Sri Lanka, Lost Opportunities: Past Attempts at a Negotiated Settlement, Kethesh Loganathan.

Quotations

“I ask of you very little. Let us forget the issue of training camps, the existence of Sri Lanka terrorists in South Asia; their plotting and planning. I ask you to help me to prevent them coming here with arms. …If we can agree on a common scheme to do this, by some form of mutual or combined surveillance, it will enable me to withdraw the Armed Services from combat; to suspend the operation of the Terrorism Act, and to help the North and East of Sri Lanka to return to normalcy. …Cross border terrorism threatens the very fabric of this democracy. … Do please understand our position, which is now yours too, and help.” Letter from J.R. Jayewardene to Rajiv Gandhi, 1985, cited in Rohan Gunaratne, Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka: The Role of Indian Intelligence Agencies, Colombo, South Asian Network on Conflict Research, 1994.

“[We wish] to express our disapproval over the usage of the category ‘militants’ in the ceasefire document to describe the united front of major Liberation Organizations, while ascribing the notion ‘Tamil political leadership’ to the TULF. Such categorization may create serious misconceptions and undermine our status as authentic political organizations representing the aspirations of our people.” Joint Memorandum of the Tamil delegation, July 1985.

“If the first three [Thimpu Principles] are to be taken at their face value and given their accepted legal meaning, they are wholly unacceptable to the Government. They must be rejected for the reason that they constitute a negation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, they are detrimental to a united Sri Lanka and are inimical to the interests of the several communities, ethnic and religious in our country. … The implementation of any agreement reached at these talks requires as a pre-condition a complete renunciation of all forms of militant action. All militant groups in Sri Lanka must surrender their arms and equipment. All training camps whether in Sri Lanka or abroad must be closed down.” H.W. Jayewardene, leader of the government delegation, in a prepared Statement rejecting the “Thimpu Principles”, 12th August 1985.

“The four basic principles that we have set out at the Thimpu talks as the necessary framework for any rational dialogue with the Sri Lankan Government are not some mere theoretical constructs. They represent the hard existential reality of the struggle of the Tamil people for their fundamental and basic rights. It is a struggle which initially manifested itself in the demand for a federal constitution in the 1950 and later in the face of continuing and increasing oppression and discrimination, found logical expression in the demand for the independent Tamil state of Tamil Eelam.” Joint Memorandum of the Tamil delegation, 12th August 1985.

Extracts from ‘An Analysis of Thimpu Talks (1985) and the PA-LTTE Talks (1994-95)’
“These proposals were only marginally different from the one which was placed before the All Party Conference of 1984 and had been rejected by the TULF. It once again demonstrated the Sri Lankan State’s incapacity to place before the Tamil polity far-reaching proposals that would be seen as a viable alternative to the pitched-up demand for Tamil Eelam. Further, the proposals were presented in a drab, legalistic form by a delegation comprising mainly of lawyers and bureaucrats. This irritated the Tamil delegation, particularly the representatives of the Tamil politico-military organizations, who were driven by ideological and political fervour and whose patience was being sorely tested. The TULF representatives had already been exposed to the draft legislation in the APC of 1984 and, although quite at home with the legalistic tenor, took a decision to take a back seat. … The Tamil Delegation declined to negotiate any proposals that had already been rejected by the TULF at the APC. Further, the Tamil politico-military organizations had taken the position that the burden of presenting a broadly acceptable formula lay with Colombo, since it was solely to be blamed for the militarization of the ethnic conflict. The Tamil Delegation, instead, subjected the Sri Lankan government delegation to a series of ‘lectures’ on what constituted the Ethnic Question and as to why the burden lay with Colombo to come out with a solution ‘worthy of our consideration’. And, as though to drive home the point, the Tamil Delegation placed before the Government delegation a set of ‘four cardinal principles. …

“The gap between the government’s set of proposals and the Thimpu principles was not just a difference of opinion or perception, but one operating at two totally different ideological and conceptual planes. The Government’s proposals while going beyond decentralization and delegation of power, envisaged in the pre-existing District Development Councils system, was nowhere close to the devolution of powers available in the Indian constitution. Further, it failed to recognize the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka as a National Question. …

“The ‘Thimpu Principles’, on the other hand, was a strident call for the recognition of the Tamil people as a nation with its inalienable right to self-determination. The decision to forward the Thimpu Principles was not only an assertion of Tamil nationalism, but a strategic move to avoid placing concrete proposals that was seen as a pre-mature abandonment of the goal for which arms had been raised – namely, a separate state of Tamil Eelam. The Thimpu princples, therefore, could not have been anything other than an articulation of an Ideal, bereft of constitutionalism and legalism.”

Related events
LTTE joins Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF)
Negotiations conducted by Indian envoy Parthasarathy
6th amendment makes espousal of a separate state in Sri Lanka illegal