Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Tamil Tigers use civilians as shield: Sri Lankan official

The Sri Lankan government accused Wednesday the Tamil Tiger rebels of using civilians as a shield in attacks against the security forces.

Prasad Samarasinghe, the defense ministry spokesman, told reporters here Wednesday that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) rebels carry out attacks against the government troops in heavily populated areas.

"They use them as a shield and even have some civilians in their payroll to attack troops," Samarasinghe said.

Over 150 members of the government troops have been killed by the Tiger rebels in the upsurge of violence since December last year, which has hampered the Norwegian peace facilitators' efforts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.

Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of Policy Planning and government's defense spokesman, said that in spite of the violence,the government remained committed to the Norwegian-backed peace process.

Rambukwella said the government would be giving a full account of the violence and the numbers of security forces victims to the European Union in order for them to consider their moves to outlaw the Tamil Tigers.

The LTTE made a suicide assassination bid on Army Commander Sarath Fonseka late April, which upset the second round of talks in Geneva to discuss the truce scheduled for April 24-25.

The LTTE makes counter accusations at the government troops for carrying out extra judicial killings of Tamil civilians in the north and east.

The international truce monitors, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), has blamed both sides of doing nothing to build confidence to facilitate direct talks.

(http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/world.htm)

A Tiger Under Every Stone by TamilGuardian

The recent escalation of violence that has put the Ceasefire Agreement under severe pressure seems in many ways to reflect the mutually reinforcing relationship between Sinhalese and Tamil nationalisms and their respective protagonists. In such circumstances, an argument is put forward more vociferously that the ‘extremism’ and ‘provocation’ of the LTTE’ feeds and justifies the ‘hardline’ political rhetoric of Sinhala politicians and the violence of the state’s armed forces.

This perspective has, in many ways, informed the myriad of actors who have contributed to the recent peace process, either as direct participants or as advisors offering comment and analysis to the major players.

Advocates of this perspective have argued that the only way to wean the Sinhalese population away from the uncompromising positions of nationalist actors is to transform the LTTE. Transformation of the LTTE has thus been the mantra that has guided many international analysts and policy maker for the last three or four years.

The argument goes thus: if the LTTE’s military capacity is radically curtailed and its political autonomy contained within the boundaries of commitment to a ‘united’ or ‘unitary’ Sri Lanka, the Sinhala hardliners will no longer be able to mount such vehement opposition to any mention of devolution or federalism. Once the LTTE has been de – fanged, more moderate Sinhala politicians will be able to confidently advocate a political solution that grants significant autonomy to the Tamils.

It is also argued that while the LTTE remains a significant military and political ‘threat’, ‘spoilers’ in the south will always outbid moderate Sinhala politicians attempts to find a negotiated settlement by whipping up the Sinhala polity’s anxieties about a separate Tamil state. In the idiom of its exponents, the claim that transformation of the LTTE will undermine Sinhala ‘spoilers’ of the peace process and thereby allow for the ‘reform of the state by liberal actors is now almost axiomatic.

Given the current perilous standoff between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, it might be time to examine the basic premises of this argument. According to the ‘transform the LTTE first’ mantra, the political plausibility of Sinhala nationalist positions is directly related to the actions and perceived intentions of the LTTE.

However, a close examination of the dynamics of politics within the Sinhala polity would suggest that southern opposition to any form of political devolution for the Tamils is sustained through sources that are completely independent of the LTTE per se.

The ideal of a unitary Sinhala Buddhist state in which the minorities have a politically recognised but subordinate position, resonates with the interests of a multitude of groups within the Sinhala polity. A compromise with the Tamils is rejected, not because of anxieties or loathing of the LTTE (alone), but because such a compromise would necessarily destroy this utopian vision, the most basic political assumption and aspiration of Sinhala Buddhist common sense.

The vision of a unitary Sinhala Buddhist state in which there is both a massive centralisation of resources and seamless continuity between the language, rituals and beliefs of the Sinhala Buddhist world and the institutions of the state, clearly has its appeal both for political elites and for non elite sections of the polity. For aspirant social groups, a centralised Sinhala Buddhist state not only provides opportunities through public sector employment through which they can achieve upward mobility, it also protects and fosters the integrity of their Sinhala Buddhist world.

It is for this reason that all political concessions to the Tamils, however mild, are immediately interpreted as both a material and moral threat. Any minor political recognition of a Tamil claim to the island or the state can be seen as undermining both the Sinhala Buddhist state and the Sinhala Buddhist religious, cultural and linguistic world that it protects. So for example, attempts during the 1950’s and 1960’s to replace the Sinhala Only’ legislation with official recognition for Tamil were decried as attempts to ‘destroy the Sinhala race’ or ‘make the Sinhalese learn Tamil.’

The continuation of this phenomenon can be seen in the fierce opposition that was mounted against both the PTOMS and the LTTE’s proposals for an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). The ‘transform the LTTE’ school of thought often argues that both these proposals conceded far too much to the LTTE and thereby played straight into the hands of the Sinhala ‘spoilers.’

However, it must be remembered that opposition to both proposals mounted well before the actual details of the proposal were released. The substance of the proposals was therefore irrelevant, what was problematic for the Sinhala Buddhists was the recognition of a Tamil political identity that these proposals entailed. Both the PTOMS and the ISGA contained the assumption that the Tamils have legitimate political interests that have to be recognised and accommodated through institutions outside the control of the Sinhala Buddhist polity. It is this possibility that is deeply problematic for the Sinhala Buddhist psyche. This is not a recent phenomena, either; well before the emergence of the LTTE, attempts by Tamil political leaders to negotiate a compromise with their Sinhala counterparts were destroyed by opposition using the imagery of a Sinhala Buddhist state and world under threat.

While the Sinhala Buddhist state fosters and protects the social aspirations of non – elite Sinhalese, it is also a useful resource for political elites. The excessively centralised state gives political actors vast resources with which to build patron – client networks and consolidate their power. Neither the UNP nor the SLFP, the two main Sinhala parties, have robust party structures and both rely on access to the state’s resources to build and maintain a support base. Political competition therefore revolves on the distribution of the state’s resources. The parties in power can distribute resources through subsidies and patronage while the parties in opposition promise greater resource while mobilising the discontent of sections who have been excluded from government largesse.

Crucially, the political parties have no incentive to aggressively promote a political settlement and even if they had an incentive, they do not have the party organisation through which to spread such a message. Political competition is played out in a public sphere dominated by Sinhala Buddhist common sense.

Alongside their deep antipathy to any form of political recognition for the Tamils, Sinhala Buddhist nationalists are also deeply intolerant to every form of autonomous Tamil political activity. In Sri Lanka this leads this results in all expressions of an autonomous Tamil political identity being dismissed as results of LTTE manipulation and coercion. The same principle is increasingly being extended to the international arena and Tamil Diaspora political activity is carefully watched for ‘pro-LTTE’ tendencies by the Sinhala nationalist press. The baleful distrust and anxiety created by Tamil participation in local government (council) elections in far away England recently led The Island newspaper to print a front page story. IAccording to the paper, ‘pro LTTE’ individuals standing for local council elections are promising a mini Eelam in London with sports facilities, funding for Saturday schools and centres for the elderly, exclusively for Tamils. The argument of the story is clear – all Tamil political activity, however mild and unconnected to the ethnic question, is inherently separatist and dangerous. The fact that local councils in Britain have long provided such community facilities for their Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Chinese, Turkish and Pakistani citizens is somehow missed. ‘Even’ in Britain, today the Tamils are asking for a Saturday school, tomorrow they will want a separate state, the logic goes.

The poisonous racism that pervades mass circulation Island’s reporting of British Tamils is pervasive in wider Sinhala society and is reproduced within a variety of sources, over which the LTTE can have no possible influence. The political vision of a united Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka is reinforced and repeated through the media, the education system, public institutions, the rhetoric of politicians and recently the interventions of international actors.

Meanwhile, the biased and one sided international response to events in Sri Lanka simply reinforces the Sinhala Buddhist conviction that all Tamil political demands are indeed a moral threat to the Sri Lankan state and the Sinhala Buddhist world it protects. Each condemnation of the LTTE and its ‘reprehensible terrorist’ nature, every failure of the international community to stand by agreements such as the PTOMS, every instance where incidents of high profile violence against Tamils are followed by indifferent international silence, the Sinhala Buddhist position is once again assured of its (international) legitimacy.

Given that the sources of Sinhala Buddhist nationalist are demonstrably independent of the LTTE, transforming and containing the LTTE is unlikely to produce an attitude of compromise within the Sinhala polity. Indeed, once the Tiger has been de – fanged, there will be even less reason for Sinhala political leaders to concede even a modicum of political devolution. Attempts to transform the Sri Lankan state, which would give the Tamils some form of political recognition, would, as always, instantly arouse opposition as a cloak for dangerous Tamil separatist aspirations.

In order to transform the Sri Lankan state both pro peace advocates and the Sinhala polity have to replace their unhealthy fixation with the LTTE with a serious consideration of the sites and mechanisms through with Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is reproduced. International actors have to consider why they cannot confront Sinhala Buddhist nationalism of the Sri Lankan state with the same open contempt with which they dismiss Tamil aspirations.

As is increasingly argued on the Tamil street, in the absence of any change in either the Sinhala Buddhist or international mindset, the Tamils, whose struggle has never enjoyed or needed external legitimisation, may be better off concentrating on changing facts on the ground.

(http://www.sibernews.com/the-news/featured-articles/a-tiger-under-every-stone-20
0605174331/&cid=0)


Who is behind the escalation of violence in the north and east ?

The rise in violence, particularly killings in Jaffna, after the first round of talks in Geneva, is a disturbing trend that is yet to be investigated by the Police, judicial inquiries and the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission.

"We can't say who's clearly responsible for the killings, as there are still many questions on who may have been behind it," said Helen Olafsdottir, spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to the New York Times. (May 16, 2006).

The mystery of who is behind the killings in places controlled by the government, the LTTE and other Tamil groups has not been resolved by the conflicting reports and lack of evidence.

The LTTE accuses the Security Forces. This charge is frequently advanced by the LTTE saying that the killings take place within a few meters of the Security Camps or checkpoints. Ulf Hendrickson, the retired Swedish major general who commands the monitoring force, told the New York Times (May 16, 2006) that his Monitoring Mission “had received reports of killings in which the police or soldiers could be implicated, taking pains to note that it was not the job of his mission to investigate individual killings, but to present the information to the proper authorities.”

He added: "I don't know how the security forces are involved. It could be individuals, it could be lower levels, it could be fundamentalist elements in the security forces." He said the police had promised to investigate.

Minister Nimal Sripla de Silva, the Government Chief Negotiator at the Geneva talks, said it "condemns all forms of reprisal attacks against innocent civilians."

Government sources say that it is aware of the attempts by the LTTE to provoke the Sinhala community to retaliate and it is taking all precautions to prevent a backlash against the Tamils which would favor the LTTE.

Political observers agree that there is no official policy of the government to attack Tamil civilians though it is possible that individual police and soldiers may go on the rampage provoked by the LTTE attacks on their camps or checkpoints.

The LTTE also accuses the “paramilitaries” meaning Douglas Devnanda’s group or their former commander Col. Karuna who has broken away. Analysts agree that the rivalry between the two main Tamil groups and the other anti-LTTE Tamil parties have contributed to the increasing violence. This week, for instance, the LTTE cadres gate-crashed into a Batticoloa hospital and gunned down two cadres of Karuna’s group recovering from battle injuries.

Karuna’s group has openly declared that it has called off the unilateral ceasefire announced in January as the LTTE has launched its new offensive against them saying that if the Government doesn’t disarm the “paramilitaries” then they will. The killings in the east of prominent LTTE politicians, like Joseph Pararajasingham, MP, are attributed to Karuna’s Group though they have not acknowledged it.

Douglas Devananda has denied any involvement with the killings despite his cadres in Jaffna have been either attacked or killed by the LTTE cadres. The LTTE has accused Devananda of killing of two workers in a newspaper office in Jaffna recently. Devananda’s office has denied such allegations saying that it is not in his interests to kill Tamils.

However, both Karuna’s group and Devananda’s EPDP have accused the LTTE of deliberately increasing the violence in the east and the north to smear them as being agents of the Government. A spokesperson for Devananada said:

“The LTTE is relying on the accusation that the “paramilitaries” are with the government to press their latest excuse to keep out of the talks. They have to prove this and escalating the killings of Tamils in the north and the east is their way of proving that the anti-LTTE groups are involved in killing the Tamils.”

The documented trend reveals that the LTTE has increased its violence since the end of the Geneva talks. The LTTE has been preparing for Eelam IV according to the pronouncement made by Velupillai Prabhakaran in his last annual speech delivered on November 27 – his birthday. He has also admitted that his preparations to launch his war were postponed because of the damage caused by the Tsunami. The standard LTTE tactic has been to target his Tamil rivals and the Sinhalese to provoke a backlash.

The recent explosion of violence in Trincomalee where the Sinhala community went on the rampage against the Tamils is a clear example of LTTE provoking violence to gain political mileage. All community sources agree that the LTTE planted the bomb on the cycle placed near the vegetable market in Trincomalee. The explosion was hear right the round world with the BBC repeating the pro-Tamil media figure of 40,000 fleeing the locality.

According to analysts the LTTE has thrived on creating chaos, backlashes and killings. The current trend conforms to its past performances. The other parties too may resort to violence but not to the same extent as the LTTE which has had no strategy other than increasing and decreasing violence as when it suits its political needs.

(http://news.google.lk/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/3-0&fp=446b61f061c25258&ei=o-trRJC5N4Ku
oQL8kP3UCA&url=http%3A//www.asiantribune.com/index.php%3Fq%3Dnode/138&cid=110
6580253)

Karuna demands payment from Sinhala villagers

The convenor of the All Ceylon Movement for Protecting Farmers' Rights Ven. Dambulle Nanda Thero says farmers in the border villagers have had to give their harvest to the Karuna Group in addition to facing threats from the Wanni Tigers.

The Ven. Thero says the Karuna Group demands 35-40 bushels of rice from farmers and the defence sectors do not take action, although they are informed of the problem.

<>The Karuna Group, a breakaway faction of the LTTE, runs a chain of safe houses in Sinhala and Tamil villages in the Welikanda area, on the border of the North Central and Eastern Provinces. Farmers in the border villages face threats from the rebels and several farmers from Moraweva in the Trincomalee district were gunned down recently while harvesting their paddy fields.

(http://news.google.lk/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/6-0&amp;fp=446b61f061c25258&ei=o-trRJC5N4Kuo
QL8kP3UCA&url=http%3A//www.colombopage.com/archive/May14133653SL.html&cid=0)

Low r

Monitors confirm deep penetration, extrajudicial killings charges

International truce monitors this week said they believed reports Sri Lanka Army troops were conducting Deep Penetration raids into Tamil Tiger controlled areas, killing several civilians. Their comments came as the LTTE said its frontlines to the north and south of Vanni were attacked by infiltrating SLA soldiers. Meanwhile, the international monitors also said Sri Lankan security forces are responsible for extrajudicial killings with the troops so unconcerned as to the consequences as to not even provide plausible denials.

The Nordic-staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) office in the northern town of Vavuniya told Reuters Monday it has recorded at least seven attacks in LTTE-controlled areas, including several on civilians.

The monitors believe military patrols are working alongside anti-Tiger Tamil armed groups.

"We believe that the Sri Lankan army and Tamil armed groups are operating behind LTTE lines," truce monitor Bernt Gulbrandesen told Reuters. "There are so many incidents it has to be an organized thing."

Monitors also said that paramilitaries of the Karuna Group were being deployed in Vavuniya.

“I firmly believe that Karuna is going around this area,” Mr Jouni Suninen, head of the district office of the SLMM in Vavuniya told Reuters.

“We have eyewitnesses who tell us they have seen Karunas around. I cannot see how they could be operating here without the support of the army.”

Sri Lanka’s military and government reject accusations that there are backing the renegade LTTE commander in a campaign against the LTTE.

Howver, the monitors in Vavuniya told Reuters they are confident they have evidence. They say they believe Karuna’s men are operating from army camps and carrying out attacks behind rebel lines.

“We have eyewitnesses telling us that they are based in army camps,” said Mr Suninen.

Reuters quoted the Tigers as saying the first attack on them in their controlled areas was a claymore fragmentation mine ambush on a LTTE political wing leader in January, during a spike in violence that preceded a first round of peace talks in Switzerland.

Last week truce monitors said probable Tamil Tiger attacks on the military have been followed by disappearances and open killings of Tamil civilians.

“We have very strong indications that at least part of the government troops have been involved in these killings,” Suninen, an Finnish ex-army officer, said.

“The pattern is clear,” he added. In one case, a civilian was killed 60 metres from an army checkpoint. The soldiers told the monitors they heard nothing.

Suninen said at least 40 people have been killed in the last month by suspected Tigers, soldiers or associated groups around Vavuniya, just beyond the southern border of LTTE-controlled Vanni.

For the first time, the monitoring mission’s field staff were authorised to speak on the record about what they had found. They say publicity is the only weapon they have.

The monitors say suspected military killings target civilians believed to be LTTE-linked.

Ponnuthurai Thayanithi, 27, killed last week, had one sister who had died fighting for the Tigers but was not believed to have any direct link. Police initially refused to come and inspect the body, said Heiskanen.

“This is where the girl was killed in the middle of the day,” Heiskanen said. “As you can see, we’re about 60 metres from an army checkpoint. There are always three soldiers there. The girl had two bullets in her head. They didn’t hear or see anything.”

Heiskanen said he asked the soldiers why they had not noticed the killing taking place within sight and earshot. They said that as the shots were fired, there was a particularly strong gust of wind, so they had heard nothing.

“I said ‘how do you know what was the exact time?’“ he said. “It is ridiculous. They don’t even try to make things up.”

People have disappeared at government checkpoints and turned up dead. A white van seen before some of the killings appears to have moved with impunity through checkpoints and in one case was reportedly seen leaving an army camp, the monitors say.

(http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=18154)

More death as war looms in Sri Lanka

`WORRYING SITUATION': Prominent LTTE rebels spoke about the tension in Sri Lanka while another rebel group was accused of working with the army

Two anti-personnel mines intended to target Sri Lankan military vehicles exploded prematurely yesterday, killing a village guard and wounding two policemen in the country's restive northeast, the military said.

Anti-personnel mines, which can be detonated by remote control, are the preferred weapons of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, also known as the Tamil Tigers.

The Media Unit of the Defense Ministry said the guard was killed and policemen hurt near the port town of Trincomalee -- about 230km northeast of the capital, Colombo -- when the mines were triggered. A military convoy was to travel along the road hours later.

Meanwhile, a senior Tamil Tiger rebel leader said yesterday that the spiraling violence in Sri Lanka is worrying and that they are prepared for a resumption of the civil war.

"It is a very worrying situation," Seevaratnam Puleedevan, a top Tamil Tiger said.

"A low intensity war is already going on, there are lot of civilians being killed in the military controlled areas in the whole north east," Puleedevan said. "If the war is thrust upon us then we are ready to retaliate," he said.

Another senior Tamil Tiger leader accused the government of waging an undeclared war on ethnic Tamils.

Speaking at a funeral for four insurgents killed last week in a suicide attack on a government navy patrol boat, senior rebel leader K.V. Balakumaran on Monday accused the military of deliberately targeting Tamil civilians.

"Our people are being blatantly victimized in an undeclared war by the Sri Lanka government armed forces and paramilitaries," Balakumaran said according to pro-rebel Web site TamilNet.

The government has denied targeting civilians, saying its actions were defensive and blamed the Tigers for the surging violence.

In another development, former Tamil Tigers now part of a breakaway group appear to be carrying out attacks and extortion in Sri Lanka's north and probably have army backing, despite denials, international truce monitors say.

The government denies any links to the so-called Karuna group, but the Tigers appear to have retaliated for attacks by ambushing the army. The rebels say Karuna killings must stop before they will come to peace talks.

"I firmly believe that Karuna is going around this area," said Jouni Suninen, head of the district office of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in the northern town of Vavuniya.

"We have eyewitnesses who tell us they have seen Karunas around. I cannot see how they could be operating here without the support of the army," Suninen said.

Former eastern Tiger commander Colonel Karuna Amman split from the mainstream Tamil Tigers in 2004, taking control of much of their eastern territories, but was swiftly pushed out by a Tiger offensive.

His group says they have attacked the rebels in the east, but not the north.

A senior Karuna aide and member of his fledgling political party, the TMVP, said there was no truth to the SLMM reports.

Karuna's powerbase is seen as his home area in eastern Sri Lanka, where the group says it has camps. The government says they are in uncontrolled jungle areas, while the Tigers say they are clearly next to army installations.

(http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/05/17/2003308600)

Karuna group has army backing: Lanka monitors

Vavuniya (Sri Lanka), May 16: Former Tamil Tigers now part of a breakaway group appear to be carrying out attacks and extortion in Sri Lanka’s north and probably have army backing, despite denials, international truce monitors say.The government denies any links to the so-called Karuna group, but the Tigers appear to have retaliated for attacks by ambushing the army. The rebels say Karuna killings must stop before they will come to peace talks.

“I firmly believe that Karuna is going around this area,” said Mr Jouni Suninen, head of the district office of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in the northern town of Vavuniya.

“We have eyewitnesses who tell us they have seen Karunas around. I cannot see how they could be operating here without the support of the army.”

The monitors will not give details of individual cases for fear the victims could be tracked down and killed.

Former eastern Tiger commander Col Karuna Amman split from the mainstream Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels in 2004, taking control of much of their eastern territories, but was swiftly pushed out by a Tiger offensive.

His group says they have attacked the rebels in the east, but not the north.

A senior Karuna aide and member of his fledgling political party, the TMVP, said there was no truth to the SLMM reports.

“We don’t have any military activities in that area,” he said, denying the group had any support from the military.

Karuna’s powerbase is seen as his home area in eastern Sri Lanka, where the group says it has camps. The government says they are in uncontrolled jungle areas, while the Tigers say they are clearly next to army installations.

The Vavuniya monitors, who track violations of a 2002 cease-fire despite recent violence, say they are confident they have evidence. They say they believe Karuna’s men are operating from army camps and carrying out attacks behind rebel lines.

“We have eyewitnesses telling us that they are based in army camps,” said Mr Suninen.

The government’s reluctance to stop Karuna attacks is seen as a key reason the Tigers pulled indefinitely out of peace talks last month. Violence has since risen sharply and the SLMM says Sri Lanka is now in a low intensity war with the LTTE.

The monitors say both Karuna and the mainstream Tigers are using threats to extract money from local business leaders — but that Karuna members demand more money and have a greater tendency to kill if they do not get it.

Grenades are thrown at the houses of those who refuse to pay, they say, and then the businessmen are kidnapped and sometimes killed. Officials say 10 businessmen have been killed in the last three months in Vavuniya.

The local district judge says he has used court orders to block what he believes are Karuna bank accounts in the eastern towns of Ampara and Trincomalee used in extortion cases.

Local police say they know extortion is taking place, but that they believe Karuna only operates in the east.

“There are a lot of Tamil groups asking for money,” said senior superintendent, Mr J Abeysririgunawardena. “The businessmen in the community, they know the groups. But they are not coming to us.”

(http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=051745)

Tigers, civilians see more attacks in north Sri Lanka

MANKULAM, Sri Lanka - Glancing nervously into the jungle as they secure the main road north, Tamil Tiger fighters say they believe they are already at war and that government troops are operating behind their lines.

International truce monitors say a string of attacks in Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) territory -- yet more ceasefire violations as violence on both sides becomes what the monitors term a “low intensity war” -- suggest that the rebels could be right. The army denies the charge.

Most analysts say it was the rebels who began the cycle of violence with a series of attacks on troops, but the Tigers blame the government.

“The government has started an unofficial war with the LTTE and we want to face them,” said Tiger fighter Shankar, one of a group of rebels guarding the A9 highway north through the rebel de facto state. “Our commander has advised us that if the government attacks LTTE cadres, we should retaliate immediately.”

Asked if he wanted peace or war, standing next to the rough corrugated iron camp he shares with around 10 other fighters, he said in Tamil: “We like war”.

The Tigers have fought for two decades for a separate Tamil homeland, evolving from a small group of young men to one of the world’s most feared guerrilla armies, 10,000-20,000 strong with powerful naval and Black Tiger suicide bomber wings.

United Nations agency UNICEF says some are abducted as children against the wishes of their parents, but most fighters say they are volunteers. They say they will bite into cyanide capsules dangling around their necks rather than surrender.

Since a 2002 ceasefire, Sri Lanka’s two-decade civil war has been halted. But since early April more than 270 people have died as naval battles, ambushes, murders and air strikes have led to many concluding that the island is once again at war.

Shankar says he believes Sri Lankan troops from wartime Deep Penetration Units are again operating behind rebel territory, launching hit-and-run attacks on fighters and civilians living in the one-seventh of the island under Tiger control.

Behind rebel lines

The Nordic-staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) office in the northern town of Vavuniya says it has recorded at least seven attacks in rebel areas, including several on civilians. They believe military patrols are working alongside anti-Tiger Tamil armed groups.

“We believe that the Sri Lankan army and Tamil armed groups are operating behind LTTE lines,” said truce monitor Bernt Gulbrandesen. “There are so many incidents it has to be an organised thing.”

The Tigers say the first attack on them in rebel territory was a claymore fragmentation mine ambush on a rebel political wing leader in January, during a spike in violence that preceded a first round of peace talks in Switzerland.

That followed a string of claymore attacks on the military that were widely blamed on the rebels.

As the number of incidents soars, many civilians say they fear army attacks. But more than that, they fear aerial bombing.

The first official government strikes on the Tigers came in April after a suicide attack on an army headquarters in Colombo. The government hit the rebel heartland near their northern headquarters of Kilinochchi last week for the first time.

The Tigers say no one was hurt, but their persistent refusal to grant truce monitors access has raised suspicions that their fledgling air force headquarters might have been hit.

In Kilinochchi town itself, where many buildings were flattened by bombs and shells during the war, life is getting back to normal. But few civilians share fighter Shankar’s enthusiasm for more conflict.

“I think war has come,” said 67-year-old Subramaniyam Palaniamma, selling baskets in the marketplace. “We believe the bombs will come back. All of us are living in fear.”

(http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/May/subcontinent_May529.xml&section=subcontinent)

One LTTE cadre killed, 2 LTTE, 4 SLA troopers wounded

A Liberation Tigers woman cadre, Yalisai, was killed when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers who moved beyond the no-man zone at Palamodai, north of Vavuniya, attacked an LTTE Forward Defence Line (FDL) around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. Later, two LTTE cadres were wounded in Jaffna district when SLA soldiers attacked the FDL of the Tigers at Kandalkadu, located near Eluthumadduval between Nagarkovil and Muhamalai in Jaffna district, around 5:45 p.m., according to LTTE sources in Kilinochchi. Direct clash between the SLA troops and the Tigers erupted after the incident. Four SLA soldiers were wounded, according to SLA sources in Jaffna.

The Liberation Tigers have lodged a complaint on the incident with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), LTTE sources in Kilinochchi said.

The wounded SLA soldiers were rushed to Palaly military hospital.

(http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=18160)

Claymore blast kills STF elite trooper in Thirukovil

A Special Task Force (STF) elite trooper was killed when a claymore mine exploded around 8.30 a.m., Wednesday. The blast targettet STF foot patrol along the Main Street in Thirukovil, Kalmunai Police sources said.

The STF personnel, Mr.Dharmaretna was seriously injured in the blast and succumbed to injuries while he was being taken to the Amparai general hospital, the sources said.

Sri Lankan Government troops immediately cordoned off the area and conducted a search operation, police sources said.

It is not known if any arrests were made.

(http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=18168)

On a bloody front, S.Lanka troops want to hit back by Peter Apps

ALPHA COMPANY STRONG POINT, Sri Lanka, May 14 (Reuters) - Standing by the bloody dust where he says two of his men were shot dead by Tamil Tiger rebels, Sri Lankan Army Lieutenant-Colonel Kumar Wijenayake knows what he wants to do.

He wants to send out his soldiers from their positions some 200 metres (yards) from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) territory to flush out rebel fighters he believes crept across no-man's land to kill his men.

Nordic truce monitors say Sri Lanka and the Tigers have already resumed a low intensity war, but the government says it is limiting itself to tactical retaliation and under the terms of a 2002 truce that still holds on paper at least, Wijenayake must hold back.

"I am a military man, not a politician," he says, wearing a sweat and dust-stained khaki t-shirt and with a pistol stuck in the belt of his combat trousers. "I think we should take more aggressive action. The enemy is attacking us, we should attack back."

Diplomats say a lack of compromises on both sides led to the island's peace process stalling. More than 270 people have been killed since early April and talks have been postponed indefinitely. The recent violence looks a lot like periods of the island's two-decade civil war.

On Saturday, violence came to Wijenayake's battalion for the first time with a hit-and-run attack around the front line they hold just north of the town of Vavuniya.

The position is near an ethnic Tamil village abandoned during the war. The majority Sinhalese soldiers do not remember its name. They only know it as the strong point held by Alpha Company, 10th Battalion, Sri Lankan Light Infantry (SLLI).

The troops say three or four rebel fighters crept up on the position in the late morning, picking their way through old wartime minefields. They lay in the brush, watching one of the most exposed sections of the front.

Eventually, two SLLI soldiers on patrol came into view. The suspected rebels fired bursts with AK47 assault rifles. The troops fired back, but the attackers escaped.

YEARNING TO RETALIATE

A bullet through the head killed one soldier instantly. His colleague died later from wounds to the chest and head. Reuters saw the bodies in the hospital morgue, still in tattered fatigues with blood drying on the tiled floor beneath the slabs.

The Tigers deny being behind most recent attacks on the military, but few believe them. The rebels say it is the government that has pushed the country to the fringes of war.

Firing across the front line has become increasingly common, as have increasingly serious naval clashes and government air strikes on rebel territory. Each side blames the other, and both say the ceasefire still holds.

For Lieutenant-Colonel Wijenayake, it is not that clear.

"Morale is OK," he told Reuters, strain clearly visible on the faces of his men as they nervously scanned the jungle. "But because of the ceasefire agreement, we cannot dominate the area. We cannot act in an offensive manner as we were trained."

The monitors say there is no doubt the rebels are hitting the military, but they also believe members of the armed forces are retaliating by killing Tamil civilians. The military denies the charge.

Kanagaratnam Pushparani's niece was shot dead within 60 metres of an army position on another area of the front line near Vavuniya. The girl's sister was a Tiger fighter, and truce monitors say signs of army involvement in the killing are too strong to ignore.

"I strongly believe the army was involved in this killing," she told Reuters in Tamil. "This girl was innocent. She did nothing. The immediate family has gone to the LTTE area. They were so afraid."

(http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL282514.htm)