More slain in violence in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan soldiers stand guard at a rice field yesterday where six Sinhalese farmers were killed on Sunday, at Kalyanipara, near the northeastern town of Trincomalee. PHOTO: AP

The Sri Lankan military yesterday accused Tamil rebels of slaughtering six Sinhalese rice farmers working in their fields to provoke race riots between the two ethnic groups.

In other violence, government troops shot and killed two ethnic Tamil rebels after coming under attack in eastern Batticaloa, the Defense Ministry said. Separately, the rebels killed two policemen in the latest attack in northern Vavuniya, a police spokesman said.

The latest bloodshed is part of an upsurge in violence that has left at least 79 people dead this month, 42 of them soldiers or police, placing the country's four-year-old cease-fire in jeopardy.

The rebels last week backed out of the latest round of peace talks that were scheduled to start yesterday in Geneva, citing attacks on ethnic Tamil civilians and other disputes with the government.

The army yesterday identified the bodies of the six found in the northeastern Trincomalee district the day before.

"With the sinister motive of triggering communal clashes, LTTE terrorists brutally gunned down six innocent Sinhalese farmers who were in their paddy fields," the army said on its Web site, calling the rebels by their formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

"LTTE terrorists appeared to be now resorting to these types of senseless killings with the intention of provoking the Sinhalese community for a repetition of ethnic clashes," the statement said.

Earlier, police had said the bodies bore multiple cut wounds, not gunshot wounds.

In the eastern region of Batticaloa, rebels allegedly triggered an anti-personnel mine yesterday while government soldiers were clearing a route ahead of a trip by military vehicles, said military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe.

"After the attack, our troops retaliated, killing two terrorists," Samarasinghe said. One soldier was wounded, and troops seized one anti-personnel mine and hand grenades, he said.

In the day's other incident, rebels attacked a police foot patrol, killing two, police spokesman, Rienzie Perera said. The two were home guards, a part of the police force generally deployed in villages.

On Sunday, government troops shot and killed three rebels in two separate incidents, also in Trincomalee district.

Trincomalee, 215km northeast of the capital, Colombo, has a strategic port. The government controls the town, but the rebels operate from the outskirts and jungles.

The Tamil Tigers demand a separate Tamil homeland and accuse the Sinhalese-dominated government of discrimination. The war left 65,000 people dead before the ceasefire.