Police guard aid group after threats from Buddist monks
Armed police guarded the office of Dutch aid group ZOA Refugee Care in the Sri Lankan capital today after angry Buddhist monks stormed into the building and accused the group of aiding Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said.
A roadside bomb, meanwhile, exploded in the government-held northern town of Vavuniya this morning, killing two policemen and wounding one, the area’s police chief said.
ZOA’s general affairs manager Anslem Mudiatta said today that eight Buddhist monks along with dozens of supporters had forced their way into the group’s Colombo office yesterday and threatened them.
“They told us we are supporting the LTTE and wanted us to get out of Sri Lanka,” Mudiatta said, referring to the rebels by their formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
He said the group took away some keys and three attendance registers.
Police spokesman Rienzie Perera said they had posted three armed officers to guard the ZOA office.
The Defence Ministry this week said it had evidence that ZOA had set up a hospital inside rebel-held areas in eastern Sri Lanka. The ministry said in a statement that it discovered the hospital after anti-terrorist commandoes overran two rebel bases and seven smaller camps in eastern Ampara District this week.
ZAO has denied providing assistance to the rebels.
“ZAO likes to emphasize that its work is strictly humanitarian for the benefit of local community. ZAO did not at any time provide assistance to the LTTE or LTTE-related organisations or to the LTTE hospital the area,” the group said in a statement.
ZAO said it had withdrawn from the area in August after the security situation deteriorated.
Meanwhile, in Vavuniya, a bomb that killed two policemen was attached to an abandoned motorcycle and was triggered as a police unit travelled by, said Deputy Inspector General of police Rohan Siriwardane, who was reached by telephone.
Siriwardane blamed the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels for the blast.
Vavuniya, 130 miles north of the capital, is the last government-held town ahead of Tamil rebel-held territory. The rebels could not be immediately reached for comment.
Fighting has escalated in the past year in Sri Lanka’s north and east, where most of the country’s 3.1 million ethnic Tamil minority live.
The Tigers have been fighting for more than 20 years for a separate homeland for the Tamils after decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
Both sides claim to be adhering to a 2002 cease-fire, but resurgent violence has left more than 3,600 people dead in the past year.
More than 65,000 people died in the conflict before the cease-fire was signed.
