Sri Lanka and cease-fire monitors lock-horns over armed groups by Shimali Senanayake

The government and European cease-fire monitors have fired out letters at each other over the existence of armed groups operating in state-controlled areas with both parties trading charges at each other just weeks ahead of the next round of peace talks.
In a two-page letter addressed to the Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission's outgoing chief Hagrup Haukland said the monitors encountered 10-15 armed men in civilian clothes operating in Valachchenai, who told SLMM that they belong to the Karuna faction.

Haukland also referred to several "sighting of armed civilians claiming to represent Karuna is often reported to SLMM."

Asserting that the monitors have strong suspicions about armed groups also veering toward Vavuniya, the letter added the SLMM was aware of 11 civilians being killed in government-controlled areas in the east and six in Vavuniya since Feb. 23rd , the day on which talks in Geneva concluded.

Haukland's letter was sent in response to the Defense Secretary's strongly worded note about the contents of a SLMM statement issued last week, after suspected Tigers sank a navy fast attack craft in Kalpitiya, killing eight sailors. The navy said the LTTE suicide boat was carrying "war-like weapons and ammunition."

In a single-page letter, Rajapakse accused the SLMM of "misleading," and making "defamatory," inferences in their statement. He was specifically referring to paragraph 5 of the SLMM statement which said;

"The Sri Lankan Army has recently dismissed claims that armed groups are operating in Government controlled areas. However, based on SLMM's monitoring activities and experience on the ground the Mission does not share the this view and we would like to urge the Government of Sri Lanka to take this matter seriously and not close their eyes to armed elements that are to our knowledge still operating in Government controlled areas."

The defense secretary charged the conclusion SLMM had arrived at was "without any conclusive evidence." He subsequently asked for a meeting with Haukland to discuss the issue.

Haukland responded in a letter the following day, March 30th (Thursday), a day before he concluded his post as head of mission.

Defense secretary Mr. Rajapakse is part of the President's entourage now on a state visit t Pakistan.

At the end of the Feb. 22-23 Geneva talks, both the government and the Tigers vowed to end a spate of violence.

Although the rebels had earlier described the March 2003 Karuna rebellion as an internal matter of the Tigers and asked the government to stay out of the issue, that stand changed.

The February talks were dominated by demands by the Tigers to disarm paramilitaries, specifically the Karuna group.

The guerrillas produced a dossier of what they called "evidence," of government forces support toward the Karuna group. The military denies any linkage.

Despite the SLMM assertions that the Karuna group continues to operate from within government-controlled areas, it admits it has no evidence of military support for the group.

The Tigers' chief negotiator Anton Balasingham said on Wednesday, the next round of talks will also be dominated by the same issue if the government fails to dismantle armed groups.

(www.theacademic.org)