Sri Lanka peace bid fails, aid workers found slain

Some 21,000 people from Mutur alone have been registered as displaced, fleeing to camps from the battlefield. Picture / Reuters

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan rebels said overnight that government shelling of rebel territory amounted to a declaration of war, but they have not yet decided whether to retaliate.

The statement from the head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) political wing came as 15 local aid workers involved in post-tsunami relief work were found executed at an office in the town of Mutur.

A pro-rebel website blamed the government for the killings but the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA), who found the bodies, said they did not know who was responsible.

The Tigers' political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said they had not yet retaliated to the heaviest artillery and rocket fire since fighting broke out 12 days ago in northeast Sri Lanka, but might if shelling continued.

"We consider this a declaration of war and strongly condemn the attitude of the government," Thamilselvan said, from the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

"We may have to take a defensive position if the shelling continues. It is not decided yet," he added. He said there was still space for discussion while Norway's special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was in Kilinochchi. He is expected to leave on Monday.

The Tigers had just offered to open a disputed sluice gate to allow water to farmers in government areas - a key government demand - and had also said they would withdraw to 2002 ceasefire lines.

As the head of the unarmed Nordic-staffed ceasefire monitoring mission, retired Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson, headed towards the sluice gate with a rebel leader to reopen it, army artillery opened fire.

"It did not seem so healthy to be there so we left," Henricsson said on his return to Trincomalee. "It seems some people want war rather than water."

After days of rumours, 15 local aid workers helping with relief after the 2004 tsunami were found executed in Mutur, a town devastated by fighting and artillery fire south of the port of Trincomalee.

Well over 800 people had been killed so far this year even before recent fighting in which the military say they killed over 100 rebels and in which dozens of civilians are also said to be dead.

The Tigers said another 15 civilians were also killed in government shelling of rebel areas in the northeast on Sunday.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are furious at President Mahinda Rajapakse's rejection of their demand for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east, as well as ongoing attacks by renegade ex-rebels the Karuna group, who the Tigers say are government backed.

The government insists it is committed to the truce, but analysts fear more clashes are in store after the first fighting since a 2002 truce.

The political situation remains deadlocked. The government said the Tigers must leave the area of the sluice gate, which officially lies in army territory but which military sources said was in an area effectively controlled by the rebels.

"The Tigers must vacate the area and let the irrigation engineers come in as they have done before," head of the government peace secretariat Palitha Kohona said. "The Tigers have caused complete mayhem with their illegal actions."

So far, fighting has been restricted to the area south of Trincomalee, where 21,000 displaced have been registered so far from Mutur alone. But analysts fear it could spread.

- REUTERS