COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said on Tuesday that the kidnapping of five Tamil aid workers in the island's east could affect next month's peace talks in Switzerland and added the government might be to blame.
The Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), which is considered close to the Tigers, said five employees were taken away by unidentified men on Monday in Welikanda, about 150 km (94 miles) from Colombo, after their van crossed an army checkpoint.
"It will affect the atmosphere of the peace process," media co-ordinator Daya Master of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam told Reuters from the rebel-held north.
"This will create panic in the people again. These are innocent civilians. It may be the Sri Lankan forces or it may be the Karuna group," he said referring to a faction led by former Tiger commander Karuna Amman which has split from the mainstream.
An army spokesman said he had no knowledge of the incident.
A string of attacks on the military in the minority Tamil dominated north and east tested a 2002 truce almost to destruction, but international monitors said tensions fell after the two sides agreed last week to hold direct negotiations.
Diplomats warn more clashes, killings or disappearances could kill the Geneva talks before they began, with a host of parties from rogue Tigers to the Karuna group to Sinhalese majority nationalists seen keen to provoke war.
SHADOW WAR Cease-fire?
The Tigers last week said they would cease military action provided the government did the same and abuses against the Tamil minority stopped. Since then, one militant was killed in an attack widely blamed on the Karuna group, but the rebels said the Geneva talks remained on.
Diplomats say the meeting has a real hope of avoiding a return to the two-decade old conflict that has already killed over 64,000. But the gulf between the two sides remains vast -- with little common ground over demands for a Tamil homeland -- and aid agencies continue to draw up contingency plans for war.
The kidnapping of the aid workers took place on the main road to the east near a stronghold of the former Tiger commander Karuna Amman, who the rebels say is now a government-supported paramilitary who has been fighting them.
"They had just gone through an army checkpoint," said TRO project consultant Arjunan Ethirveerasingam, adding that his organisation did not know who was behind the kidnapping.
"A white van forced them off the road. Five of them were long-term TRO employees. They were taken. The other 10 were new TRO recruits and they let them go."
The government denies backing Karuna's group, but truce monitors say they have at least been turning a blind eye to his "shadow war". With no clear role in a peaceful Sri Lanka, diplomats fear he might be trying to sabotage the talks.
On Tuesday, Sri Lankan newspapers published a statement apparently from Karuna saying he was calling a unilateral cease-fire to help the government's peace efforts, but there was no way of immediately confirming its authenticity.
(http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=
2006-01-31T070637Z_01_COL285595_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SRILANKA.xml&archived=False)
No comments:
Post a Comment