'LTTE' leaflet makes Muslims flee Mutur areas

Colombo, September 23, 2006
Over 2,000 Muslims have fled from Mutur in the Trincomalee district of Eastern Sri Lanka, after a leaflet, believed to have been issued by a front organization of the LTTE, announced that the Tamil militant group is going to launch a fresh military offensive.

The last military offensive and the counter offensive by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces had taken place in the first week of August, resulting in over 50,000 people, mostly Muslims, fleeing Mutur town and its surroundings.

Reports reaching Colombo on Saturday said that the Muslims were fleeing to the Sinhala majority area of Kantalai and Kinniya. But they were stopped by the Sri Lankan Army and asked to get back.

The last time the Muslims came to Kantalai and Kinniya, the local Sinhalas feared that they might settled down their permanently. The government had to pressurise the refugees to get back to Mutur.

LTTE denies issuing leaflet

Denying any responsibility for the leaflet, the LTTE's political leader for Trincomalee district, Elilan, said that the Tamil Tigers had nothing to do with the organisation in whose name the leaflets appeared.

Elilan told the pro-LTTE Tamil website www.puthinam.com that the leaflets were distributed by the Sri Lankan government to drive a wedge between the Muslims and Tamils of Mutur.

"But despite the denial, people are leaving. Fear has gripped them, given past experience," an informed source in Trincomalee town told Hindustan Times over phone.

"A few weeks before the LTTE occupation of Mutur in August, a similar leaflet was distributed and therefore a second leaflet had created legitimate fears among the Muslims in the area that this too would indicate another LTTE attack," said Rauff Hakeem, Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).

While noting the LTTE's denial of any involvement, Hakeem said, "As the leader of the country's main Muslim party I kindly request the LTTE leadership to issue a public statement denying any LTTE involvement in the leaflets and prevent another humanitarian crisis if the LTTE did not have any hand in them."

The short but brutal war, which began with the LTTE's occupation of Mutur on August 2, claimed many lives and led to the displacement of 50,000 people, mostly Muslims.

But even as these people were resettling themselves in Mutur after the end of the hostilities, a leaflet issued by the "Tamil Eelam Redemption Force" on Friday, announced that the LTTE was to launch a strong attack on the government forces in Mutur and advised the Muslims to leave the area to avoid being used by the government forces as a "human shield".

Rice urges Sri Lanka on bid for new peace talks with Tamils

New York, Sept 24: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged her Sri Lankan counterpart to make a concerted effort in planned peace talks with rebels from the country`s Tamil minority, a senior US official said.

Meeting with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly yesterday, Rice voiced strong support for Norwegian-mediated efforts to halt a resurgence in fighting between government forces and the rebel liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"She urged the government to engage in a focused, concerted way with the Norwegians as they try to start another round of negotiations with the LTTE," the senior official said on condition he not be identified.

The warring parties agreed last week in Brussels to hold face-to-face talks early next month in Oslo in a bid to salvage a fragile truce in place since February 2002.

A flare-up in tit-for-tat violence over the past 10 months has left more than 1,500 people dead and left the truced accord in tatters.

Rebels among the Hindu Tamil minority have waged a drawn-out insurgency for a separate ethnic homeland in the North and East of Sri Lanka, a majority Sinhalese Buddhist nation.

More than 60,000 people have died since the rebellion began in 1972.

Bureau Report

Britain extends travel warning to Sri Lanka to Muslim east

MALLAWARACHI - Associated Press Writer - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) The British Foreign Office on Friday upgraded a travel warning to cover a Muslim-dominated eastern area of Sri Lanka - , as the military reported four civilian deaths in separate incidents in two days. British authorities have been advising against traveling to the north and east of Sri Lanka - since renewed fighting between government troops and ethnic Tamil Tiger rebels broke out in August. More than 1,000 combatants and civilians have been killed in the resurgent violence.

Separately, suspected Tamil rebels fatally shot a Tamil civilian in the northwest overnight and troops found the bullet-riddled bodies of three civilians in the northern Jaffna Peninsula, the military said Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the Tamil rebels, who began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland in the north and east for Sri Lanka - 's largest ethnic minority. The conflict was nominally halted by a Norway-brokered cease-fire in 2002 although the recent wave of violence has threatened to drag the country back into full-scale civil war.

Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar on Friday met the Tamil Tigers' political leader, Suppiah Thamilselvan, in the northern rebel stronghold Kilinochchi. The two discussed a recent rash of abductions, the rebels said on their official Web site. No additional details were available.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed or have disappeared in shadowy circumstances since December, when the latest surge of fighting began in earnest.

Police on Friday detained a suspected separatist who was transporting explosive belts, a Claymore mine, remote controls and detonators to the capital in a hidden fuel tank, military officials said.

A high-ranking military official said he believed the suspect was plotting to target top government or military officials. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of military regulations.

The arrest came five months after suspected rebels plotted a failed suicide attack against the country's top-ranking military official, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka.