COLOMBO - With the Sri Lankan government
celebrating the capture of the country's east,
all-out battles with Tamil rebels in their
northern bastion of Jaffna are imminent.
Five days after the government of
President Mahinda Rajapakse announced that its
troops had reached the last Tamil Tigers
stronghold in the east, Toppiggala (Barron's
Rock), more than 25 combatants from both sides
died in clashes along the northern
line of
control.
The fresh fighting signals what
lies ahead. A Norwegian-facilitated ceasefire,
signed in February 2002, is all but dead, along
with recent efforts by the facilitators to renew
dialogue.
Both the government and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the main
rebel organization that has been fighting for a
separate Tamil homeland for three decades, have
upped the war rhetoric.
"We have been in
preparation for an assault from the Vavuniya
[northern] defense lines for the past six months,"
Tigers military spokesman Rasiah Illanthariyan
said. "Every time troops have tried to come into
our areas, we have beaten them back."
The
Tiger rhetoric matched that of the government,
which has said openly that it is shifting military
attention to the north. The Rajapakse government
plans a massive public program to celebrate the
victory in the east, and citizens have been asked
to hoist the national flag. Posters have already
appeared countrywide praising the troops.
Rajapakse informed Norwegian peace
facilitator Erik Solheim that operations by the
security forces will stop only when Tiger leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran halts attacks on government
troops and targets.
"We were compelled to
launch operations when they attacked troops in
Mawilaru and Muttur," Rajapakse recently told a
gathering, referring to the initial breakout of
fighting last August, south of the strategic
eastern Trincomalee harbor.
Even as the
government announced plans to hold local elections
in the eastern region, the LTTE warned that it
will continue to attack oil and military
installations. On Monday, a suspected LTTE gunmen
shot dead Herath Abeyweera, chief secretary of the
Eastern Province, in Trincomalee.
"The
assassination strengthens our resolve not to give
in to the forces of terror," Rajapakse said in a
statement, vowing that his government will proceed
with "our task of restoring freedom and democracy
in the east, and all of Sri Lanka".
Illanthariyan said of a possible troop
advance into the north: "Let them come here, we
are ready. We have switched modes, but we are as
active as always." The Tigers have been putting up
stiff resistance in the north.
In
mid-July, two days of fighting left 14 government
soldiers and scores of Tiger cadres dead. "The
Tigers fired at troops and we had to retaliate. We
have taken out their gun positions," military
spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said.
The latest fighting contradicts hyped-up
reporting in the local media of a possible thawing
in the relationship between Colombo and
Kilinochchi, the heart of the Tigers' northern
stronghold 100 kilometers southeast of Jaffna.
Reports this month said the government had once
again invited Norway to revive talks. The
Norwegians facilitated a truce in 2002 that still
holds, but is limited to paper.
That truce
did halt more than two decades of fighting that
had killed 65,000, but violence erupted again in
December 2005. In the ensuing 30 months, 4,500
have been killed, including 1,500 civilians. The
United Nations estimates that recent fighting has
forced 500,000 people out of their homes and
affected 3 million Sri Lankans.
The
Norwegians themselves have played down any peace
hopes and said that the latest visit by outgoing
Ambassador Hans Brattskar to Kilinochchi was a
courtesy call, coupled with briefings for the
Tigers on concerns on the part of international
backers of the truce. "There are no trips by the
special peace envoy planned for any time soon,"
Norwegian Embassy spokesman Erik Nurenberg said
after the trip.
Illanthariyan, part of the
LTTE delegation to the meetings, said there were
no discussions on renewing dialogue. The Tigers
also stuck to their hardline stance that
conditions embedded in the truce have to be
fulfilled for dialogue to recommence.
The
truce, which recognized a Tamil homeland,
facilitated economic growth, and international
donors led by the United States, Japan, the
European Union and Norway stepped in.
On
top of the LTTE agenda is the reopening of the A9
highway that runs through Tiger-held areas.
"Conditions in the truce like the opening of the
A9 have to be implemented for any talks to
recommence. The government is talking peace and
launching attacks," the LTTE spokesman said. The
government closed the highway last August.
The rhetoric and the posturing in the
north have led observers to warn that the climate
may deteriorate further in the coming months. "The
peace process remains stymied in the first half of
2007. Open hostilities continue to flare up
frequently. Terrorist acts and general violence
such as ambushes, mine attacks, abductions and
targeted killings further intensify," the Common
Action Plan Review report put out by the office of
the UN Humanitarian Affairs Coordinator said.
It added, "Artillery shelling, aerial
bombings and Claymore mines cause civilian
casualties and damage to property, disrupting the
lives of thousands. Forced recruitment of youth
and children to replenish lost cadres persists."
The UN report told donors that the same
trend is likely to continue in the latter half of
the year. And local observers also feel that
unless there is a major shift in the mindset of
the government and the Tigers, violence is the
only way to go.
"We need a change in the
thinking, we need words to be matched by action,
otherwise the same trend will hold," said Jehan
Perera of the National Peace Council, a local
pro-peace lobby group.
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