INDIA-SRILANKA-MALDIVES

Ceasefire in Northern Sri Lanka

Colombo, April 27: A day after terming the Tigers’ unilateral ‘ceasefire’ as a joke, the Sri Lanka government has announced end of combat operations with heavy weapons. A statement from the Presidential Secretariat stopped   said, the army has stopped using heavy weapons in a bid to spare the lives of civilians trapped in a Tamil rebel-held ‘no-fire’ zone.

‘Government of Sri Lanka has decided that combat operations have reached their conclusion,’ the statement said. ‘Our security forces have been instructed to end the use of heavy caliber guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons which could cause civilian causalities’, it added.

The statement said that the forces would ‘confine their attempts to (rescue) civilians who are held hostage and give foremost priority to saving civilians’.

In essence the statement amounts to ordering of cease-fire sought by India, the US and other countries in recent weeks.

The Lanka defence ministry however disputes this interpretation, which it says, is a ‘crude’ and an ‘unethical’ way of media reportage and a ‘blatant twist’ of the Government decision  ‘to motivate the hell-bent terrorist sympathisers-cum- political clouts’.    The reference is obviously to political parties in Tamilnadu, most of whom have rallied of late in support of Eelam for Tamils of Lanka.

The Eelam War IV, as the current phase of operations against the LTTE are described locally,  was sparked off by the Tiger’s decision to close the sluice gates of a major irrigation system in Eastern Sri Lanka in August 2006.

The Tiger’s chief Prabhakaran is on the run. His whereabouts are unknown though he is still believed to be holed up somewhere in an Eight Sq Km area on the east coast.

Next to Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, the Tamil Tigers are probably the worst bunch of ultra-nationalist extremists that Asia has seen in the past half-century.

Terrorism might come to an end in Sri Lanka if Colombo is willing to give the Tamils a fair deal through devolution of central powers

Sharing:

Your comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *