Fighting rages in Sri Lanka, Tamil MP killed

COLOMBO—Sri Lanka’s military said it sank two Tamil Tiger suicide boats in a new clash on Friday and a pro-rebel MP was assassinated in the capital, underlining the escalation of a two-decade civil war in the island republic.
Military officials said the navy had spotted two rebel suicide boats hidden among fishing boats in seas off the eastern district of Trincomalee and opened fire. That clash came after the military said it had destroyed 22 rebel vessels off the island’s northern tip late on Thursday, undermining pledges by both sides in October to halt the worst violence since a 2002 ceasefire, which now exists only in name.
“We detected two suicide boats (off Trincomalee) this morning and fired at them. There was a huge explosion and they were completely destroyed,” a military spokesman said. The Tigers were not immediately available for comment. In Colombo, the government condemned the murder of Nadarajah Raviraj, a prominent member of the Tamil National Alliance — widely seen as the Tigers’ proxy in parliament — who was shot in the head by a gunman who then fled on a motorcycle.
Raviraj, a lawyer, was shot in a residential suburb while on his way to court. The TNA blamed the government. “It is government forces or forces aligned to the government, there can be no question,” TNA leader R. Sampanthan told Reuters. “This is an attempt to stifle... and silence those who can justifiably espouse the Tamil cause,” he added, calling for a probe into the killing.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said he wanted Scotland Yard to probe the murder of the lawmaker, adding it appeared designed to discredit the government. The Colombo Stock Exchange fell 0.6 percent on Friday, pulling back from new all-time highs hit on Thursday, because of the violence. Many in Sri Lanka fear the fighting could herald a full-blown return to a war that has killed well over 65,000 people since 1983. The international community is appalled. “What are they thinking?” asked a diplomat who declined to be named. “It makes you wonder, do they both actually want a war?”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who is visiting India, said both Washington and New Delhi were “very concerned” about the situation in Sri Lanka. “That’s another horrible act, it’s really deplorable,” he told a news conference, referring to Raviraj’s killing. “It’s very important for both sides to understand that they are not gaining anything militarily, they are losing ground in terms of their political standing,” Boucher said. “They’re certainly not going to get a solution through violence. The only way to do this is ... to talk and to take viable political positions that can solve this.”
India, which has a large Tamil minority of its own, was closely involved in efforts to resolve the Sri Lankan conflict in the late 1980s but has stayed away since after blaming the Tigers for the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. But New Delhi is coming under pressure to intercede. “If we let go now, Eelam Tamils will be entirely wiped out,” M. Karunanidhi, chief minister of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, said in a statement, referring to Sri Lankan Tamils. “We must take immediate action to prevent this. How long is India going to stay patient?”
Violence in Sri Lanka has escalated since Wednesday, when the army bombed a refugee camp in Tamil territory in the restive east, killing dozens of civilians, wounding at least 125 and prompting a mass exodus. Truce monitors tried to head to the area near the camp on Friday, where an estimated 30,000-35,000 internally displaced are stranded, but said the security forces blocked them. “We are in a desperate situation. We are trying to monitor but are simply not being allowed to properly do so by either side. It makes us wonder why we’re here,” said Helen Olafsdottir, spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
The government flatly rejects the Tigers’ demand for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the island’s north and east, where they already run a de facto state, and any meaningful peace deal is seen years off.—Agencies