Envoys in talks with Tamil rebels
Envoys from Asia and Europe met Tamil Tiger rebels’ top political leader today, expressing concern that growing violence was threatening to shatter the country’s cease-fire, officials and the rebels said.
In the latest fighting, 13 members of Sri Lanka’s navy travelling in a bus were killed in an ambush on Friday. The government blamed the rebels for the attack.
The envoys – from Japan, Britain, Norway and European Union – represent key backers of Sri Lanka's peace process.
They met S. P. Thamilselvan in the northern guerrilla stronghold of Kilinochchi, sources close to the rebels said.
“The delegation briefed Mr. Thamilselvan on the … concern over the escalating violence and the necessity to start talks on effective implementation of the cease-fire agreement since it is felt that the (truce) is running into grave risk,” the rebels said on their web site.
Thamilselvan assured the envoys of the rebels’ ”commitment to the peace process and the cease-fire”, said the statement.
In Friday’s attack, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and triggered a claymore mine in an ambush on about 30 sailors travelling by road toward their base in Mannar district, 135 miles north of the capital, Colombo, said navy spokesman Cmdr. Jayantha Perera.
Two sailors were wounded, he said.
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera met the ambassadors after the attack and urged them to take steps to ensure the rebels “desist from further escalating the violence in the north and east,” a government statement said.
“There are definitely powers working in the northeast at the moment who do not want peace,” said Hagrup Haukland, a Norwegian who heads the 60-member European team monitoring the Sri Lankan truce.
“It is now instrumental that decisive actions are taken so that the perpetrators can be apprehended and brought to justice. Only then can an environment be created that is conducive for renewed peace talks,” Haukland said in a statement.
But the rebels have denied involvement in the attack.
“The … Tigers were not involved in any activity that breaches the cease-fire agreement,” rebel spokesman Daya Master told The Associated Press by telephone from Kilinochchi. “There is no connection whatsoever between us and this attack.”
Haukland said the latest violence has endangered the peace deal.
“The cease-fire agreement is in jeopardy, absolutely,” he told reporters.
Violence has escalated in Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil-majority northeast since rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran threatened to resume his struggle for an independent Tamil homeland if the government fails to address Tamils’ grievances.
This month alone, at least 33 government security personnel, including the sailors, were killed and many more injured in attacks blamed on the rebels.
The Tamil Tigers started fighting in 1983 for a separate Tamil homeland in the island nation’s north and east, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. The conflict killed about 65,000 people.
