Sun, Feb 17, 2008 page5

• Sri Lankan war creeps into Colombo

  • AP
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  As a raging civil war killed thousands in the country's northeast, Sri Lankans in Colombo and other southern cities shopped, held picnics and cheered their children at soccer matches.

  Now a recent wave of bombings has brought the devastation of the civil war to the heart of the capital, and many are scared to leave their homes. The bombings blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels have ripped through passenger buses and a department store, and killed half a high school baseball team in a packed train station.

  Normally overflowing buses travel half empty, parents whisk their children home after school and the government has appealed for tens of thousands of volun-teers for a new civilian security force aimed at preventing more attacks.

  "A bomb could go off at anytime," said Colombo resident Dilhar Gunasekara. "Everyone is scared."

  The rebels, listed as a terror group by the US and the EU, have been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east. For years, they were discriminated against by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.

  The fighting, which has killed an estimated 70,000 people in this island nation in the Indian Ocean, largely ended after a 2002 ceasefire deal. But new violence erupted two years ago. In July, the government said it had driven the rebels from the east and turned its attention to the rebels' heartland in the north.

  Although there was scattered violence in the south in recent years, much of it was far from Colombo and its 800,000 residents, or targeted government and military leaders. Many residents of Colombo shrugged off the violence.

  But that complacency was shattered on Nov. 28 when a powerful bomb hidden in a package killed at least 17 people at a suburban department store. A string of attacks followed, culminating in the bombing of two buses in other towns and a suicide blast in Colombo's main train station in the days around the nation's 60th Independence Day on Feb. 4.

  Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer repeated calls seeking comment. The group routinely denies responsibility for such attacks and accuses the government of targeting civilians in rebel-held territory.

  Since the beginning of the year, 90 civilians have been killed and nearly 300 wounded in government-held territory, according to the military. Of those, 19 have been killed and 122 wounded in Colombo and its suburbs.

  "When I leave home, I'm just not certain I'll make it back," said 34-year-old Bastian Bosco David, a small business owner, as he waited for a bus to Puttalam, about 120km north of Colombo.

  Security forces have put up signs around Colombo calling for residents to report anything suspicious. Police have fenced off outdoor bus stations and begun searching passengers' bags as they enter.

  Bus companies have instructed their drivers to look under their vehicles and to ban bags from overhead racks to make it more difficult for an attacker to plant a bomb, said Gemunu Wijeratne, head of the private bus owners' association.

  "All possible measures are being taken now," said Cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella.

  Gunasekara, the Colombo resident, said she did not care whether the government signed a peace deal with the rebels or defeated them on the battlefield.

  "Somehow or other the fighting and violence has got to come to an end," she said.
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