Forget peace talks, punish rebels: Sri Lanka Marxists

By Arjuna Wickramasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Over 2,500 hardline Marxists marched in
the Sri Lankan capital on Tuesday calling on the government to
ditch planned peace talks with Tamil Tigers rebels and to
punish them instead for a rash of killings blamed on them.

The People’s Liberation Front (JVP), which defected from
the government coalition over plans to share tsunami aid with
the rebels, said it was time to get tough with Tigers — who
the government accuse of assassinating the island’s foreign
minister this month.

“Unite to defeat the terror of the Tigers,” read one banner
held aloft by protesters with a picture of slain Foreign
Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, an ethnic Tamil who helped outlaw
the Tigers in the United States and Britain.

Peace Mediator Norway is arranging emergency talks between
the government and the rebels to find ways to prevent a
3-1/2-year ceasefire from rupturing and plunging Sri Lanka back
into a two-decade civil war that has killed over 64,000 people.

“The Tiger has fallen into a ditch by killing Kadirgamar,”
said JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva. “We must use this
opportunity to expose the LTTE’s reign of terror and murder
committed behind the veil of the truce.”

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam deny any hand in
Kadirgamar’s killing — a denial few in Colombo believe and
which analysts say is a stock disclaimer.

“Talks aimed at reviewing the ceasefire agreement now will
only help the rebels regain some credibility — then we will
lose the advantage,” Silva added.

Protesters wearing the party’s traditional red T-shirts and
caps marched to the capital’s main railway station near the
financial district, punching the air and shouting “enough is
enough” as hundreds of policemen in riot gear looked on.

A silent war in the island’s restive east the government
and the rebels each blame on the other has killed dozens of
police, soldiers, rebel cadres and now the island’s foreign
minister since a 2002 truce pushed the war into limbo.

The rebels and the government both say they are committed
to peace and have ruled out a return to war, and analysts say
the ceasefire will likely hold.

The JVP, who pulled out of the ruling coalition government
in June, is rabidly against any negotiations with the Tigers,
who want interim self-rule in swathes of the north and east,
where they run a de facto state.