Diplomats rush to save Lankan truce
Fresh war fears mount as violence spikes
Afp, Colombo
Diplomats from Sri Lanka's key backers held an emergency meeting with Tiger rebels yesterday amid fears the country could slip back into war after a day of violence that killed 18 people, officials said. Representatives from the quartet known as "Co-Chairs" held talks with the head of the Tiger political wing, S.P. Thamilselvan, at Kilinochchi, 330km north of here, a rebel official said by telephone. He had no immediate details of the discussions which came after the Colombo government urged the international community to pressure the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to de-escalate the violence in the troubled northeast. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told diplomats from the Co-Chairs -- the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway -- that the international community must take "specific measures" to prevent the Tigers from unleashing violence. At least 15 sailors were killed and an equal number wounded in an attack Friday by suspected Tamil Tigers on a naval road convoy while three more people were killed in violence linked to the conflict, officials said. The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com web site said the navy had carried out reprisals against civilians in the area where Friday's ambush took place and had beaten 28 civilians. Fifteen of them had to hospitalised, Tamilnet said. The head of the Scandinavian truce monitoring mission, Hagrup Haukland, in a statement said unidentified elements in the island's northeast did not want peace and were carrying out provocative attacks. He described the attack on the navy road convoy as "vicious" and "cowardly". The ambush was the worst attack against government forces since the truce arranged by peace broker Norway went into effect from February 23, 2002. There was no immediate word from the guerrillas to charges that they staged the attack in the northwestern coastal region of Mannar, but the official Tiger website said the military demonstrated a "knee-jerk" reaction. "The Sri Lankan army has been taking knee-jerk aggressive military actions in dealing with recent incidents in (the northern peninsula of) Jaffna and Mannar," the LTTE said in a statement. "People of both areas are expressing fear that the Sri Lankan army continues to be a threatening presence." Military officials here said security had been stepped up across the island following the spike in rebel attacks that left at least 60 people dead this month alone. It was also the bloodiest month for the military which has lost 18 sailors, 19 soldiers and two constables during the same period.
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