Sri Lanka on the brink after 67 killed
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday August 1, 1:18 PM
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Sri Lanka on the brink after 67 killed in new violence*
The truce between Sri Lanka's warring parties has been stretched to
breaking point after one of the bloodiest days in the island's recent
history left at least 67 soldiers and Tamil rebels dead.
The casualties, caused by a Sri Lankan army ground offensive in the
northeast and a suspected Tamil Tiger mine attack on a bus carrying
soldiers, raised fears of a return to full-scale civil war on the island.
However despite the new spike in violence, international truce monitors
said they still believed that neither side wanted to re-ignite a war
that has claimed over 60,000 lives in the past three decades.
"I still don't believe in a full-scale war," Ulf Henriccson, the retired
Swedish general who leads the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), told
journalists in Colombo on Monday.
He suggested the fighting which has raged in recent days could
ultimately lead to new negotiations between the Sri Lankan government
and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
In Monday's violence, 19 soldiers were killed when a mine ripped through
the bus carrying them to the fighting with the Tigers in the
northeastern district of Trincomalee.
The government has launched an offensive in the region to try to take
control of a key waterway which the Tigers seized 10 days ago. Military
officials said 35 rebels and nine soldiers died in Monday's fighting.
They said four other rebels died in an army attack in the island's
northern Jaffna peninsula.
The Tigers have accused the government of pushing the nation to the
brink of war with the new offensive, and have also vowed to resist any
attempts to re-take the waterway.
Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella described the offensive, backed
by Israeli-built Kfir fighter jets, as a "humanitarian" operation to
free up the Maavilaru waterway and get water to thousands of needy farmers.
However truce monitor Henricsson criticised the government action which
he said could damage the small dam at Maavilaru.
Fears for the already faltering truce caused more nervousness among
investors on Monday. The tiny Colombo Stock Exchange lost 1.37 percent
of its value.
Neither the Tigers nor the government have made official statements on
pulling out of the February 2002 ceasefire even though each side has
accused the other of violations that have escalated since December.
The truce brokered by Norway can be terminated either by the Tigers or
Colombo with a written declaration giving two weeks' notice.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said the Tigers resisted the military
advance Monday.
"The Sri Lanka army began moving ground troops from two bases towards
Maavilaru sluice gate Monday morning...," the website said. "The Sri
Lanka army troops were defeated by the Tigers."
In a further threat to the truce, the LTTE has demanded that monitors
from European Union members Finland, Denmark and Sweden leave the island
after the EU added it to a list of "terrorist" organisations in May.
That would leave only Norwegian and Icelandic monitors.
Finland and Denmark announced on Friday they would pull out by the end
of August. Sweden has yet to announce its position.
The Tamil Tigers have been waging a violent secessionist campaign since
the 1970s to secure an independent homeland in the northeast of Sri
Lanka for the minority Tamil population.