Sri Lanka: International truce monitors in Sri Lanka began emergency talks with Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday after a pitched battle they fought with government forces left dozens dead and threatened to renew the island republic's civil war following an unstable, four-year truce.
Sweden's Maj Gen Ulf Henricsson, who heads the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, raced to the Liberation Tigers' of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) de facto capital, Kilinochchi, in the north, to discuss the escalating violence, which some diplomats in the capitalfear could reignite the nearly 25-year-old civil war that has claimed nearly 65,000 lives.
The LTTE, claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese community, has been fighting for an independent homeland for Tamils, who constitute around 12 per cent of the island's population of some 20 million.
The European peace monitors blamed the rebels for "grossly violating" the 2002 ceasefire by attacking naval boats off the north coast, sinking one and damaging another that had an unarmed monitor from the peace mission aboard.
The government retaliated with air strikes on rebel-controlled territory in the north, but the island was quiet yesterday, the military said. There was no word on casualties from the air attacks.
The navy believes the attack on the naval craft by the Sea Tigers and its suicide unit, the Black Sea Tigers, was part of a larger assault on a nearby unarmed transport ship carrying over 700 troops escorted by the monitoring mission.
The troop ship fled into adjoining Indian territorial waters to escape the attack, but the navy says 15 sailors and two officers were killed.
It also claimed that 50 Tigers died in the battle, a claim rejected by the rebels, who claimed they sustained just four fatalities.
Because of limited access to trouble zones, independent verification of casualties in Sri Lanka's fighting has always been difficult, with casualty figures exaggerated by the warring sides.
Monitoring mission spokeswoman Helen Olafsdottir blamed the Tigers for provoking the navy.
"It's very clear that the Sea Tigers have no rights at sea - we have ruled it here in this mission that this is a government-controlled area, because non-state actors cannot control sea and open waters so this is a very, very serious ceasefire violation."
But the Tigers rejected the mission's claim, adding that truce monitors were being used as human shields by the Sri Lankan navy. They also warned them against boarding military vessels at their own peril.
For the LTTE, access to the sea is a vital life line. Almost all the materiel, medical supplies and fuel that sustain them and the civilians under their control in the north and east are smuggled in by sea.
The rebels' strategy is to push back the navy to relieve pressure on their smuggling routes.