COLOMBO, 13 August 2005 — Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, a hard-liner in dealing with the island’s Tamil Tiger rebels, was assassinated late yesterday in an attack the police blamed on separatist rebels.
“The foreign minister passed away,” Justice Minister John Senevirathne told reporters outside the National Hospital in Colombo. “He worked tirelessly for peace throughout his career. It is a great loss.”
Government officials declined to comment on who was to blame for the shooting, but Inspector General of Police Chandra Fernando blamed it on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
“It’s the Tigers,” he told reporters early today. The Tigers were not immediately available for comment.
Police arrested two people in connection with the assassination, police sources said today.
“We took into custody two people from the nearby area,” one police source said on condition of anonymity. There were no details of their identities.
The shooting comes amid escalating tensions between the government and the rebels, who have repeatedly threatened to resume a two-decade civil war because of a rash of violence in the island’s restive east that each side blames on the other.
Kadirgamar, 73, was rushed to the National Hospital after he was shot just before midnight yesterday.
The hospital was sealed off amid tight security as ministers arrived in the early hours of today to visit his bedside before leaving without comment.
In Washington, a US State Department official said the United States condemned “this terrible act of violence”.
“We call on Sri Lankan citizens to remain calm and to continue on the path of peace,” he said.
Officials declined to comment when asked who was suspected to be behind the shooting of Kadirgamar, an Oxford-educated lawyer.
Police cordoned off the roads around the residence of Kadirgamar, an ethnic Tamil and a top adviser of President Chandika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka’s protracted peace process with the Tigers. Heavily armed police officers fanned out into the plush central Colombo neighborhood, searching the area. Helicopters circled overhead.
The incident came just a day after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) warned that the government’s refusal to hunt down and disarm renegades fighting a silent war with their cadres in the east of the island could rekindle a war that has already killed more than 64,000 people.
The Tigers accuse the military of helping a splinter faction led by a top former rebel commander called Karuna target and kill their political and military members and demand the government disarm them.
Dozens of rebel cadres, policemen and soldiers have been killed since a truce was agreed in 2002, and some diplomats and analysts fear the rash of violence could spiral back into an all-out war.
The Tigers have repeatedly warned that their patience is at breaking point and the truce in danger of collapse, but cease-fire monitors, peace envoys and analysts say a return to full-blown war is unlikely.
Each side has blamed the other for the violence. On Thursday, Anton Balasingham, the London-based chief negotiator for the Tamil Tiger rebels, warned that Sri Lanka could slip back into civil war unless the government stopped backing armed groups that the rebels claim are attacking them.
Balasingham accused the government of paying and providing logistics support to paramilitary groups, allowing the armed forces to “sustain a shadow war” against the rebels.
