The sharp increase in violence between Sri Lankan government forces and the Tamil Tigers culminated in last week's clashes, writes Gamal Nkrumah A suicide attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on 25 April on army headquarters in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo has brought into sharp focus the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka in spite of the ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. The attack, which killed one naval personnel and six civilians, seriously injuring an army commander, in addition to subsequent skirmishes and open hostilities, was a grim reminder that the Indian Ocean island-nation still teeters dangerously on the brink of civil war. Tensions are running high and the bitterness of the past still haunts the country, often described as a tropical paradise. Over the past two decades some 64,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured and rendered homeless. Punitive offensives by the government forces exacerbated tension between the ethnic Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority geographically confined to the north and northeastern part of the country. Subsequent attacks on the Sri Lankan navy in the north-eastern port city of Tricomalee, one of the world's best sheltered deep water naval harbours, have prompted the international community to pressure the LTTE to resume peace talks. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it illegal for Canadian citizens to financially support the LTTE. Canada has the largest concentration of ethnic Tamils in the world and expatriate Tamils have been the most important source of funding for the LTTE. Sri Lanka has long been notorious for violence. A 2002 ceasefire precariously holds and peace talks are currently stalled. The LTTE claims that civilian casualties caused by the retaliation of government forces are far higher than reported. "There has been gross exaggeration by the LTTE about the scale of civilian casualties after the retaliatory operations by the Sri Lankan security forces," Wijersiri Hettiarachichi, Sri Lanka's ambassador to Egypt, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The Sri Lankan government had offered a private helicopter to transfer LTTE leaders from the east of the country to the northern headquarters of the LTTE in Killinochchi, but the LTTE initially refused the government's offer," the ambassador explained. The LTTE later said it would accept government transportation from the east of the country to the north. Meanwhile, Maj Gen Ulf Henricsson, head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), warned that the security situation in Sri Lanka is fast deteriorating. "The government of Sri Lanka continues to uphold the ceasefire and to encourage the SLMM to continue talking to the LTTE to desist from this path of escalating violence," Henricsson said. What is almost as disturbing is that politically the country appears to be worsening. The ruling party seems to be harbouring a political agenda, one that is based on cornering the Tigers. The Tigers, on the other hand, are rallying behind their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. And, while the LTTE is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and Britain, it would be inconceivable not to politically accommodate the LTTE, or at least the mainstream group, if lasting peace in Sri Lanka is to be achieved. The consistency of the LTTE and its sense of purpose are admirable. The flip side is that breakaway groups are complicating the situation. With that sort of unpleasantness brewing, these groups might succumb to forces that aim at stoking tension between the various Tamil groups. The potential trade-off between less security and increased internationalisation of the Sri Lankan crisis augurs ill. India, the power most concerned about the situation in Sri Lanka, will not stand idly by and watch conditions in its neighbour deteriorate further. Western powers also are acutely concerned about the security situation in Sri Lanka. The country is a popular tourist destination for many Westerners and their safety must be assured. Demands then are building up in the international community for the LTTE to accelerate the pace of the peace process. One of the arresting features of the crisis is how immune the protagonists are to outside forces, a fact which makes it very difficult for international mediators to exert pressure, especially on the Tamil side. Moreover, there is a need to heal the rifts between the LTTE factions. However, there is an obvious ambivalence about how to resolve the conflict with the Tamils. Tamil forces split ranks in 2004 and a splinter group in the eastern part of the island headed by one Col Karuna is accused by the mainstream body of the LTTE of being tacitly supported by the government. The breakaway group hotly denies the charge. On Monday, the Karuna faction attacked the Wanni Tiger camp in the vicinity of Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka. Another sign of the Tamil turmoil is that the offices of the Tamil language daily Uthayan in Jaffna were bombed. To pre-empt this kind of incident, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa held an "All Party Conference" on 28 April. The leaders of the various parties issued a statement denouncing terrorism and "unreservedly rejected acts of terrorism". "Enough is enough," Rajapaksa declared.
