S Lanka rebels extend EU truce monitors' deadline

Colombo, June 24 : Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers today extended a deadline for European Union truce monitors to withdraw from the island, while the army accused the rebels of shooting dead two soldiers in the northwest.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have thrown the Nordic Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission into crisis by insisting that staff from three Scandinavian EU member states are withdrawn after the bloc banned the rebels as a terrorist group.

The Tigers initially gave peace broker Norway a month to replace the 37 monitors from EU members Sweden, Finland and Denmark, out of a total of 57 -- far short of the six months the mediators say they need.

The monitors said the deadline had now been pushed back to September. 1, which means they now have a little over two months, still less than they need.

''We have extended the period according to a request from the Norwegian facilitators,'' S Puleedevan, head of the Tigers' peace secretariat, told Reuters by telephone from the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

''(Norwegian ambassador Hans) Brattskar discussed with us the deadline, saying they needed more time,'' he added. ''That's why we extended the period.'' Norway has said 20 monitors from non-EU states Norway and Iceland are not enough, and analysts fear it could create a vacuum at a time when increasingly frequent ambushes, shootings and clashes are stretching the 2002 truce to breaking point.

Nordic foreign ministers are due to meet in Oslo on June 29 to discuss how to replace the EU monitors.

THOUSANDS HAVE FLED

More than 700 people -- more than half of them civilians -- have been killed so far this year, and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes.

About 3,000 Tamils have paid smugglers to ferry them to neighbouring India so far this year. Some 200 people fled this week alone after four fishermen in the north-western district of Mannar were shot dead and one woman was killed, and dozens of people were injured when a grenade was thrown into a church, in attacks residents blamed on the military.

The violence continued today, when two soldiers were shot dead while they were searching roadside scrub for landmines along the road to Mannar. The military blamed the attack on the Tigers.

Further north in the army-held enclave of Jaffna, a suspected rebel group ordered shopkeepers to keep their stores shut in protest at killings of Tamil civilians the Tigers blame on the military and the desecration of an LTTE war memorial in government territory.

Public transport was at a standstill, Jaffna's streets were empty and banks were closed.

''Today it's OK, being a Saturday,'' said retired irrigation technician Nawan Kunathasan. ''But next week, if there is going to be a boycott, it's our own people who are going to be badly affected. Jaffna will be crippled.'' ''It looks as though both parties are provoking each other,'' the 61-year-old added. ''Before sitting for peace talks, violence must come to an end.'' With the government opposed to the Tigers' demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, many diplomats and analysts believe the rebels are spoiling for a return to a two-decade-old conflict in which more than 65,000 people have already been killed.

Reuters