Lanka remembers war dead

Mailapitiya (Sri Lanka), June 9: Sri Lankan mother-of-two Chandi Rajamanthree says she would rather see her two young sons starve to death than fight in an ethnic conflict that left their father disabled.

Her husband has made a partial recovery since he was badly injured in one arm and one leg when the feared sea arm of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sank his Israeli-made naval fast attack boat in 2000.

A ceasefire two-years later still holds, on paper, but the military and rebels are now embroiled in a low-intensity conflict that many fear could reignite a two-decade war that has killed over 64,000 people. And many ordinary Sri Lankans are scared.

''I'm fortunate. At least my husband is alive, even as a disabled sailor,'' Rajamanthreeshe said on Wednesday night as she waited with her sons -- aged four and eight -- to commemorate the more than 22,000 servicemen killed in the protracted conflict.

''I don't accept war and I will never send any of my children to war, even if they died from starving,'' she added, dressed in a white saree of mourning. ''I will give them a good education and give them a good future.'' She joined thousands of war widows and the relatives of fallen servicemen who gathered at this memorial park near the ancient hill capital of Kandy in Sri Lanka's tea-growing central hills to light oil lamps and offer flowers to the dead.

Many of them have not been as fortunate as Rajamanthree.

''I'm still awaiting the arrival of my son, who went missing in the battlefield eight years ago,'' said 65-year-old N.G.

Bissomanike, tears falling from her eyes.

''Whether they are Tamil, Sinhala or Muslim, it's our children we lost from the war, so we do not want war, we want peace,'' she said.

More than 400 soldiers, sailors, civilians and rebels have been killed since early April in a quickening pace of tit-for-tat attacks, ambushes and shootings between the foes.

Several ethnic Tamil children, including a four-month-old child and a four-year-old boy have been shot dead in attacks the military and the rebels each blame on the other side.

Sri Lanka's military says more than 82,500 servicemen have deserted the armed forces since the war began in 1983. Around 30,000 have been pardoned, but the remainder are still on the run, scared to go up against one of the most feared rebel groups in the world.

Some relatives of the fallen think it is time to wage war on the Tigers and their demands for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east, where the rebels already run a de facto state.

''The only solution is war,'' said police constable G.A. Wenura Perera, wearing a camouflage uniform and carrying an automatic rifle as he lit a clay lamp in remembrance of his elder brother, who was killed in action in 1995.

''If they hit us we should hit them back,'' the father-of-two said. ''A political solution will not do any good.''

Reuters