Follow IRA’s example, Sri Lanka urges Tamil Tigers

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels should
take their lead from the Irish Republican Army, lay down their
weapons and abandon a two-decade armed struggle for self-rule,
the island’s government said on Friday.

But Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka’s civil conflicts are
worlds apart — the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
control a de facto state in the South Asian island’s northeast
and are locked in a standoff with the military that threatens
to rupture a 2002 ceasefire.

“We welcome the announcement of the IRA. We hope the LTTE
would also fall in line,” government spokesman Nimal Siripala
de Silva told reporters.

“We appeal to them, that is the trend in the world in Aceh
and (with) the IRA, to give up their arms. That would be the
best thing,” he added. “It is high time the LTTE followed.”

The IRA formally ended its 30-year armed campaign against
British rule in Northern Ireland on Thursday and said it would
pursue its aims through politics.

The Tigers were not immediately available for comment, but
analysts say a return to talks stalled since 2003 aimed at
forging lasting peace after a conflict that has already killed
over 64,000 people is a long way off, let alone any future push
for disarmament.

Dozens of rebel cadres, police, soldiers and civilians have
been killed in recent months despite the ceasefire that has
given Sri Lanka its longest taste of relative peace since the
Tigers’ struggle for self-rule began in earnest in 1983.

The military and the Tigers each blame the attacks on the
other, and while the rebels have said the ceasefire could
disintegrate and rekindle the war, truce monitors say it should
hold for now.