Sri Lankan rebels halt offensive

By Peter Apps

MUTUR (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said they
had halted an offensive on a government-held town in the east
on Saturday and were pulling back, a sign that conflict on the
island may be easing off.

The government said hostilities would stop if the Tigers
kept their word.

The pull-back comes after days of shelling and mortar and
artillery duels around the eastern town of Mutur, just south of
the port city of Trincomalee.

Mutur was infiltrated by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) rebels earlier this week and is now a ghost town,
buildings badly damaged and riddled with bullet holes.

“The offensive operation in Mutur has stopped and the LTTE
is going back to its former positions in our own territory,” a
Tiger source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “There is
no ceasefire yet.”

“It was a limited operation, and we are doing this on
humanitarian grounds,” the source added, saying the Tigers want
thousands of Muslims who fled on Friday to return home.

The government said it was not interested in chasing the
Tigers.

“We are not going to chase them … We wanted certain areas
cleared of terrorists and we have done that,” said Defense
Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. “Once the last single Tiger
leaves (government territory) the firing will stop.

“But if they come back again we will have to hold the
territory and safeguard the civilians,” he added. “They have
absolutely no right to step into (Mutur).”

Officials said the military would continue to clear newly
laid landmines from around a sluice gate they accuse the rebels
of blocking to choke the flow of water to farmers in government
areas — the original trigger for the violence.

The fighting has been the most intense and prolonged since
a 2002 ceasefire between the rebels and the government.

Diplomats and analysts say the truce holds only on paper
and that a two-decade civil war that has killed more than
65,000 people since 1983 has resumed.

THOUSANDS DISPLACED

Aid workers estimate 20,000 to 30,000 civilians fled from
Mutur on Friday to escape shelling, several thousand of whom
have reached the government-held town of Kantale around 20
miles southwest. The military put the number closer to
10,000-15,000.

The navy ferried journalists south across Trincomalee
harbor into Mutur for the first time since the fighting,
landing them on the beach in small assault boats. As troops
checked buildings for booby-traps, reporters heard mortar and
small arms fire nearby.

Along the water line, houses already damaged by the 2004
tsunami stood deserted. The navy camp at the jetty was
devastated and just two civilians were seen on the streets.

The navy said between 30-40 Tiger fighters were moving from
house to house in the outer suburbs of Mutur. Troops looked
exhausted, their faces covered with grime and weapons hanging
loosely at their sides.

The military accused the Tigers of killing 100 civilians
during Friday’s civilian exodus, citing witnesses. Muslim
politician Rauf Hakeem said witnesses told him an suspected
army shell had hit a Tiger checkpoint as civilians passed
through, killing five people.

The military said it believed it killed around 150 Tigers
during a battle for control of a jetty in Mutur on Friday, but
analysts say the two sides vastly inflate enemy death tolls as
a propaganda war rages.

The Tigers say 12 of their fighters were killed during the
entire offensive on Mutur.

Well over 800 people have been killed so far this year in
escalating attacks and military clashes. The Tigers are furious
at President Mahinda Rajapakse’s rejection of their demand for
a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east.

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

“The government can play with semantics, but it’s hard to
see what’s going on as anything but a war,” said one Western
diplomat.

Visiting Norwegian special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer
flew to the island’s northern army-held Jaffna peninsula to
meet civic leaders, and is due to meet the Tigers’ political
leadership in their northern base of Kilinochchi on Sunday.

However his visit is to discuss the future of Nordic truce
monitors after European Union member nations decided to pull
staff out in the face of a rebel ultimatum, and analysts say
any return to peace talks is a dim and distant prospect.