Despite claiming that its offensive against the Liberation Tigers in Trincomalee was a ‘humanitarian mission’ to open a water channel blocked in LTTE controlled areas, Sri Lanka’s military this week stepped up and expanded its bombardment, even though the sluice gates were opened Monday.
In the heaviest bombardment of the past few weeks, Sri Lankan artillery hammered civilian areas in LTTE-controlled parts of Trincomalee, prompting tens of thousands of displaced Tamils to flee towards Vaharai to the south.
Fleeing refugees from Eachchilampathu and Muthur were caught in aerial attack and SLA artillery fire Wednesday when they were ferrying across the Verugal river to Vaharai division in Batticaloa district.
At least five people were killed and eighteen wounded in the most intense bombardment of the past three weeks of violence.
Sri Lankan forces manning checkpoints at Panichchankerni, the gateway to Vaharai from Batticaloa district are not allowing international and national non-governmental organizations (INGO and NGO) to take relief goods to Vaharai to be distributed among IDPs.
Sri Lankan troops, meanwhile, are massing in government-controlled areas to the west of the LTTE-controlled Sampur and Eachchilampathu areas. An offensive into the LTTE enclave in the Trincomalee district is widely expected.
The Liberation Tigers said the Sri Lankan government was ignoring the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement and that they would fiercely resist any Army ground offensive.
The international truce monitors said the fighting must stop immediately, but the Sri Lankan government insists its offensive will continue.
“[The governemnt’s] actions show that they want to go to war,” the head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat, Mr. Seevarathnam Puleedevan told AP from the LTTE’s northern headquarters.
According to latest reports received from Muthur east and Eachchilampathu division, people are seen wandering along roads in search of safe places to escape from artillery fire.
More than thirty thousand families have been internally displaced and majority of them are staying in jungles and under culverts through out the day to escape artillery attack which continues day and night.
Analysts say Sri Lanka has recently been seeking a suitable pretext to launch a ground offensive into the Sampur and Eachchilampathu areas and has seized on the Maavil Aru ‘water crisis’ which began when Tamil villages closed the sluice gates there in protest at government plans to build water towers in its controlled areas, but not in LTTE controlled areas.
On July 26, Sri Lanka launched air and artillery bombardment of LTTE-controlled areas around Maavil Aru in Trincomalee, claiming that a sluice gate closed by the LTTE had to be forced open, and then proceeded to launch a ground offensive.
Despite several days of intense shelling and heavy fighting, which added to the thirty thousand Tamils displaced by earlier bombardments, Sri Lankan troops failed to advance against Maavil Aru.
Meanwhile, the LTTE launched a limited counteroffensive against Muttur town to the north, which displaced tens of thousands of Muslims and Tamils in government-controlled areas.
The intervention of Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hansen-Bauer last week secured a deal with the LTTE. But when international truce monitors went to open the sluice gates with LTTE officials, they came under Sri Lanka artillery fire.
“It is quite obvious they [the government] are not interested in water. They are interested in something else. We will blame this on the government,” Tommy Lekenmyr, chief of staff for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which oversees the island’s truce told Reuters.
“The government’s response to the LTTE’s humanitarian gesture [on Sunday] was fire,” he told Sri Lanka’s MTV channel.
This Monday the LTTE unilaterally opened the sluice gates, saying the move was in response to Norwegian appeals and intended to ease the humanitarian crisis.
Trincomalee District Political Head of the Tigers, S. Elilan, said “the LTTE, as agreed with the Norwegian facilitators, opened the sluice gate as a good-will gesture, amid heavy artillery firing by the Sri Lankan forces that were unable to reach the Maavilaru site.”
However Sri Lanka dismissed the move, claiming its forces had opened the sluice gates after advancing to their location.
Then the government also said it would not end its campaign until it controlled the sluice and a reservoir used for irrigation located in an area both sides claim as theirs. Truce monitors say the Tigers have de facto control.
“The Army say they have successfully reopened the sluice, and yet they still continue to attack. It doesn’t make sense,” said Thorfinnur Omarsson, spokesman for the SLMM. “It should be over.”
“Our concern is control of the water should be under the government,” said government defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. “If it is under the terrorists, as and when they want they can open and close it.
“This is really putting the ceasefire in danger,” S. Puleedevan, head of the Tigers’ peace secretariat, said by telephone from the northern LTTE base of Kilinochchi.
“We have clearly mentioned that this is tantamount to a declaration of war if the Sri Lankan armed forces launch official attacks,” he added, saying the Tigers had no intention of giving up the sluice area.
Analysts say the Sri Lanka Army has been planning the offensive for months, if not a year. They cite the systematic destruction of infrastructure in the Sampur and Eachchilampathu areas over the past few months, along an embargo on cement and building materials which is now in its fifteenth month.
Apart from clamping a food and medicine embargo on LTTE controlled areas several months ago, the Sri Lankan military has deliberately sought to displace much of the population.
The displaced have been facing starvation due to the non-supply of food materials and urgent medical assistance. They are also facing a shortage of shelter as the tents supplied are not enough to put up temporary shelters for everyone.
There are no reliable death toll figures, as many areas in the Trincomalee conflict zone are still deemed too dangerous to enter because of landmines and booby traps, but dozens have been confirmed dead and aid workers fear the number could be far higher.
Over the past few weeks, bombing by the Sri Lanka Air Force has destroyed the road network and bridges in the LTTE controlled areas. School buildings, several civilian houses and other public buildings in the LTTE held areas have also been destroyed.
The infrastructure facilities of the Muthur east and Eachchilampathu have almost completely destroyed.
Ilankaithurai Muhathuwaram Bridge which connects the LTTE held Muttur east and Eachchilampathu division was badly damaged due to aerial bombardment, severing the land route between the two areas.
Since then the movement of civilians and vehicular transport have come to a standstill.
The supply of food and other relief assistance by local volunteer organizations in these areas has also been disrupted due to damage cause to the road network.
Most of the Tamil families in LTTE held Muthur east fled and sought refuge in Eachchilampathu division villages following Sri Lankan air, sea and artillery bombardment unleashed soon after the suicide bomb attack which wounded SLA Army Commander Sarath Fonseka on April 25.
Since then displacement of Tamil families has been compelled by regular bombardment.
The latest violence comes after 17 local staff from international aid group Action Contre La Faim were found shot dead in their office on Sunday in the eastern town of Muttur, the site of days of fierce fighting.
Some relatives of the dead - most of them Tamils - have blamed Sri Lankan troops for the killings.
Meanwhile, despite another appeal by Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hansen-Bauer, the Tigers continue to insist that cease-fire monitors from European Union countries leave Sri Lanka. They made the demand after the EU officially labeled the LTTE a terrorist organization in May.
The 54-member observer mission would lose roughly two-thirds of its members, which they say would further undermine the cease-fire. But the Tigers say that countries which deem them terrorists cannot be part of a neutral monitoring mission.
In the heaviest bombardment of the past few weeks, Sri Lankan artillery hammered civilian areas in LTTE-controlled parts of Trincomalee, prompting tens of thousands of displaced Tamils to flee towards Vaharai to the south.
Fleeing refugees from Eachchilampathu and Muthur were caught in aerial attack and SLA artillery fire Wednesday when they were ferrying across the Verugal river to Vaharai division in Batticaloa district.
At least five people were killed and eighteen wounded in the most intense bombardment of the past three weeks of violence.
Sri Lankan forces manning checkpoints at Panichchankerni, the gateway to Vaharai from Batticaloa district are not allowing international and national non-governmental organizations (INGO and NGO) to take relief goods to Vaharai to be distributed among IDPs.
Sri Lankan troops, meanwhile, are massing in government-controlled areas to the west of the LTTE-controlled Sampur and Eachchilampathu areas. An offensive into the LTTE enclave in the Trincomalee district is widely expected.
The Liberation Tigers said the Sri Lankan government was ignoring the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement and that they would fiercely resist any Army ground offensive.
The international truce monitors said the fighting must stop immediately, but the Sri Lankan government insists its offensive will continue.
“[The governemnt’s] actions show that they want to go to war,” the head of the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat, Mr. Seevarathnam Puleedevan told AP from the LTTE’s northern headquarters.
According to latest reports received from Muthur east and Eachchilampathu division, people are seen wandering along roads in search of safe places to escape from artillery fire.
More than thirty thousand families have been internally displaced and majority of them are staying in jungles and under culverts through out the day to escape artillery attack which continues day and night.
Analysts say Sri Lanka has recently been seeking a suitable pretext to launch a ground offensive into the Sampur and Eachchilampathu areas and has seized on the Maavil Aru ‘water crisis’ which began when Tamil villages closed the sluice gates there in protest at government plans to build water towers in its controlled areas, but not in LTTE controlled areas.
On July 26, Sri Lanka launched air and artillery bombardment of LTTE-controlled areas around Maavil Aru in Trincomalee, claiming that a sluice gate closed by the LTTE had to be forced open, and then proceeded to launch a ground offensive.
Despite several days of intense shelling and heavy fighting, which added to the thirty thousand Tamils displaced by earlier bombardments, Sri Lankan troops failed to advance against Maavil Aru.
Meanwhile, the LTTE launched a limited counteroffensive against Muttur town to the north, which displaced tens of thousands of Muslims and Tamils in government-controlled areas.
The intervention of Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hansen-Bauer last week secured a deal with the LTTE. But when international truce monitors went to open the sluice gates with LTTE officials, they came under Sri Lanka artillery fire.
“It is quite obvious they [the government] are not interested in water. They are interested in something else. We will blame this on the government,” Tommy Lekenmyr, chief of staff for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which oversees the island’s truce told Reuters.
“The government’s response to the LTTE’s humanitarian gesture [on Sunday] was fire,” he told Sri Lanka’s MTV channel.
This Monday the LTTE unilaterally opened the sluice gates, saying the move was in response to Norwegian appeals and intended to ease the humanitarian crisis.
Trincomalee District Political Head of the Tigers, S. Elilan, said “the LTTE, as agreed with the Norwegian facilitators, opened the sluice gate as a good-will gesture, amid heavy artillery firing by the Sri Lankan forces that were unable to reach the Maavilaru site.”
However Sri Lanka dismissed the move, claiming its forces had opened the sluice gates after advancing to their location.
Then the government also said it would not end its campaign until it controlled the sluice and a reservoir used for irrigation located in an area both sides claim as theirs. Truce monitors say the Tigers have de facto control.
“The Army say they have successfully reopened the sluice, and yet they still continue to attack. It doesn’t make sense,” said Thorfinnur Omarsson, spokesman for the SLMM. “It should be over.”
“Our concern is control of the water should be under the government,” said government defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. “If it is under the terrorists, as and when they want they can open and close it.
“This is really putting the ceasefire in danger,” S. Puleedevan, head of the Tigers’ peace secretariat, said by telephone from the northern LTTE base of Kilinochchi.
“We have clearly mentioned that this is tantamount to a declaration of war if the Sri Lankan armed forces launch official attacks,” he added, saying the Tigers had no intention of giving up the sluice area.
Analysts say the Sri Lanka Army has been planning the offensive for months, if not a year. They cite the systematic destruction of infrastructure in the Sampur and Eachchilampathu areas over the past few months, along an embargo on cement and building materials which is now in its fifteenth month.
Apart from clamping a food and medicine embargo on LTTE controlled areas several months ago, the Sri Lankan military has deliberately sought to displace much of the population.
The displaced have been facing starvation due to the non-supply of food materials and urgent medical assistance. They are also facing a shortage of shelter as the tents supplied are not enough to put up temporary shelters for everyone.
There are no reliable death toll figures, as many areas in the Trincomalee conflict zone are still deemed too dangerous to enter because of landmines and booby traps, but dozens have been confirmed dead and aid workers fear the number could be far higher.
Over the past few weeks, bombing by the Sri Lanka Air Force has destroyed the road network and bridges in the LTTE controlled areas. School buildings, several civilian houses and other public buildings in the LTTE held areas have also been destroyed.
The infrastructure facilities of the Muthur east and Eachchilampathu have almost completely destroyed.
Ilankaithurai Muhathuwaram Bridge which connects the LTTE held Muttur east and Eachchilampathu division was badly damaged due to aerial bombardment, severing the land route between the two areas.
Since then the movement of civilians and vehicular transport have come to a standstill.
The supply of food and other relief assistance by local volunteer organizations in these areas has also been disrupted due to damage cause to the road network.
Most of the Tamil families in LTTE held Muthur east fled and sought refuge in Eachchilampathu division villages following Sri Lankan air, sea and artillery bombardment unleashed soon after the suicide bomb attack which wounded SLA Army Commander Sarath Fonseka on April 25.
Since then displacement of Tamil families has been compelled by regular bombardment.
The latest violence comes after 17 local staff from international aid group Action Contre La Faim were found shot dead in their office on Sunday in the eastern town of Muttur, the site of days of fierce fighting.
Some relatives of the dead - most of them Tamils - have blamed Sri Lankan troops for the killings.
Meanwhile, despite another appeal by Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hansen-Bauer, the Tigers continue to insist that cease-fire monitors from European Union countries leave Sri Lanka. They made the demand after the EU officially labeled the LTTE a terrorist organization in May.
The 54-member observer mission would lose roughly two-thirds of its members, which they say would further undermine the cease-fire. But the Tigers say that countries which deem them terrorists cannot be part of a neutral monitoring mission.
