Ban SL rebels, end truce, say monks and Marxists

Colombo, Dec 11: Thousands of protesters, from hardline Marxists to Buddhist monks in saffron robes, marched through Sri Lanka's capital today to demand the government ban the Tamil Tiger rebels and end a tattered 2002 truce.

Holding banners reading ''Shame for not banning the Tigers'' and chanting ''Ban them immediately, withdraw from the ceasefire'', around 3,000 demonstrators massed near President Mahinda Rajapakse's Colombo offices to hand over a petition.

The protest by majority Sinhalese nationalists comes as a new chapter in Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war intensifies. Near daily artillery clashes and ambushes have killed about 3,000 civilians, troops and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters this year alone.

''The government must take a correct decision and ban the LTTE and withdraw from the ceasefire,'' Wimal Weerawansa, Propaganda Secretary of the Marxist People's Liberation Front (JVP).

Rajapakse last week introduced a raft of anti-terrorism laws aimed at cracking down on the Tigers and their supporters after a failed suicide attack on his brother.

But he stopped short of an outright ban analysts said would likely have killed hopes of restarting peace talks.

''We want peace, we must live like friends, but the Tigers don't want to stop the war, so we say the government must fight the LTTE,'' said Medhananda Thera, a member of the hardline Buddhist monk JHU party, marching in robe and sandals.

The military and Tigers exchanged artillery fire and mortar bombs in the volatile east over the weekend, driving about 3,000 civilians from their homes to seek refuge in Buddhist temples and schools.

Hundreds of displaced families scrambled to find what shade they could in temple grounds today, eating rations of rice and curry.

''The first shell fell into our playground ... There were children playing but no-one got hurt,'' said 15-year-old schoolgirl R Sadamali, recounting how her village was shelled.

''The second one fell under a tree behind the school hall.

Some of the children who were under the tree got injured. We left the village after that,'' she added.

The military said on Monday 24 soldiers were killed over the weekend in the fighting, and said they believed they killed around 40 rebels. The Tigers said dozens of civilians were killed.

Independent confirmation of what had happened behind rebel lines was impossible.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday evacuated 30 wounded civilians by fishing boat from the rebel-held town of Vakarai, where an estimated 30,000 displaced civilians are living in camps.

The Tigers say they are resuming their fight for an independent state for minority Tamils. Analysts say that means a war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983 will likely deepen.

Reuters

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