SL Tigers reject latest offer, talks still off

Colombo, Apr 22: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers rejected today a deal on transport of their commanders that could have allowed peace talks with the government to go ahead, as more violence raised fears of renewed civil war.

Swedish Major-General Ulf Henricsson, who heads the monitoring mission that oversees a 2002 ceasefire, travelled to the rebels' northern base to try to coax them to attend talks in Geneva planned for April 24-25 but won no agreement.

''The meeting was called off with Thamilselvan,'' said the monitors' spokeswoman Helen Olafsdottir, referring to Tigers political wing leader S P Thamilselvan.

The talks are seen as the best chance of halting a series of mine attacks, political murders and riots that have killed about 90 in the past two weeks and raised concerns that the war over a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east could restart.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) initially pulled out of the Geneva talks because of a dispute over how to transport commanders to their northern headquarters for consultations. Today, they rejected the latest government proposal, an offer to use civilian helicopters for the transport.

''These are very small aircraft and they can be easily attacked,'' the head of the Tigers' Peace Secretariat, S.

Puleedevan, told Reuters by telephone from Kilinochchi.

The LTTE would be satisfied with an army helicopter or the use of a vessel from their Sea Tigers naval unit, he said.

Some analysts say the rebels are using the transport issue as an excuse to stay away from the talks in anger over attacks they blame on a breakaway faction in the east known as the Karuna group, which they say is acting with government complicity.

Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer also remained in Colombo, hoping to reach a deal that would allow the Geneva talks to go ahead.

As the wrangling continued, there was more violence around the island.

Today, a claymore mine explosion near the northern town of Vavuniya killed a soldier on foot patrol, the army said.

Another claymore ambush in the east killed an army officer and wounded six soldiers.

The army also announced the discovery of a huge cache of weapons in the northern Jaffna peninsula that included claymore mines, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives.

In northeastern Trincomalee, an ethnically mixed and volatile region, a Tamil was killed overnight but local police said calm had been restored to the area after a series of attacks and riots on Friday that left at least four dead.

Local senior police superintendent Nehal Samarakoon said the Tigers were using claymore mine attacks to stir up tension between ethnic communities.

''They want to somehow create problems,'' he said. ''But no one can win a war. We will have to find a way to bring the other side to the table and talk.'' But the rebels say it is the government that is insincere.

''Colombo has been continually attempting to drive the LTTE into war and force it to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement,'' Thamilselvan told the pro-rebel Tamilnet Web site. ''But the LTTE will never fall prey to their sabotage.''

REUTERS