Norwegian-led peace monitors met with Tamil Tiger rebel leaders yesterday to discuss a "dangerous" split among the guerrillas, officials said.
The meeting in the rebel-held northern town of Kilinochchi came a day after a senior rebel said more than a third of the Tigers, or about 6,000 guerrillas, in eastern Sri Lanka had split off from the main insurgent army because of disputes over the deployment of fighters.
"I can confirm that the meeting has started," said Agnes Bragadottir, spokeswoman of the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. She declined to give details. Kilinochchi is 275km north of Colombo.
Word of the rift, a month ahead of nationwide elections, is a blow to the rebels, who until now have been largely united in their 19-year war for a separate homeland. Although the split is unlikely to set off factional fighting, dissension among rebel ranks is seldom tolerated.
The guerrillas tried to present a united front yesterday. An unidentified spokesman for Karuna, the head of the eastern faction, denied there was a schism and pledged allegiance to the Tiger "leader," an apparent reference to top guerrilla leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran.
"We will be functioning directly under the command of our leader," the Karuna spokesman was quoted as saying by the TamilNet Web site, which reports on rebel affairs.
But a senior official from Karuna's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that Karuna was heading a new faction after arguing with Prabhakaran over sending new recruits from the east to the north.
The official said Karuna felt that rebel leaders in the north had taken young fighters as well as other resources from the east, but not given anything back.
Prabhakaran will now command an estimated 9,000 troops, he added.
The official said the split would not lead to fighting between the rebel factions.
However, some rebels who have tried to leave the group in the past have been killed.
The split is likely to hamper efforts by Norwegian negotiators to secure a peace deal between the rebels and the government. Hagrup Haukland, deputy head of the peace monitoring team, described it as a "dangerous situation."
"We need to look closely at what's happening," Haukland said ahead of the trip.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS