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Ceasefire fails to stop Batticaloa killings

Tamil civilians mourn during the funeral of Tamil Tiger political chief E. Kausalyan and his colleagues, slain by gunfire in February in Thandiyady, about 205km east of Colombo, Sri Lanka. About 90 percent of the 425 fatalities reported across Sri Lanka since the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels signed a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire in 2002 have occurred in Eastern Sri Lanka, a resource-filled but poverty-ridden region which has become the latest killing field in Sri Lanka's mired civil war after the rebels split in March last year. PHOTO: AP

Killers on motorbikes hunt down their targets everywhere in this strip of Sri Lanka's coastline: In Hindu temples, bus stations or rice fields.

An internationally monitored ceasefire hasn't stopped it. Days ago, gunmen suspected to be Tamil Tiger rebels sprayed three Sri Lankan soldiers with dozens of bullets, killing them as they boarded a motorized rickshaw.

About 90 percent of the 425 such killings reported since the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels signed a Norwegian-brokered 2002 ceasefire have occurred around the eastern town of Batticaloa -- an area that's become a killing ground in the shadow of Sri Lanka's supposedly suspended civil war.

This region saw plenty of violence during the two-decade war between the government and Tigers, but the latest wave has left people here confused and terrified. Who is killing whom? They just don't know.

In theory, the ceasefire means there should be no fatalities. Area residents, mostly farmers, fishermen and traders, had hoped the truce would bring normalcy, and things were quiet for a while.

"When the cease-fire agreement was drafted, no one foresaw these type of killings."

Helen Olafsdottir, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

But then Batticaloa, 225km east of the capital, Colombo, became the center of renewed violence after a split in among the Tamil Tigers in March 2004.

The Batticaloa-based Tigers -- alleging regional discrimination -- rose against the guerrillas' central leadership, based in the north of this island country.

The main group defeated the breakaway faction in brief, bloody fighting. Breakaway leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan escaped, and many believe he is still organizing attacks on main Tigers.

But almost anyone else around Batticaloa can also be a victim -- breakaway rebels, innocent civilians and former militants from nearly a dozen groups that have moved into official politics, said Helen Olafsdottir, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

Election candidates, university teachers, journalists and government officials have all been targeted.

Media blame the near-daily killings on "unidentified gunmen." No group claims responsibility.

The area has a war-zone feel, with rifle-carrying policemen and government soldiers standing guard in the streets, checking the identity papers of students, shoppers and workers.

The Tamil Tigers fought the government since 1983 to try creating a separate state for minority ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka's northeast, claiming discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. The war claimed about 65,000 lives before the 2002 ceasefire.

In 1987, every group except the Tigers gave up their arms and joined mainstream politics. The Tigers, who now have their own de facto government in much of Sri Lanka's north and east, have since accused former militants of working with the government.

Human rights groups say the Tigers have killed scores of former militants in revenge.

The ceasefire lets unarmed rebels travel freely for political work. Many military officials say the rebels have taken advantage of that freedom, using it to eliminate opponents.

"The Tigers are after us," said Rasiah Thurairatnam, a local leader of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front, a militant group-turned political party.

So former militants mostly remain in their offices and houses, protected by government police or carrying weapons the government gave them for protection.

Truce monitors have warned that continued killings may derail the already-fragile peace process.

"There are a lot of expectations on us. But we can't do policing, nor do we have any executive powers," Olafsdottir said. "When the ceasefire agreement was drafted, no one foresaw these type of killings."

The Tigers haven't acknowledged or denied involvement.

"It is easy for everybody to point the finger at us," said Ilanthirayan, the mainstream rebels' political leader in Batticaloa. He goes by one name.

"For the violence to end, the government and its forces should evict all paramilitary forces from here consistent with their agreement with us," he said. The ceasefire called for disarming all Tamil groups except the Tigers.

Some government officials say the Tigers bear plenty of blame.

Tigers suspected in killings can simply disappear into rebel-controlled territory, where the truce bars government forces, said military spokesman Brigadier Daya Ratnayake.

But the Tigers and their supporters aren't safe either. Ilanthirayan's predecessor, as well as a pro-rebel journalist and many other Tiger supporters have been slain by men believed to be from the breakaway faction.

The spokesman for the breakaway fighters, who uses the pseudonym K. Umarnath Sharma, insists his group does not kill mainstream Tiger supporters except in self-defense.

"We have never been a paramilitary group and never will be one," Sharma said.

Those who suffer most are the victims' families, most of them impoverished.

Samuel Puthalvakumari carries around a photo of happier times with her smiling husband -- a laborer -- and their 15-month-old daughter, both killed by suspected Tigers after visiting a Hindu temple in 2003.

Puthalvakumari can't understand why attackers fired guns and threw a hand grenade at her husband and daughter, who were on a bicycle.

"I did not even look at my daughter's body," she said, weeping. "Relatives said she had no eyes and legs."

Meanwhile, people in Batticaloa whisper about the bloodshed around them, and avoiding going out after dusk.
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