Sri Lanka's donors head north to meet rebels

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Colombo, Apr 10: Ambassadors from Sri Lanka's key donor countries headed north today to meet senior Tamil Tiger rebels amid a spurt in violence ahead of peace talks next week.

The island had been relatively quiet since January, when the two sides agreed to their first direct talks since 2003, but international truce monitors warn a recent spike in killings could hurt not just the talks but a fragile 2002 ceasefire.

Mediator Norway says neither side has made good on pledges made at the first round of talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continuing military action and the government failing to rein in armed groups operating from army-held territory.

''There is no agreement at all between the two sides. I think at the talks, things will not be at all hunky-dory,'' said Janes' Defence Weekly analyst Iqbal Athas.

The army said today two schoolchildren on a motorbike had been wounded after suspected Tigers fired on them in the island's east, while elsewhere soldiers found 180 sticks of explosive gelignite.

Ambassadors from Japan, the European Union and Norway were due to fly by helicopter to Kilinochchi, capital of the de facto state the Tigers run across a seventh of the island, to meet rebel political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan, diplomats said.

The meeting had been arranged before the spike of violence on Friday and Saturday, which saw a soldier, two Home Guard troopers and a pro-rebel politician killed in a series of incidents across the minority Tamil-dominated north and east.

The rebels have yet to say categorically whether they will attend the talks due to be held in Geneva between April 19-21. But most diplomats say they will probably go if only to complain about the government.

''It is very worrying,'' said a diplomat. ''It looks as if we are returning to the level of violence we saw in December and January. I don't think we'll get a commitment from the LTTE to go to the talks until they are actually getting on the plane.'' The rebels say the government is using breakaway rebel faction, the Karuna group, to attack them -- a charge the army denies. But truce monitors say they have seen members of the group operating freely in government-held territory in the east.

The Karuna group, led by a former rebel commander who split from the LTTE, says it wants to replace the mainstream rebels and is due to open its first political office in the army-held town of Batticaloa today.

If the peace talks fail or falter, some fear the Tigers will return to their two decade battle for a separate homeland, war that has killed more than 64,000 people on both sides and devastated parts of the country also hard hit by the 2004 tsunami.

REUTERS

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