COLOMBO, 15 August 2005 — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga said yesterday there was evidence linking Tamil Tiger rebels to the assassination of her foreign minister, but she vowed not to give up on the peace process that most think is the best hope of ending 19 years of bloodshed in this South Asian island nation.
Lakshman Kadirgamar was gunned down Friday night at his home in the capital Colombo. A vocal critic of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, he played a key role in their proscription as a terrorist group in several countries, including the United States.
“Initial indications of the investigations seem to reveal responsibility of the LTTE in the brutal murder,” Chandrika said in a nationwide television broadcast last night.
“It is unacceptable that a group that talks endlessly about being committed to a cease-fire could so blatantly violate it,” she said, referring to a 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce between government forces and the rebels.
“Mr. Kadirgamar was an idealist. Long before Sept. 11 and the London bombings; long before terrorism became anathema to the Western world he spoke out against terrorism in Sri Lanka and abroad,” Chandrika said.
“He was instrumental in having the LTTE recognized internationally for what they are — an armed terrorist group,” she said in a rare hard-hitting remark against the rebels.
The rebels have denied killing Kadirgamar and said the government is too hasty in implicating them.
But Chandrika yesterday said “their denial contradicts the facts and our knowledge of their long held desire and repeated attempts to murder both my Tamil Cabinet colleagues.”
Last year a suspected female Tiger suicide bomber failed in an attempt to kill Douglas Devananda, a Tamil Cabinet minister who bitterly opposes the rebels.
In her address yesterday Chandrika vowed to continue to work with the rebels to achieve peace. “We must prevail to ensure that Lakshman Kadirgamar’s sacrifice has not been in vain. I will redouble my efforts and the commitment of my government to implement the task of devolution of power based through dialogue,” she said. “We can’t let terror and hatred overcome us. As long as the ethnic problem remains unresolved violence and terror will always be with us.”
Scores of potential suspects have been rounded up during a massive hunt for Kadirgamar’s killers. Some 1,000 police were deployed for house-to-house searches.
“We don’t think the attackers were able to get out of the area,” police chief Chandra Fernando said. “If we have the cooperation of the public, we can get at the killers.”
