Jaffna gets aid, rebels release prisoner

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Aug 26: Officials today distributed aid on Sri Lanka's besieged Jaffna peninsula and foreign nationals were being evacuated as two Red Cross vessels docked there after weeks of fighting cut off the region.

The fighting between Tamil Tiger rebels and government forces, the first ground battles since a 2002 ceasefire, has displaced more than 200,000 people, cut off half a million people in Jaffna from essential supplies and left towns and villages destroyed and deserted.

A Red Cross-flagged cargo ship that arrived off Jaffna on Thursday night was unloading around 1,500 tonnes of food, the first such shipment since fighting blocked road access more than two weeks ago.

A ferry also bearing the Red Cross flag was due to load the first 150 of an estimated 500 people, mostly aid staff and other foreign nationals, who are to be evacuated from the peninsula to the northeastern port of Trincomalee and from there to the capital.

Jaffna lies on the northern tip of the island republic and is held by the government, but is cut off from the rest of the country by a swathe of rebel territory. During the truce, however, people and goods were allowed to travel across.

The only other supply route into Jaffna is by air but this is now considered dangerous since the Palaly air base is believed to be within range of rebel artillery.

Military aircraft fly in metres above the surface of the sea and only stay on the ground long enough for reinforcements to jump down and for the wounded and the dead to be loaded.

Jaffna, the historical capital of Sri Lankan Tamils, has changed hands several times in two decades of civil war and is seen as a key Tiger goal in their fight for a separate Tamil homeland.

Arrests in Colombo

In the capital, Colombo, police Special Task Force troopers raided houses near the international airport on Saturday, seizing fragmentation mines, assault rifles and detonators that they suspected the Tigers planned to use for attacks. ''We were acting on information from civilians,'' said a military spokesman. ''Sixteen gentlemen and two ladies were arrested for questioning.'' But in what appeared to be a rare sign of flexibility, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) agreed to release a policeman held prisoner since September 2005 after a request from unarmed Nordic ceasefire monitors.

Outgoing Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) chief Major General Ulf Henricsson and his replacement Norwegian Major General Lars Johan Solvberg met the Tiger political leader S.P. Thamilselvan on Friday. ''It was a request from the two of them and they went for it,'' said SLMM spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson. ''We've been asking for his release for months and we are very satisfied.'' The policeman was one of three captured by the Tigers after they crossed into rebel territory tracking a suspected British paedophile. The other two were released earlier in the year.

SLMM monitors from European Union states Sweden, Denmark and Finland -- including Henricsson, a Swede -- will leave the island in the next few days because the Tigers demanded they withdraw after the EU banned the Tigers as terrorists.

''Thamilselvan... pointed out to the departing Head of Mission that the Sri Lankan government, emboldened by the EU decision, has intensified its attacks on the Tamil people,'' said the official Tiger Web site. ''Massacres, disappearances and aerial bombardments have increased sharply after the EU decision.'' In fact, rights groups say both sides have been acting with near total disregard for civilians. SLMM say they believe hundreds of civilians died in August alone, on top of more than 800 killed so far this year even before ground fighting erupted.

Reuters

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