Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Sri Lanka cease-fire in danger

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 1, 2006

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A roadside bomb exploded near a military truck Monday night in northeastern Sri Lanka, killing 18 soldiers, security officials said as a senior rebel leader declared the country's cease-fire "null and void."

Tamil Tiger rebels and government soldiers also traded artillery shells and gunfire as the air force struck insurgent positions, killing at least 46 fighters, the army said.

The clashes in the northeastern district of Trincomalee and Jaffna, a port on Sri Lanka's northern tip, were among the fiercest since a 2002 cease-fire and as close to open war as the two sides have come in months of back-and-forth attacks.

Still, the government said it had not violated the cease-fire, insisting it sent ground forces into Tiger territory only to end a rebel blockade of a key water source.

"Our military's operation to open the irrigation gates is purely based on humanitarian grounds. It is not an act of war," chief government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.

But a leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the group's formal name, said the government's offensive amounted to a declaration of war.

"Therefore, for us the cease-fire is null and void," said Puratchi, a rebel commander in Trincomalee who uses only one name. Puratchi said he was speaking for the Tigers, but his comments could not immediately be confirmed by other rebel leaders.

The Tigers took up arms in 1983 to fight for a homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2-million Tamils, who have faced decades of discrimination. Civil war on this tropical island of 19-million people - nearly three-quarters of them Sinhalese - left more than 65,000 people dead before the 2002 cease-fire.

But peace talks have faltered, and rising violence has killed about 800 people, half of them civilians, since April, according to a Nordic cease-fire monitoring mission.

The root of Monday's fighting stems from July 20, when the Tigers shut a reservoir gate in an area under their control east of Trincomalee.

The move cut water to 60,000 residents of villages in nearby government-controlled territory. The Tigers said they took action because the government reneged on a promise to build a water tower for adjacent rebel-held areas.

Sri Lanka's military retaliated with four days of airstrikes on rebel bases in the area and deployed ground forces Sunday to take back control of the reservoir.

[Last modified August 1, 2006, 01:57:34]