S Lanka says sinks rebel boats on truce anniversary

COLOMBO, Feb 22 (Reuters) Sri Lanka said its navy sank two suspected Tamil Tiger boats, killing nine rebels today, on the fifth anniversary of a largely ignored ceasefire.

Since the 2002 truce to halt fighting between the Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan forces, there have been air raids, suicide bombings, roadside blasts, land and sea battles and thousands killed.

The foes have ignored repeated calls by the international community to halt a new stage of the two-decade civil war. The war has killed an estimated 67,000-68,000 people since 1983 and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Navy spokesman Commander D.K.P. Dassanayake said one of the sunken craft off the island's northwest coast was fitted with heavy weapons and the vessels were ''definitely the Tigers. Nine of their cadres died''.

The rebels were not immediately available for comment.

Mediator Norway called on both sides today to respect the truce and said the onus was on President Mahinda Rajapakse's government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to halt the renewed fighting.

''Massive human rights abuses, grave humanitarian suffering and the displacement of over 200,000 people are among the results,'' Erik Solheim, Norwegian Minister of Development Cooperation, said in a statement.

Hardline majority Sinhalese nationalist Buddhist monks in saffron robes and pro-hardline Marxist demonstrators took to the streets today to demand an end to the pact.

''End the ceasefire immediately,'' said one banner.

The government has vowed to wipe out the Tigers' military machine and has driven the rebels from a key eastern enclave they controlled under the terms of the truce.

The Tigers have resumed their fight for an independent state in the north and east, and suspected rebel bombers have killed hundreds of people in a series of ambushes.

Civilians caught in the crossfire are paying a heavy price. An estimated 1,300 have been killed in the past year alone.

''It looks as if our days are numbered,'' said 64-year-old Sivanesan Sundaralingam, a retired school principal in the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of the island by rebel lines. Residents are trapped.

Suspected Tigers have carried out a number of bomb and grenade attacks on the peninsula in recent months, and the military and rebels fight sporadic artillery duels.

Food and basic goods are in short supply. Some civilians now have to walk barefoot, unable to find shoes their size.

The government has vowed to produce a power-sharing proposal within weeks aimed at ending the conflict.

But Rajapakse has rejected Tiger demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, and many fear the gap between the two sides is too great to bridge.

REUTERS SAM PM2152