Slain MP buried in S.Lanka as war fears mount

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)