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Slain MP buried in S.Lanka as war fears mount

Posted on: Thursday, 29 December 2005, 11:20 CST

By Peter Apps

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - A slain pro-rebel politician was buried in eastern Sri Lanka on Thursday as mourners blamed the government for his death and international monitors said the country may be sliding back into civil war.

The government blames Tamil Tiger rebels for a string of attacks on soldiers that have stretched a 2002 truce to breaking point. But supporters of Joseph Pararajasingam, a member of parliament for Tamil National Alliance -- the Tigers' political proxies -- said they believe the army or government-backed paramilitaries gunned him down at a Christmas mass.

"My father was well known internationally," the dead man's son David, a supermarket manager in London, told Reuters.

"By cutting him off, they thought they could cut off the Tamil peoples' cries. My father has always been a voice for the LTTE and the Tamil people," he said, using the acronym for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Asked if he feared the two-decade-old war, which has already killed over 64,000, might reignite, he said: "We'll have to wait and see. But it's already started, hasn't it?"

Pararajasingam's family blamed his killing on the Karuna faction, a breakaway LTTE group that the rebels say is backed by the government and international truce monitors say is at least tolerated by the army.

Residents said leaflets from the group had instructed people to boycott Pararajasingam's funeral.

The rebels are demanding autonomy for the Tamil minority, but the government has rejected the idea, and the two sides have still not agreed a venue for peace talks.

A rash of killings over the past week has been blamed on the Tigers, including two mine attacks that killed 25 soldiers and sailors.

SHADOW WAR

A soldier was wounded in a grenade attack in the northern military enclave of Jaffna on Thursday, while police arrested two suspected Tiger cadres carrying high explosives in the eastern district of Batticaloa.

Soldiers found five deadly claymore fragmentation mines planted by roadsides in the north and east.

"If this trend of violence is allowed to continue, war may not be far away," Hagrup Haukland, head of the Nordic-staffed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said in a statement.

"It is now imperative that the parties join hands to arrest the violence prevailing in the north and in the east," he added. "There is a way forward: Direct dialogue."

The violence has hammered the Colombo stock exchange. The market fell around 10 percent after the claymore mine attacks, but regained some ground on Thursday, ending 3.6 percent firmer.

The army said the Tigers shot and wounded a policeman overnight near Batticaloa and two soldiers were wounded in a grenade attack in the northern Jaffna peninsula. Diplomats worry the army will retaliate if attacks continue.

The rebels deny involvement, saying the assaults are the work of small local groups angry at army abuses.

"People see claymore attacks, but there are also attacks on civilians in Jaffna," said Suresh Premachandran, a Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian, after the funeral.

"A shadow war is going on because of the government support for paramilitaries. It is not the LTTE. It is various small groups that are taking their revenge," he added.

But diplomats and analysts say only the Tigers have the ability to carry out such attacks.

(Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal in COLOMBO)

Source: REUTERS

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