COLOMBO, 9 May 2006 — A top Japanese envoy met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday to try to salvage the island’s battered peace process, as Tamil Tiger rebels accused the army of killing civilians.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam website yesterday accused the army of killing eight Hindu temple workers near the northern ethnic Tamil town of Jaffna, while the military said there had been several rebel attacks overnight.
A military spokesman said the army had nothing to do with any temple killings, and that reports that eight bodies had been found could not be substantiated. Nordic monitors observing a fragile 2002 cease-fire said they had also not seen any bodies.
The army said a curfew had been ordered in Jaffna and crossing points to rebel territory closed for unspecified “security reasons,” but that it was only a temporary measure. One military source said it was to stop Tiger-backed demonstrations due to take place in northern government territory.
The rebels said a seven-month-old baby had died after the blockade stopped him being taken to a government hospital, but there was no way to verify the statement.
Diplomats say Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi will deliver a strong message to both sides and warn the Tigers, when he visits them today, that further attacks and failure to attend talks might lead to a global crackdown on their fund-raising and see them listed as terrorists by the European Union.
A surge in suspected rebel attacks, ethnic riots, land and sea clashes, government airstrikes and unsolved murders of civilians have left more than 200 people dead in the past month.
Analysts say neither side wants to be blamed for a return to civil war, and both are eager to attract international sympathy. More than 64,000 people died in the two-decade civil war halted by the 2002 truce.
A suspected Tiger grenade attack overnight in the eastern town of Batticaloa wounded seven policemen and a civilian, the army said, while six soldiers escaped unharmed after an ambush near the northwest coast.
Sri Lanka’s stock market fell more than one percent yesterday. Some investors who had held on to shares during recent violence in the hope peace talks would resume in Switzerland, sold fearing Akashi would be unable to win a breakthrough.
Tiger rebels said they came under attack again overnight from fighters loyal to renegade eastern rebel commander Karuna.
