Further violence leaves Sri Lankan peace deal in danger

This week’s bloodshed, including two days of government airstrikes against rebel positions and a suicide bombing in the capital, poses the most serious threat yet to a 2002 truce between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels seeking a separate state in the north of the country.

In a sign that tensions may be easing, the military said it would halt the air strikes – which rebels say sent thousands fleeing their homes and killed 12 civilians – so long as the insurgents stopped their attacks.

But analysts predicted that more violence in coming days could lead to the deal’s collapse.

“The ceasefire still holds in a technical sense,” the National Peace Council, an independent think tank, said in a statement. “But escalating acts of war make it akin to a dead letter.”

The chief ceasefire monitor, Ulf Henricsson of Sweden, travelled today to areas hit by the airstrikes and to meet with local leaders of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE.

He said the rebel claims about civilian casualties appeared to be “fairly correct,” noting that the targets were mostly political and military but were located in civilian areas.

“It will be good if the government can issue a statement announcing that the attacks are over so that the displaced people can get back to their homes,” he said.

Keheliya Rambukwella, a government spokesman, said today that civilians could go home anytime, and that “as long as the LTTE does not target civilians and our military headquarters there would be no more air strikes”.

Rambukwella maintained that the government launched the attacks – the government’s biggest military operation since 2002 – as a “deterrent” after the rebels attacked Sri Lankan naval boats and a suspected Tamil suicide bomber targeted a top general, wounding him and killing at least nine others.

The government blamed all three of today’s mine attacks on the rebels.

In the latest blast, three soldiers were killed when an anti-personnel mine exploded in northwestern Mannar district, 135 miles north of Colombo, military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said.

Three other soldiers were wounded in the explosion, near a public well where the soldiers went for a bath, Samarasinghe said.

Two sailors were killed when a mine exploded as they rode on a motorcycle on Kayts islet in northern Jaffna Peninsula, the navy’s media unit said.

Earlier, two members of a government commando unit formed to help the military in its battle against the Tigers were wounded in a mine attack on a fortified truck in Mannar, the Defence Ministry said.

The two wounded commandos were taken to a hospital. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known.

The five headless male corpses were found in two separate spots on a rubber plantation in Awissawella, a predominantly ethnic Sinhalese area about 22 miles east of Colombo, said Deputy Inspector General of Police Nevil Wijesinghe. Many Tamils work on the plantation.

“There is no way to identify the bodies. Four are completely naked and one has only underwear,” Wijesinghe said.

He said they were likely killed somewhere else and then dumped at the plantation.

“We are investigating if the deaths are linked to the ethnic violence or (if) it is a gang war,” he said.

A Tamil leader quoted on a pro-rebel website said he feared the bodies belonged to Tamil civilians picked up by security forces either in Colombo or on the road from the north. He offered no proof for his claim.

Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the only highway linking the south and the north – blocked by the government on Wednesday due to security concerns – reopened Thursday.

At least 65,000 people were killed in the two-decade civil war before the ceasefire was signed.

The 2002 Norway-brokered truce halted large-scale fighting, but disputes over post-war powersharing have hindered peace talks, and sporadic violence has raised tensions in recent months.