President of Sri Lanka Orders Halt in Fighting

[Harold Schiffman]

President of Sri Lanka Orders Halt in Fighting
By REUTERS
Filed at 6:19 a.m. ET

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's president on Sunday ordered the
military not to attack the Tamil Tigers during a two-day holiday in
order to allow thousands of civilians to escape a no-fire zone where
they are being held by the separatists. Soldiers have encircled the
remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a 17 square
km (6 sq mile) no-fire zone on the northeast coast, and are close to
crushing them as a conventional force and ending Asia's
longest-running civil wars. President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that
people should be "given uninhibited freedom of movement from the
no-fire zone" in the Sinhala and Tamil New Year period on Monday and
Tuesday.

"With this objective in view, His Excellency has directed the armed
forces of the state to restrict their operations during the New Year
to those of a defensive nature," the presidential statement said.
There was no immediate comment from the LTTE, whose agreement to let
the people go is essential. The United Nations and witnesses say
people are being kept as human shields and forced conscripts or being
shot as they try to flee.
In late January, Rajapaksa gave a 48-hour window of safe passage to
civilians and urged the Tigers to let them go, but the rebels refused.
The LTTE so far has refused any diplomatic entreaties to get them to
let people leave whom they insist are staying by choice.

Diplomats have been working furiously to negotiate an exit strategy
for the people, who number 60,000 according to the government and
around 100,000, according to the United Nations. Rajapaksa again urged
the LTTE to surrender. "In the true spirit of the season, it is timely
for the LTTE to acknowledge its military defeat and lay down its
weapons and surrender. The LTTE must also renounce terrorism and
violence permanently," the statement said.

The Tigers have vowed not to give up their fight for a separate nation
for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, which has engulfed the Indian Ocean
island nation in a civil war that has killed at least 70,000 since
1983. Since LTTE fighters wear vials of cyanide in case of capture,
surrender is seen as unlikely despite the overwhelming military
firepower facing them. The mediators of Sri Lanka's peace process --
the United States, Britain, Norway and Japan -- on Friday urged the
Tigers to end the "futile fighting" and urged the military not to fire
into the no-fire zone so the civilians will be safe.

The military denies shooting into civilian areas and says claims it
does are Tiger propaganda. It has also refused all calls for a
ceasefire, saying the Tigers repeatedly have used them to regroup to
fight another day. In the latest of a series of international
demonstrations over the war, around 100,000 people marched through
London on Saturday to demand a ceasefire between Sri Lankan forces and
the Tigers. The march through central London, organized by a British
Tamil group, was the biggest yet in a week of demonstrations by Tamils
and their supporters in various cities.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/04/12/world/international-us-srilanka-war.html?hp=&pagewanted=print


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