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Sri Lanka marks 60th anniversary

Soldiers march in the military parade during Independence Day celebrations in Colombo, Sri Lanka, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Sri Lanka celebrated its 60th independence anniversary yesterday with parades, speeches and an intense security clampdown aimed at halting a growing wave of attacks blamed on separatist rebels that have killed scores of civilians across the country.

Many roads throughout the capital, Colombo, were sealed and one of Sri Lanka's main cellular phone providers shut off its text messaging service for six hours as government officials and thousands of ordinary Sri Lankans gathered for the national ceremony.

Despite the precautions, suspected rebels set off a bomb underneath a power transformer just south of Colombo at about 6am, causing no injuries, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Though the civil war that has wracked the nation for more than two decades has intensified in recent months, the government held a major parade of thousands of troops, local dancers and religious leaders down the capital's major coastal road.

In a nationally televised address, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa railed against the Tamil Tiger rebels and said economic and security difficulties would be over soon. He also repeated the government's vow to crush the rebels after decades of warfare.

``Our defense forces have achieved victories that were never before seen. Terrorism is facing a defeat that it has never before faced,'' he said.

Top government officials have said they hope to rout the rebels by the end of the year.

The celebration began with a 21-gun salute and a parade by hundreds of army, navy, air force and police officials, along with battle tanks, artillery guns and rocket launchers. Sri Lankan naval ships sailed off the coast while air force attack helicopters and jets flew overhead.

Fearing attacks during the celebrations, the US embassy advised American citizens to avoid unnecessary travel in and around the capital during the holiday.

A 2002 ceasefire ushered in several years of calm and fostered hopes that peace would prevail in Sri Lanka, but the truce broke down amid renewed attacks over the past two years that killed 5,000 people.

In recent months, militants have set off bombs on buses, in train stations and at other civilian targets deep inside government-held territory.

The attacks continue despite a maze of checkpoints throughout the country.

Many had high hopes for this nation, formerly known as Ceylon, when it achieved independence from Britain in 1948, months after South Asian neighbors India and Pakistan became independent.

But the civil war has undermined the country's potential to be a major economic power on the level with Singapore or Hong Kong, said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of a Colombo-based think tank, Center for Policy Alternatives.

"The development potential was huge, and it has been totally stymied by this war," he said.
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