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Forget peace talks, punish rebels: Sri Lanka Marxists

Posted on: Tuesday, 23 August 2005, 09:27 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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