COLOMBO, 11 May 2006 — Japan’s peace envoy warned yesterday Sri Lanka’s strained peace process was at its lowest ebb since he took the job in 2002, and called on Tamil Tiger rebels to resume talks amid fresh violence in the restive north. Yasushi Akashi, who sees a risk of a return to a two-decade civil war that killed over 64,000 people before a 2002 truce, said the onus was on the government and rebels — and not the international community — to avoid all-out war. “Everyone should try their best to de-escalate an extremely tense and dangerous climate,” Akashi told a news conference hours after two sailors were wounded when a claymore fragmentation mine exploded as they cleared roadside scrub in the far north.

“(The situation) is at its worst since I began my role as Japanese government envoy (in 2002),” he added, wrapping up his peace bid before heading to neighboring India to brief government leaders there.

He said Sri Lanka’s main foreign donors - who pledged $4.5 billion in aid to foster peace - would meet in Tokyo later this month to assess where they stand.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who want a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east, have withdrawn from peace talks indefinitely, saying on Tuesday that Sri Lanka was moving toward the “fringes” of war.

With the Tigers constantly imposing new conditions for talks, diplomats and analysts fear attacks, bombings and land and sea clashes that killed more than 200 people in the past month will continue.

But some argue the island is already at war in all but name. More people were killed in April than during many periods of the war itself, when attacks were often sporadic and followed by weeks of little activity.

“It all depends on your definition of war,” said one diplomat, who asked not to be named. The army found a large cache of weapons, including seven claymore mines, in army-held Jaffna on Tuesday.

In the rebel-dominated north, many civilians fear they will have to flee homes they are still rebuilding after they were destroyed in bombing raids in the 1990s. Others trying to rebuild houses in the east that were flattened by the 2004 tsunami fear the same.

Both the mainly Sinhalese government and the Tigers accuse each other of ethnically-motivated attacks.

“What is of deep concern to the government ... is the attempt by the LTTE to provoke an ethnic backlash,” Health Minister and government peace team leader Nimal Siripala de Silva told Parliament.

“We urge the LTTE to immediately cease all attacks on the security forces as well as the civilians and to respond positively to the flexibility demonstrated by the government.”

Investigators Examine

‘Pregnant Bomber’ Claim

Investigators have yet to find any evidence that a woman suicide bomber who tried to assassinate Sri Lanka’s army chief was really pregnant as some local media reports had claimed, police said yesterday.

Logs at the army headquarters showed the bomber entered the military compound and staged the attack last month after posing as a soldier’s pregnant wife to take advantage of “maternity day” at the army hospital.

There were local media reports that the bomber was indeed pregnant. But police spokesman Rienzie Perera told reporters that authorities were still carrying out forensic tests on blood samples taken from parts of the woman, who was blown to pieces after the April 25 attack. “The story that she was pregnant is only hearsay,” Perera said. “We still don’t know if she was really pregnant.”

Investigators said pregnancy tests by local laboratories proved negative and detectives were now trying to secure the help of forensic experts abroad. Investigators initially believed she was a 21-year-old woman from the northern district of Vavuniya, but that too proved to be wrong, an investigator said.

Police said her mobile phone was also destroyed but they managed to recover the SIM card which has been sent abroad for analysis to trace the calls she made and received just before the attack.