04-02-2008

Sri Lanka 'winning war' against Tamil Tigers: president

by Amal Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's president insisted Monday his government was winning the war against Tamil Tiger rebels as the island marked its 60th anniversary of independence after a bloody weekend of violence.

Kicking off a display of military hardware along Colombo's sea front promenade ringed by stiff security, President Mahinda Rajapakse also brushed off threats of foreign aid cuts due to the worsening ethnic conflict and human rights situation.

Monday's celebrations went ahead despite threats from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and following two weekend bomb attacks that killed 34 civilians and wounded nearly 200.

The president said the "challenge bestowed upon us by history is the defeat of terrorism," and asserted government forces had cornered the rebels in the northern part of the island.

"We faced this challenge squarely without avoiding it. Our security forces are today achieving victories against terrorism unprecedented in history," he said in an address to the nation from Colombo's Galle Face road.

"Terrorism is receiving an unprecedented defeat," said Rajapakse, whose government pulled out of a tattered Norwegian-brokered truce with the rebels last month.

According to the defence ministry, the rebels -- who are fighting for an independent ethnic homeland in the Sinhalese-majority island -- have lost at least 908 fighters since the beginning of the year, compared to just 36 government soldiers killed.

At least 139 civilians have also died during the same period, according to both sides.

The Freedom Day celebrations were marked by a heavy security operation, with thousands of additional police and troops called out and mobile phone text messaging cut.

The Sri Lankan navy also stepped up patrols to prevent sea-borne attacks by the Sea Tigers, the LTTE's naval unit, and air defence systems were on alert amid fears of a attacks by the rebels' light-aircraft.

Two hours before the ceremonies got underway here, suspected Tiger rebels set off a bomb and destroyed an electricity transformer at a suburb of Colombo, police said, but there were no casualties.

They said a more powerful bomb was found and defused hours earlier in the same area.

The worsening fighting, as well as mounting international concern over the human rights situation, has led to threats of cut in foreign aid to the island.

Rajapakse, however, appeared to brush off such warnings by asserting that Sri Lanka has "established new relations with our neighbouring states, Arab states, and Buddhist states."

"Our neighbouring states trust us. Our problems and issues are also problems and issues of our neighbouring states," he said.

His remarks followed a thinly veiled warning from Japan, the island's main financial backer, that it may review its aid policy unless there was a decline in the level of violence.

The United States and Britain, Sri Lanka's former colonial ruler, last year announced aid cuts to the island citing human rights violations and high defence spending by the government.

The US has also stopped selling military hardware to Colombo.

"We have been able to obtain and use aid that is beneficial to the development of the country," the president said at the military parade, which featured multi-barrel rocket launchers, and Israeli-built Kfir and Russian MiG-27 war planes.

To mark independence day, the island's prisons chief said around 2,280 inmates serving time for minor offences had received ammnesties.

Source-AFP