posted August 24, 2006 07:58 PM              

Atrocities alleged, but did they occur?
Canadians try to flee Jaffna Peninsula

Aug. 24, 2006. 08:37 AM
PETER APPS
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

ANURUDDHA LOKUHAPUARACHCHI/REUTERS
A truck carries civilian Muslim evacuees from the town of Mutur in northeast Sri Lanka. Artillery fire thunders in the background as thousands fleeing their home town arrive at the village of Thoper by bus, tractors, motorcycles and on foot earlier this month

COLOMBO—Dozens of schoolgirls killed by the air force, Muslims massacred by Tamil Tiger rebels, civilians targeted by both sides.

There is no shortage of atrocity tales in Sri Lanka, but getting the truth is proving to be difficult.

With both the government and rebels facing each other in open ground warfare for the first time since a 2002 truce, few doubt that hundreds are dead and that civilians are suffering most.

In the north, hundreds of foreigners, including many Canadians, international aid workers and Sri Lankans with foreign passports, visiting friends or family, have been trapped by the fighting.

The Red Cross said yesterday it would send a ferry to help evacuate. The Canadian High Commission said it is trying to evacuate 76 Canadian nationals from the northern Jaffna Peninsula.

The UN children's fund UNICEF says rebel fighters are clearly still recruiting and abducting children to fight, but says the renegade former rebel Karuna group now does the same. Aid workers say the government openly supports Karuna as the group fights the Tigers.

"It's really just so obvious," said one international aid worker on condition of anonymity, adding troops stood by as Karuna took youths away.

"Last Tuesday and Wednesday, there was 25 taken. There's been no official condemnation."

Pro-government and pro-rebel websites show harrowing pictures: a decapitated child, a baby shot dead, lines of corpses and wailing relatives. All, they say, show the enemy's depravity. Sometimes, they use the same picture to blame each other.

On Monday, the government posted video of what it said were captured Tigers talking about abuse at the hands of the rebels — a move that rights staff said was at best legally dubious.

As tens of thousands of Muslims fled the town of Mutur, witnesses agree some were captured by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ethnic rebels who want a Tamil homeland and who have long been feared by Sri Lankan Muslims.

Some of those taken escaped amid shellfire.

Others were killed by the shells.

The government says dozens were massacred but the Red Cross has not found large numbers of bodies.

Perhaps they were taken and hidden, perhaps there was nothing to find.

Ironically, both sides agree that around 60 school-aged girls died last week in an air strike on a former orphanage in northern rebel territory.

The rebels say they were simply studying first aid, the government says they were Tiger child soldiers training.

But truce monitors and other witnesses said there did not appear to have been enough blood for 60 people to have been killed. They only saw 19 young adult bodies, male and female.

"We really do not know what happened and we probably never will," said one Western diplomat.

Some believe it was really a strike aimed at reclusive Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Generally the pressure for a proper investigation only really comes when outside groups get involved, hence the execution-style killing of 17 Sri Lankan staff from international aid group Action Contre La Faim is the best documented so far.

Photos show the bodies lying apparently where they fell in the agency's compound in Mutur. Most had been shot several times.

Officials promised a full probe, but truce monitors say the investigation is stalled.

"I can't see any action on that," said chief monitor retired Swedish Maj.-Gen. Ulf Henricsson, adding that as a result government forces were the prime suspect in the killing.

posted August 24, 2006 08:01 PM              

2006/8/24
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP)

Sri Lanka's government would agree to a new cease-fire with separatist Tamil rebels only if it is offered personally by the insurgents' elusive leader, a newspaper reported Thursday, as fighting between the two sides appeared to be easing.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera told Parliament that the government was willing to accept a cease-fire, but that it had to come from rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Daily Mirror said.

A recent escalation of violence between government forces and the insurgents has returned the country to a war footing, with some of the fiercest fighting since the two sides signed a cease-fire four years ago.

Samaraweera said that since then, other rebel leaders have broken promises to end the violence, according to the newspaper.

Military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said there were no major incidents overnight in the northern Jaffna Peninsula, which the insurgents made a major push to recapture on Aug. 11.

In the east, suspected rebels fired at an army checkpoint early Thursday in Batticaloa district, injuring one soldier, while a police officer was killed by a mine explosion overnight in eastern Valachchenai, he said. "It was a quiet night," Samarasinghe said.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for over 20 years for a separate homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.

The 2002 cease-fire temporarily halted the bloodshed, but the past few months have seen renewed fighting in the north and east, where the Tigers want to establish their separate state.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the recent violence and tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced, prompting local and international aid agencies to warn of a growing humanitarian crisis.

The international community has called for an immediate end to the hostilities and a return to the peace process that faltered earlier this year when the rebels refused to attend a round of peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

Samaraweera accused the Tigers of initiating the renewed fighting in late June by blocking a water source supplying thousands of people living in government-controlled areas. The move prompted the military to launch its first ground offensive since the cease-fire.

The Tigers say they acted because the government had failed to honor a promise to provide water to rebel-held areas, and that the government turned the water dispute into a "military issue."