Celebrating independence, SL to defeat rebels

Colombo, Feb 4: Tanks and armoured personnel carriers paraded through Sri Lanka's capital today as President Mahinda Rajapakse, marking the 59th anniversary of independence from Britain, vowed to defeat Tamil Tiger rebels.

Navy war ships sailed past off the coast and air force fighter jets and helicopter gunships flew overhead as 3,500 servicemen marched to military bands in a show of military might amid a new chapter in the island's two-decade civil war with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.

''We are not ready to give in to the bloodthirsty demands of the LTTE,'' Rajapakse said in his address to the nation from the capital's historic Galle Face Green, now effectively a high security zone after a spate of rebel attacks in the capital.

''I emphatically state before you my total commitment to ensure the honour and prosperity of this blessed land, by decisively defeating separatism,'' Rajapakse added.

Rajapakse yesterday visited a newly captured eastern rebel coastal stronghold, where he pledged to tame the Tamil Tigers and liberate civilians but said the door remained open to a resumption of peace talks.

The Tigers laugh off Rajapakse's calls to surrender arms, and say they do not trust his government -- instead promising to fight on for independence.

Apparently emboldened by the eastern victory, the government is determined to destroy the rebels' entire military machine, and analysts fear renewed the war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983 and more than 4,000 in the last year alone will escalate.

Rajapakse insists he would rather settle the island's conflict at the peace table rather on the battlefield. But he says it is his duty to liberate Tamil people living in Tiger areas and has flatly rejected rebel demands for an independent state in the northeast.

''It is this massive commitment to peace that led our security forces to liberate the innocent Tamil people who were taken hostage and used as a human shield by the terrorists, to win their savage demands,'' he said.

''The most reliable weapon against terrorism is to do justice by the innocent Tamil people,'' he added.

Rajapakse called on the Tamil National Alliance, a cluster of minority Tamil parties seen as the Tigers' proxies in parliament, to help the Sinhalese-majority government find a political solution to the conflict.

Both sides have ignoring calls from the international community to halt a war that has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and donors say is choking the potential of the 23 billion dollars economy.

Reuters

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