Sri Lanka's foreign minister will visit China next week to discuss a possible weapons purchase as the country slides toward a full-scale war with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, a news report said yesterday.
Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera will leave for Beijing on Wednesday to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing (
China has in the past been a major weapons supplier to Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.
The Island newspaper had earlier reported that Sri Lanka was considering purchasing Chinese-made 30mm guns to help its navy quell attacks by the Tamil Tigers' explosives-laden boats.
The rebels, who want to carve out a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamils, often attack Sri Lankan navy positions, saying they will not tolerate intrusion into what they call their territorial waters.
The rebels control one-seventh of Sri Lanka's land mass in the northeast and say they have the right to use the adjoining sea.
The Tigers would be no match for the Sri Lankan army's firepower in a conventional war, Retired Air Marshal Harry Goonetilleke told reporters. The army is 150,000 to 200,000 strong, while there are only around 10,000 Tamil Tiger fighters, he said.
But the Tigers excel in guerrilla warfare and have the advantage of using suicide bombers, he said.
"You can hardly do anything against suicide bombers," Goonetilleke said.
He said the rebels could be getting arms from Cambodia, Thailand and former Soviet republics like Ukraine. The Tigers receive large sums of money, mainly from Tamils living abroad, to make the arms purchases, he said.
Tamil rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils.
More than 65,000 people were killed in the conflict before the Norway-brokered cease-fire in 2002 that halted the fighting. But subsequent peace talks broke down, and escalating violence has killed more than 700 people since April, threatening a return to war.
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