Japan envoy visits Sri Lanka rebels, sees war risk

Kilinochchi (Sri Lanka), May 9: A top Japanese peace envoy flew to visit Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers today in a bid to convince them to return to talks, but left warning there was a risk the island could slide back into a civil war.

Yasushi Akashi was expected to deliver a harsh warning to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) political wing that continued attacks on the military and failure to talk peace might spur the European Union to make good on a threat to ban them.

Afterwards, he appealed to both sides to halt violence that has stretched a 2002 ceasefire to breaking point, and said he saw a risk of a return to a conflict that has already killed more than 64,000 people since 1983.

''There is a risk. The leadership on both sides must be prevailed upon to reverse this course,'' Akashi told Reuters after meeting with the Tiger political wing leader SP Thamilselvan in the LTTE's northern stronghold of Kilinochchi.

''I would like to ask leaders on both sides ... to take a wise decision. But they have difficult tasks lying ahead.'' The government however accused the rebels of stalling, and said a fresh LTTE demand that their eastern commanders be allowed to carry sidearms while being flown to the rebel-held north for a meeting -- the latest in a litany of conditions for talks -- was absurd.

''It is absolutely unthinkable that they should come up with yet another reason or excuse to delay peace talks,'' said Palitha Kohona, head of government peace secretariat. ''No airport in the world allows that to happen.'' ''Why they think of this raises suspicions about their willingness to go to Geneva because the demands cannot be met,'' he added.

Antagonisms between the government and the rebels reached fever pitch in April amid a surge of suspected rebel attacks, a suicide bombing, ethnic riots, and unsolved killings of civilians that left more than 200 people dead in the past month.

And while a truce is holding in name at least, the island is locked in a low intensity conflict that some fear could spill over into a yet bloodier chapter in the LTTE's struggle for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils.

The military said the island was quiet today, with no reports of violence in the east where the Tigers are locked in a bitter feud with a renegade faction.

Trucks filled with goods resumed traffic towards the northern army-held enclave of Jaffna after the island's main north-south artery was closed yesterday, though Jaffna residents said they were having trouble finding diesel for their cars.

Sri Lanka's parliament was expected today to extend a state of emergency that has been in place since the island's former foreign minister was assassinated by suspected rebel snipers in August.

Reuters

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