Lanka fighting goes on, slain aid workers moved

Trincomalee (Sri Lanka), Aug 8: Explosions sounded out in Sri Lanka's east today as fighting between the military and Tamil Tigers over a water supply entered a 14th day, while aid workers planned for the burials of 17 slain local staff.

Reuters witnesses in the eastern port of Trincomalee could hear explosions towards the disputed area to the south after dawn, after a Norwegian peace envoy convinced the rebels to reopen a blocked sluice gate and halt fighting only to find the army stepped up attacks.

''Several rounds of artillery were fired during the night.

Still we are consolidating the area, waiting and hoping we will be able to allow the water to flow,'' said a military spokesman.

''We are still clearing landmines and booby traps are there,'' he added.

Nordic truce monitors and diplomats are exasperated by the government's decision to continue a military campaign despite the Tiger offer to open the sluice. The rebels have already pulled back to their original positions after the first ground battle since a 2002 truce.

The government says the only option is for the Tigers to vacate the area, and analysts suspect President Mahinda Rajapakse is pushing on as either a concession to hardline Marxist and Buddhist monk political allies who hate the Tigers or as a matter of government pride.

''This is so incredibly stupid,'' said one western diplomat.

''There are no winners in this situation.'' More than 800 people had been killed so far this year even before the recent fighting in which the military say they killed over 150 rebels and in which dozens of civilians are said to be dead.

Shot in the head

Aid workers transported the bodies of 17 local colleagues found slain in the eastern battle-ravaged town of Mutur, where they had been working on post-tsunami projects, to the port town of Trincomalee overnight.

Most had been shot in the head, execution style, fellow aid workers said.

International aid agency Action Contre La Faim (ACF), or Action Against Hunger, said it was waiting for post-mortem results and had halted all activities in the area. It also said it might ask for help from the United Nations or Red Cross to uncover what had happened.

''It would seem that it was rocket explosions or bullets to the head. We don't know. There are several versions. Perhaps some were killed by bullets and others by bombs. We will have more information in the coming hours,'' ACF executive director Benoit Miribel told Reuters Television in Paris.

Officials said 15 of the staff were found dead on the floor of their office, while two others had been gunned down while apparently trying to escape in a car. It was not clear when their funerals would be held.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned what he called ''the appalling and cowardly murders''.

Pro-rebel website Tamilnet blamed the government for the killings, while the army pointed the finger at the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have fought for an ethnic Tamil homeland for two decades in a civil war that has killed more than 65,000 people.

Reuters

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