Sri Lanka pulls out of cease-fire deal

COLOMBO—Sri Lanka’s government officially notified peace-broker Norway on Thursday that it is pulling out of a 2002 cease-fire agreement with Tamil Tiger rebels that has failed to quell the violence.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama handed a letter to Norwegian Ambassador Tore Hattrem, saying the government has decided to terminate the Norway-brokered agreement, a Foreign Ministry statement said. The government has said growing violence in the last two years has rendered the agreement irrelevant.
The United States said it was “troubled” by the government’s decision, saying it will make solving the country’s problems even harder. “All parties to the conflict share the responsibility to protect the rights of all of Sri Lanka’s people,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.
Norway has warned the violence raging in Sri Lanka would likely worsen. “This comes on top of the increasingly frequent and brutal acts of violence perpetrated by both parties, and I am deeply concerned that the violence and hostilities will now escalate even further,” said Erik Solheim, a key mediator in the decades-old civil war. “This would weaken efforts to protect the civilian population, which would be most regrettable,” Solheim was quoted as saying on the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s Web site late Wednesday after the Sri Lankan government decided to withdraw from the pact. The truce becomes invalid from Jan. 16, two weeks after the handing of the notice to the Norwegians.
With the cease-fire’s end, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, a Nordic group that acted as one of the few independent observers of the war, said it had lost its mandate and was terminating its mission. The mission had access to both sides and the freedom to investigate reports of civilian casualties. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement Thursday that he “regrets the decision made by the government” to end the truce.
Ban urged the warring groups “to ensure the protection of civilians and enable humanitarian assistance to be provided to affected areas.” Ban also said there was an “urgent need to end the bloodshed in Sri Lanka through a political solution.”
Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. on Friday to send a human rights monitoring mission to replace the departing European observers.
“The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission was deeply flawed, but its monitors helped to minimize abuses against civilians,” said Elaine Pearson, the New York-based group’s deputy Asia director. “Now the need for a U.N. monitoring mission is greater than ever.” Jehan Perera, from the independent think tank National Peace Council, said the monitors’ departure would deprive the world of independent reports.
“This is a loss for the civilians, because the monitors were of some reassurance and comfort to them,” he said. More than 70,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since the Tigers began fighting for an independent state for the ethnic Tamil minority in 1983, claiming discrimination by the Sinhalese majority.
Despite the cease-fire, near-daily ambushes, assassinations and airstrikes have killed more than 5,000 people in the last two years. Sri Lanka’s Media Minister Anura Yapa said the truce was ended because it was “a nonfunctioning agreement.” He added peace talks with the Tamil Tigers would not take place until the rebels fully disarm.
“It’s useless talking to them now,” Yapa told a news conference. “But in the future ... if they decide to lay down their arms and come to talks, the government can reconsider.” No immediate comment was available from the rebels. The truce had been considered the foundation for a long-term peace deal that would bring a permanent end to the civil war, and it received widespread international support. The government’s decision Wednesday to pull out came hours after a roadside bomb struck a bus of wounded soldiers being taken to a hospital in the capital, Colombo, killing four people and wounding 24 others.—Agencies