Sri Lankan president blames assassination on rebels

COLOMBO - Sri Lankan head of state Chandrika Kumaratunga today accused Tamil Tiger rebels of assassinating her foreign minister -- whose death has rekindled fears of a return to civil war.

The government declared a state of emergency after Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot by a sniper as he emerged from his swimming pool on Friday.

More than 1000 police and troops hunted for the killers and soldiers checked cars entering or leaving the city.

The killing has plunged Sri Lanka's protracted peace process into its worst crisis since a 2002 ceasefire in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) two-decade war for self-rule.

"Lakshman Kadirgamar joins a long list of distinguished Tamil leaders... who were murdered by the LTTE," Kumaratunga, dressed in white, the traditional colour of mourning, said in a televised address to the nation.

"This violation of the ceasefire is the latest in a continuous series of violations by the LTTE," she said.

"I have taken many steps to ensure national security after the killing, but will that be enough?" she added.

The Tigers, who usually denied responsibility for attacks in Colombo before the ceasefire was agreed, denied involvement and condemned the killing.

But few in Colombo appeared to believe them. The rebels have said repeatedly the ceasefire could collapse because of a rash of killings in the restive east that the government and rebels blame on each other.

"We must get the international community to pressure the LTTE to stop these killings," Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa told reporters as most of the 15 parties in parliament issued a statement blaming the Tigers for the murder.

Anger at the killing is welling. Posters have been pasted around Colombo with the slogan "Let's bury the LTTE".

A dozen Tamils were detained in Colombo for questioning -- but the assassins were not thought to be among them.

Newspapers said the gunmen could be anywhere.

"The manner in which Kadirgamar was killed was a disgrace to any security operation," The Sunday Island said in a commentary.

The area around Kadirgamar's home was not sealed off quickly after he was shot four times from a house across the street, giving the gunmen plenty of time to escape, it said.

Investigators found cartridge casings from a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher and the remains of food and chocolate wrappers in the house from which Kadirgamar was shot in Colombo's elegant diplomatic quarter.

They say the gunmen hid upstairs in the house and shot Kadirgamar twice in the head, once in the throat and once in the chest.

A Tamil couple who own the property are under house arrest for questioning, but have not been charged.

The 73-year-old Oxford-educated minister will be given a state funeral on Monday. He will be cremated on a pyre in the capital's Independence Square. Shops and cinemas will close as a mark of respect.

Kadirgamar had long been at the top of the Tigers' hit list for campaigning to have them labelled a terrorist group by the United States and Britain. Because he was a Tamil, many hardliners called him a traitor.

There are no signs yet of a return to a war in which more than 64,000 people were killed, but the killing has plunged the island's peace process into crisis.

The Tigers have fought for a homeland for ethnic Tamils since 1983, accusing the government dominated by the majority Sinhalese of discrimination.

"The killing of Lakshman Kadirgamar is obviously going to strengthen the position of hardliners who argue that the LTTE has not changed at all," said Rohan Edrisinha, a political analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo.

"I'm sure that the ceasefire is in danger more than ever before," Hagrup Haukland, head of the Nordic Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission which oversees the truce, said on Saturday.

The Tigers rejected attempts to blame them for the killing.

"We strongly condemn this act," S.P. Thamilselvan, leader of the Tigers' political wing, told reporters in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

"Connecting the LTTE to this killing is very wrong and it will worsen the present situation," he said.

"There is no need for the LTTE to kill him."

Thamilselvan called the accusations an effort to sully the Tigers' standing with the international community, which the rebels are wooing in a push for interim self-rule and for a share of US$3 billion ($4.30 billion) in foreign tsunami aid.

- REUTERS