A strike called by Tamil Tiger rebels shut down two northern districts and severed road links yesterday in an apparent protest against alleged police excesses, a day after the government rejected the guerrillas' demand to unconditionally restart peace talks or risk a resumption of civil war.
The Tigers' chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, said during his annual policy address over the weekend that negotiations should resume immediately or he would revert to his "freedom struggle" -- an apparent reference to the brutal two-decade civil war the group waged before a ceasefire in 2002 halted the fighting.
Sri Lanka's Defense Ministry said road links with the north remained cut off after rebels closed entry points.
"Thousands of people are stranded, some of them needing medical care," Defense Ministry spokesman Brigadier Daya Ratnayake told reporters in the capital, Colombo.
Between 12,000 to 15,000 people use the road, a major supply route to the Tamil-dominated Jaffna peninsula that is overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Defense Ministry said it was watching the situation in the districts of Vavuniya and Mannar where the strike has brought normal life to a standstill, residents reached by telephone said. The Tamil-dominated districts are traditional rebel strongholds.
"We are keeping close watch and it is peaceful," Ratnayake said.
The Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting since 1983 to carve out a separate state, accusing the majority Sinhalese of discrimination against minority Tamils.
Yesterday's strike was the second called by the rebels since the weekend. A similar strike in the port city of Trincomalee left three people dead and strained the fragile ceasefire.
The military says the rebels are deliberately creating tension.
Relations between the rebels and the government further soured on Saturday when Prabhakaran said that if the government rejects his appeal for immediate peace talks "we have no alternative other than to advance the freedom struggle of our nation."
He stopped short of directly saying that hostilities could resume. But even as he called on the government to hold unconditional talks, he set his own terms for the negotiations, saying they should be based on the rebels' self-rule plan. That proposal calls for a largely independent territory for Tamils, with control over its own administration, police and legal system, unrestricted access to the sea, and the right to collect taxes and receive direct foreign aid.
The government reacted by chastising the rebels for their "threatening language." The government also said the talks should involve "exploring a permanent settlement. "
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS