SRI LANKA: Sri Lankan artillery pounded Tamil Tiger territory yesterday in a renewal of hostilities after government forces rejected a deal brokered by Norway with the rebels to lift a water blockade, saying access to the vital site was non-negotiable.
The waterworks in Muttur district, near Trincomalee port in the island's northeast, have been the cause of fierce fighting after they were seized by rebels on July 26th, resulting in over 425 combatant and civilian deaths.
Also in Muttur, 15 local aid staff working on post-tsunami rebuilding have been found executed, the main umbrella body for aid agencies in the country said yesterday.
The local aid workers were already known to be missing. The Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) said that one of the only relief teams to reach Muttur had found the corpses in an aid agency office.
The renewed fighting, which has led to thousands fleeing their homes, seriously jeopardises the four-year old ceasefire agreement between the warring sides following over two decades of civil war for an independent Tamil homeland that has claimed around 65,000 lives.
Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo said the administration was not involved in Norway's talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that resulted in the guerrillas agreeing to open the sluice gates and provide water to thousands of parched civilians.
"Water should not be a negotiating tool," Mr Rambukwella emphatically declared. Military spokesman Upali Rajapakse said yesterday's shelling was part of the army's overall strategy of neutralising Tiger formations in the area and restoring water supplies. "If water goes down the canal, it is because of the Sri Lankan security forces and not because of the Tigers," Mr Rajapakse said a day after the Tigers lifted their siege.
In talks with Oslo's top special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer, the LTTE made it clear before pulling back that any fresh air strikes by security forces would signal the end of the shaky 2002 truce and be regarded as Colombo's "declaration of war".
"Our leader has agreed to open the sluice gates on humanitarian grounds," SP Thamilselvan, the LTTE political-wing leader, said in the northern rebel headquarters at Killinochchi.
He said the ceasefire was in place for the moment, but warned that if military attacks continued the rebels would consider it "full-scale war".
Analysts fear that though the latest round of fighting has been limited to Muttur district, the Tigers might launch new offensives on other fronts in the north and east where they hold large swathes of territory seized during the civil war that began in 1983. In these rebel-controlled areas the LTTE run a parallel government with all arms of administration like a police force, educational institutions, revenue collection agencies, a judiciary and even a bank.
The government has accused the retreating Tigers of massacring around 100 refugees, mostly Muslims, fleeing the fighting.