Sri Lanka: Peace envoy steps up efforts
Sri Lanka’s president and a top Norwegian peace envoy are meeting today in a desperate attempt to prevent the nation’s slide back into civil war as separatist rebels prepared for a possible return to the battlefield.
The rebels admitted yesterday that they were training ethnic Tamil civilians for combat to bolster their ranks for an eventual return to war against government troops, adding urgency to this week’s shuttle diplomacy by Norwegian envoy Eric Solheim.
Solheim is expected to meet President Mahinda Rajapakse in Colombo following renewed violence that has taken at least 120 lives in recent weeks, according to the military, police and a north-based human rights group. He plans to meet Tiger leaders in rebel-held territory tomorrow.
In the latest violence, a journalist was shot dead in the eastern port city of Trincomalee, but the motive was not immediately clear.
Subramaniyam Suvindrarajan – whose newspaper Sundar Oli had highlighted the Tamil Tigers’ demands for autonomy – was shot by a lone gunman, police said.
Solheim – who helped negotiate a ceasefire between the government and rebels in 2002 – met foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera yesterday and later said he still hoped to prevent a return to full-scale civil war.
In the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi, civilians of all age groups from schoolchildren to OAPs gather every afternoon at a public playground in the rebel stronghold for a session of military education that the rebels call self-defence training.
“We have so far enlisted 13,000 civilians in this district for training in self defence,” said a rebel official in charge of the training who uses the name Por Piriyan – meaning “The Lover of War” in the Tamil language.
“We don’t want to start a war again but if it is thrust on us it is important that all the people are ready to face it,” he said.
Solheim will visit Kilinochchi tomorrow to meet the Tamil Tigers’ reclusive leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The truce has come under heavy strain in recent months with almost daily violence in the Tamil majority north and east, with 81 government troops have been killed since December 4 in attacks blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The rebels deny any involvement.
Forty civilians have also been killed in shootings carried out by unidentified assailants.
More than 65,000 people from both sides have died since 1983 when Tamil Tigers started their violent campaign to create a separate state for the country’s 3.2 million Tamils accusing the 14 million majority Sinhalese of discrimination.
The 2002 truce halted fighting temporarily, but peace talks broke down a year later when the Tigers withdrew demanding from negotiations more autonomy to Tamil-majority regions.
