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Sri Lanka

Lanka rebels were shot dead after surrender

2009-12-14

[Bangla Daily Star] Sri Lankan troops shot dead surrendering Tamil Tiger leaders on the orders of the defence secretary, the former army chief who is now running for president said yesterday. General Sarath Fonseka said Gotabhaya Rajapakse -- the brother of the current president -- instructed field commanders not to take prisoners in the days before the Tamil Tiger separatists were defeated in May. "Gotabhaya Rajapakse spoke directly with (commander) Shavendra Silva and told him not to accommodate any surrendering LTTE leaders and that they must all be killed," Fonseka told reporters at a meeting of opposition parties. Fonseka said he was away in China and was unaware that Rajapakse was giving direct orders to officers in the field during the final stages of battle against the Tigers, officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. He said he only learnt after the war that senior Tiger rebels had used foreign mediators to organise a plan in which they would carry white flags and give themselves up. Fonseka led the army's successful offensive to finally crush the LTTE and end the island's decades-long ethnic conflict, but he later fell out with President Mahinda Rajapakse and the defence secretary. He resigned last month, accusing the government of sidelining him, and is now attempting to unseat President Rajapakse in elections on January 26. Sri Lankan authorities have resisted international calls for a war crimes investigation amid allegations by the United Nations that more than 7,000 civilians were killed during the first four months of this year alone. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara declined to respond to Fonseka's remarks. "This is a comment given by General Fonseka and he will come out with many more," Nanayakkara said. "We will not comment on what he says." The government has previously denied ordering troops to kill Tamil Tiger political wing leader B. Nadesan, senior rebel S. Puleedevan and another Tiger official and their families. The military claimed victory over the LTTE on May 18 after wiping out the leadership of the once-powerful movement, which began its armed struggle for an independent Tamil homeland in 1972. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the group's founder, was killed in the fighting and his body shown on national television. During the war's finale, the United States and other Western nations voiced alarm at Sri Lanka's treatment of non-combatants, along with its internment afterwards of up to 300,000 Tamil civilians. Sri Lanka has said it is now allowing the civilians to leave state-run camps, although human rights groups say that many have nowhere to go with their villages destroyed in the fighting. When launching his election campaign, Fonseka said he was moving into politics because corruption was preventing Sri Lankans from benefiting from the success that military forces had secured under his command. He also surprised critics by agreeing to a possible war crimes investigation.

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Sri Lanka

Tamil Tigers trapped in a square kilometre

2009-05-17

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan troops on Saturday seized the country’s entire coastline for the first time in a 25-year war with the Tamil Tigers, the military said, cutting off escape for separatist rebels now facing annihilation. The Lankan military keeps saying that it's the end for the Tigers. One of these days real soon now that's going to be true ... Two divisions marching from north and south sealed the coast, while a third completed the encirclement of the Tigers and their leaders, now trapped in barely a square kilometre of land without their umbilical access to the sea. “Now we have linked up on the coastline and the Sea Tigers’ activities are no more,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said, referring to the Tigers’ naval wing. Troops were still closing in on the rebels, he said. Another 4,500 people fled the sandy spit of land controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), bringing the total to nearly 20,000 since Thursday, Nanayakkara said. Intelligence reports indicated that LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran and other senior Tigers were in the remaining LTTE territory, Nanayakkara said. I thought by now he'd be hob-nobbing and fund-raising with the ex-pat community in, say, Quebec City ... The Red Cross called the civilians’ plight an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe” because of the lack of food, water and medical care in the battlezone, where the United Nations estimates 30,000-80,000 innocent people remain trapped. “My government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily,” Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa said late on Saturday. “I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE,” he said in a speech at an international gathering in Jordan.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka troops take rebels' defense bund

2009-05-04

(Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's government troops on the forward march in the northeastern battle zone have captured another rebels' earth bunds, a military officer said on Sunday. "The 53rd division has been able to capture the bund north of the Nanthikandal lagoon, south of the A35 road", Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman, said. The 500 meter long and 10 feet wide bund was captured Sunday morning. The Tamil Tigers had suffered extensive damage in the fighting. Nanayakara said the troops are continuing operations in order to free Tamil civilians from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) clutches. The Army's 53rd, 55th, 58th divisions and Task Force 8 have positioned in the no fire zone where the rebels are mingling with civilians and attacking troops. Meanwhile the Police Special Task Force said that search operations for LTTE members in the eastern province's Kanjilkudujiaru jungles were continuing after they gunned down four senior rebels on Saturday. The four rebel seniors have been carrying out LTTE activities in the eastern province's Batticaloa district.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan troops tighten siege of Tamil rebels

2009-05-02

Sri Lankan government troops have tightened their siege of the last strip of land on the island still controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels and are poised for a final assault, the military said on Friday. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told AFP that two columns of troops had consolidated positions along a strip of coastline in the northeast captured from the ethnic rebels earlier this week. "The Tigers have no land escape routes left. We have troops in place to move in at any time," another top military official said. "If not for the civilians still trapped inside, we would have gone in by now." Nanayakkara refused to say when the final assault would take place, asserting that troops "have to consider the civilians" still trapped in the territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). A statement from the office of President Mahinda Rajapakse said government planes on Friday dropped leaflets on LTTE territory urging civilians to cross over. "I appeal to every one of you to come over to the cleared (government-held) areas," the messages from the president said. "I am aware of the tremendous difficulties faced by the civilians who are unfortunately still being held hostage by the LTTE. Your suffering is prolonged by this action of the LTTE who are holding you as a human shield." Craft: Officials said sporadic fighting was continuing Friday, with the navy also fighting an offshore battle with LTTE rebels trying to flee by boat. Navy spokesman Mahesh Karunaratne said three rebel craft were sunk and 23 rebels killed. There was no comment from the Tigers, but the pro-rebel Tamilnet website said the guerrillas had sunk two naval craft in a sea battle.

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Sri Lanka

Lanka snubs Sweden as tensions over war mount

2009-04-29

[Bangla Daily Star] Sri Lanka barred Sweden's foreign minister Tuesday from entering the island on a humanitarian mission, As Diplomatic Tensions Mounted Over The Conduct Of The War On The Tamil Tigers. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt had been due to travel to the war-torn country this week to press demands for aid workers to be given full access to civilians trapped by heavy fighting between government troops and the rebels. But a Sri Lankan foreign ministry official indicated that Colombo felt it had already done enough by allowing Britain and France's top diplomats -- David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner -- to visit Wednesday. "The Swedish minister also wanted to jump on that bandwagon and we said no," the official said. "Some think they can land up at our airport and expect a red carpet treatment. We are not a colony and neither a bankrupt Third World country. Our main donors are in Asia, not in Europe," the official added. Bildt said he had been denied a visa and described the snub as "exceedingly strange behaviour." He was recalling the top Swedish diplomat to Colombo. Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said Sri Lanka's government had made a "grave mistake" that will "have repercussions in Europe and will influence the further relations between the Sri Lankan government and the European states." Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said Bildt had not made a formal application for a visa and his plan to visit the island had not been discussed when the joint visits of French and British ministers were considered. "It needs to be understood that in this instance there had been no formal prior consultations with the government of Sri Lanka with regard to the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister," the foreign ministry statement said. It added that statements from the EU "seem to be emanating from a unilateral decision made on the part of Sweden and the EU with regard to the said visit." The row came a day after the United Nations' humanitarian chief John Holmes also saw his requests for greater humanitarian access turned down, despite mounting international concern over civilian casualties. A UN document circulated among diplomats in Colombo last week said as many as 6,500 civilians may have been killed and another 14,000 wounded in the government's offensive against the separatist rebels so far this year. The UN also estimates that some 50,000 non-combatants are still trapped in the conflict area, and the world body's rights chief has said both sides in the long-running ethnic war may be guilty of war crimes. The government maintains that the number of trapped civilians is fewer than 20,000. President Mahinda Rajapakse pledged Monday that air strikes and attacks using heavy-calibre weapons would stop. But a pro-Tamil Tiger website said government forces continued to pound civilians trapped in the small patch of coastal jungle still held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The military immediately denied the allegation, but did say its troops were advancing. "We did not shell the area. We have not used heavy weapons against civilian areas even before," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. "But ground operations to capture territory and rescue civilians will continue." Officials say the LTTE now controls just six square kilometres (2.5 square miles) of land and is on the brink of defeat after a decades-long campaign for an independent Tamil homeland. The island's government has for months blocked most aid agencies from working in the war-torn north, and has herded escaping Tamil civilians into overcrowded camps which are guarded by the military.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka says combat gives way to rescue

2009-04-28

Sri Lanka on Monday ordered troops to stop using heavy weapons against the Tamil Tiger rebels, and instead focus on protecting and rescuing tens of thousands of people still trapped in the last rebel pocket. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) immediately accused the government of disregarding its own commitment by launching two air raids on the tiny rebel-held area. Sri Lanka's announcement came a day after it dismissed an attempt to declare a truce by the rebels, now cornered in less than 10 square km of coastline by 50,000 troops fighting to finish Asia's longest modern war. Operations over: "Combat operations have reached their conclusion," a statement from President Mahinda Rajapaksa's office said. Soldiers would "confine their attempts to rescuing civilians who are held hostage and give foremost priority to saving civilians". Troops have been ordered not to use heavy-calibre guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons, the statement said. Nonetheless, troops kept moving forward, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. "The rescue operation is continuing today," he said. Special forces, commandos and snipers have been deployed, he said. Analysts said the announcement appeared designed to mollify diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire, which Sri Lanka has ruled out given the LTTE's history of using breaks in the fighting to rearm and its rejection of two government truce offers this year. For weeks before Monday's move, the military had said it was only using small arms in order to protect civilians in what it has dubbed the largest hostage rescue operation in the world. "I don't see any substantial change. This would probably be in deference to international opinion," said Col R Hariharan, who was head of military intelligence for the Indian army during its 1987-1990 peacekeeping mission in Sri Lanka. "What is there to stop anyway? That stage is gone. I don't think anybody will take it very seriously," he said. Bombing: LTTE peace secretariat chief S Puleedevan accused Sri Lanka of "attempting to deceive the international community, including the people of Tamil Nadu" with the announcement, pro-rebel website www.TamilNet.com reported. Puleedevan said two jets bombed the rebel area on Monday, TamilNet reported. Air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said there had been no combat sorties: "That stopped a long time ago." No surrender: Separately, Puleethevan told AFP by telephone that Tamil Tigers would never surrender and would fight on until their demands are met. "We made our position very clear to the international community. We will never surrender till our legitimate demands are met," Puleethevan said. The Sri Lankan war has become an election issue in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, home to 60 million Tamils. The state's chief minister, M Karunanidhi, abruptly stopped a decision to fast in protest at the war after Rajapaksa's announcement. Last-minute diplomatic efforts have borne little fruit, with the LTTE refusing to release tens of thousands of non-combatants it holds inside the war zone, and the government saying the Tigers must surrender or be destroyed. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, due in Sri Lanka on Wednesday with his French and Swedish counterparts to press for a truce, said the fighting had created a crisis. "It's very, very important that we follow through on the government's welcome announcement ... of a cease to combat operations," he told reporters in Luxembourg.

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Sri Lanka

Tamil Tigers still cordoned off

2009-04-24

[Bangla Daily Star] Tamil Tiger rebels encircled in a tiny strip of land by Sri Lankan troops are still putting up stiff resistance despite calls for their surrender, the military said yesterday. The army said the guerrillas controlled a mere 10-12 square kilometres (around four square miles) of territory on the northeast coast, where thousands of civilians are still trapped by the fighting. Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the island's military spokesman, said the Tigers were using artillery and tanks. "There are sporadic clashes but our priority is to get the civilians out. We can finish them off very quickly after the civilians get out of the way," he said. "We can claim we have completely defeated the Tigers when we have captured the remaining area," he said. The defence ministry, meanwhile, said guerrilla resistance was "dwindling."

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Sri Lanka

Fighting resumes in Sri Lanka after ceasefire

2009-04-16

[Bangla Daily Star] Sri Lankan security forces resumed their offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the island yesterday following a brief holiday ceasefire, the two sides said. The navy attacked two Tiger boats that tried to approach the coastline, killing at least 10 guerrillas, a navy spokesman said, adding that one craft was sunk and the other was captured together with a haul of weapons. The sea battle came at the end of a 48-hour ceasefire declared by President Mahinda Rajapakse to coincide with the traditional New Year shared by both majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. A military official said government forces were involved in "normal operations" aimed at finishing off the last of the Tigers, who are facing defeat after 37 years of fighting for an independent Tamil homeland. The army said in a statement that two soldiers had been killed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the ceasefire. The attacks were launched from the government-designated "no-fire zone," the army said. "Belittling the 48-hour humanitarian pause declared by His Excellency the President... LTTE snipers in the 'no-fire zone' fired and killed one more soldier on Tuesday morning," the army said. It said another soldier was killed by Tiger snipers on the first day of the ceasefire while many more were wounded. Military officials said troops did not retaliate during the ceasefire period. The pro-rebel Tamilnet website said both sides launched attacks as the suspension of hostilities ended at midnight and that at least 180 civilians were killed by military rockets and artillery fire on Wednesday morning. Army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied army shelling and said troops had not launched any new operations. The LTTE, which once controlled around a third of the island, are now boxed into a narrow strip of coastal jungle in the northeast where they are vastly outnumbered. Sri Lanka's army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, in an address to troops in Colombo on Wednesday, said the Tigers were facing the "most humiliating defeat" since they were formed in 1972. "The country would be blessed with a peaceful society in the near future," he said, adding that the Tigers had lost more than 18,000 fighters over a period of about three years. International rights groups urged the Commonwealth to pressure both the Sri Lankan government and the Tigers to end the humanitarian crisis caused by heavy fighting. In a letter to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, the London-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the New York-based Human Rights Watch appealed for civilians to be allowed to escape to safety. On Tuesday the rebels said they were ready to negotiate a permanent, internationally backed ceasefire and restart peace talks. But the offer was rejected by the government, with officials accusing the rebels of trying to buy time to regroup. Military sources said Wednesday that troops were positioned around the "no-fire zone," but had not entered the area. The army says remnant LTTE forces have retreated into the safe zone, and are using tens of thousands of civilians as a human shield. It said only about 250 civilians escaped during the brief truce.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka braces for final battle against Tigers

2009-04-07

[Mail and Globe] Sri Lanka's military readied on Monday for a final assault on Tamil Tigers boxed into a strip of jungle with thousands of trapped civilians, after urging the rebels to surrender or face annihilation. Security forces were moving ahead after killing at least 480 Tiger rebels in four days of fierce fighting in the northeast of the island that ended on Sunday, military officials said. Troops recovered the bodies from Puthukkudiriruppu district which was brought under control of the security forces on Sunday, military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said the guerrillas were now confined to a 20 square kilometre coastal area which the military has designated a "safe zone" for tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the conflict area. "They continue to use civilians as a human shield and attack security forces from the safe zone," Nanayakkara said. Sporadic clashes were reported from the region on Monday. Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka told US ambassador Robert Blake that he believed Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran may still be hiding in the area. An "exodus of trapped civilians could be expected at any moment", Fonseka told Blake according to an army statement. In the past four months, about 65 000 people have managed to flee the war zone and find shelter in government-run camps. The United Nations and other foreign aid organisations say as many as 150 000 civilians may still be trapped, although the Sri Lankan government insists the figure is less than half that.

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Sri Lanka

Lanka troops take key village, kill 57 rebels

2009-04-04

[Bangla Daily Star] Sri Lankan troops captured a key village from the Tamil Tigers yesterday after heavy fighting that left at least 44 guerrillas dead while another 13 rebels were killed elsewhere, the military said. Troops moved into Anandapuram, which the rebels had been using as a logistics base, after intense clashes on Thursday, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been putting up stiff resistance to prevent the army taking the village, the spokesman said. He said two senior LTTE leaders were among 44 rebels killed in Thursday's fighting. In another confrontation, police commandos killed 13 Tiger rebels in the eastern district of Ampara on Friday, the military said. On Thursday Sri Lankan troops killed 34 Tamil Tiger separatist rebels during fierce fighting in the island's north in a drive to end a 25-year-old civil war, the military said. Troops collected the bodies of 31 rebels after intense clashes near Puthukkudiyiruppu, the last township held by the Tamil Tigers inside a tiny, shrinking territory, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. Soldiers also recovered 50 assault rifles and communication equipment, he said. The military also ambushed and killed three rebels who infiltrated Viswamadu, a village previously captured by government forces, the military said in a statement. The Tiger guerrillas are battling to hold back a military assault that has pushed them into a 20 square kilometre (eight square mile) patch of land in the northeast of the island.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka gains vital territory as battle reaches to final stage

2009-03-22

(Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's troops have gained from Tamil Tigers a further 1.5 kms on the A35 highway in the north, military officials said Saturday. Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman, said the troops are consolidating in the Mullaithivu district's Iranapalai area which is regarded as the Tamil Tigers' intelligence operations headquarters. Meanwhile, Minister of Media Laxman Yapa Abeywardena told reporters here Saturday that the military believes that the final stage of the battle would happen during the next 2 weeks. "We warn the public to be on alert for desperate action by the LTTE. They could resort to destructive action. There could be acts of terror in the south of the country", Abeywardene said. The military also said that at least 20 Tiger rebels have been killed in sniper attacks by the military on Friday. Most killings by military snipers against the rebels on a single day came at Puthukudyiruppu west and Iranapalai area, officials added. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels are currently limited to 25 sq kms in Puthkudyiruppu, the last LTTE presence in the north after government troops scored a series of win over the rebels since mid 2006. Troops now say they are on the verge of completely crushing the LTTE's over three-decade old campaign to carve out a separate homeland for the minority Tamil community. The military is currently on the look out for the entire senior leadership of the LTTE having deployed a tight sea cordon to prevent them from fleeing.

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Sri Lanka

Tamil Tiger explodes, nobody hurt but him

2009-03-18

A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew himself up several metres from the frontline on Monday, the military said. "A soldier on the frontline in Puthukudiyiruppu observed a military-uniformed man coming towards the [line] and when he moved ahead to search him, the terrorist exploded himself," Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said. He said no soldiers were killed or wounded.

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