Rebels warn Sri Lanka last chance to avert war

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka’s government faces its final opportunity to avert a return to a civil war, the Tamil Tigers have warned, vowing to use all available resources to fight unless given a homeland.

The Tigers, who used suicide bombers to devastating effect in their drive for autonomy and have threatened to resume their struggle next year unless given political powers in the north and east, said their deadline depends on new President Mahinda Rajapakse’s response.

“We don’t prefer war. If a war is thrusted on the Tamil people, the Tamil people and the LTTE (will) make use of all the resources available to fight back,” S.P. Thamilselvan, head of the Tigers’ political wing, told Reuters in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi in an interview late on Friday.

“We consider this is an important final opportunity,” he added, saying the Tigers would give Colombo a “short space” to come up with a peace blueprint that accepts their demands for a homeland for ethnic Tamils and self-determination.

“Whether the short space is going to be first half, mid or the latter half (of 2006) is in the hands of Colombo.”

Rajapakse, allied to hardline Marxists and Buddhists who detest the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has already ruled out a separate homeland for Tamils outright.

A surge in attacks against the military, which culminated in two claymore mine blasts this month that killed 14 soldiers in the northern Jaffna peninsula, have raised fears of a return to a war that killed over 64,000 people up until a 2002 truce.

The Tigers, accused of assassinating the island’s foreign minister in August, deny any hand in attacks on military patrols and sentries -- which analysts say is a stock denial -- and the ceasefire is at its lowest ebb.

Some tsunami aid workers are considering pulling out of coastal rebel territory and Colombo’s stock exchange has plunged amid fears a return to war will torpedo any hope of an influx of much-needed foreign investment into the $20 billion economy.

Fighting words

“Any living being if challenged or if tortured or if threatened of its existence will fight back, that is nature’s law, and we human beings are no exception and we Tamils are no exception,” Thamilselvan, 38, said in his native Tamil through a translator.

The armed forces’ claim on Friday that they could defeat the Tigers if war resumes was a provocative mistake, he added.

“We take it as an egotistic and supremacist thinking mode in which the Sri Lankan forces behave,” he said. “It is a ridiculous thing for the military to say things like that and most irresponsible... What type of a victory would that be?”

“Even after facing defeat in several instances at the hands of the LTTE, the military has not learnt proper lessons.”

Any resumption of hostilities would be a major setback for plans to restore crumbling infrastructure like roads, hit by years of under-investment as war swallowed state resources.

The road from Jaffna to Kilinochchi is still lined with the charred remains of homes shelled to oblivion before the truce, segments of wall still standing pockmarked where strafed with bullets.

Analysts say the Tigers have used the ceasefire to regroup and rearm, and say the fact they scuppered the chances of Rajapakse’s moderate rival during last month’s presidential election with a boycott that scared hundreds of thousands of Tamils from voting, shows they are not ready for lasting peace.

The rebels, who have also sustained losses blamed on feuding with a renegade faction they accuse the military of supporting, have called on the international community to ensure Rajapakse and the military implement the terms of the ceasefire.

“The ceasefire agreement is the bedrock of the entire peace process and is at grave risk,” Thamilselvan said.

“In the event of all else failing, after exhaustion of all avenues of considering viable alternatives, then the Tamil people will have to exercise their right to self determination.”