Sri Lanka Hunts Assassins, Rebels Suspected

14/08/2005| IslamWeb

More than 1,000 police and troops scoured Colombo on Sunday for one or more snipers, suspected to be Tamil Tiger rebels, who gunned down Sri Lanka's foreign minister and rekindled fears of a return to civil war.

Soldiers checked cars entering or leaving Colombo after the government declared a state of emergency as a precautionary measure to allow mass troop movements.

But newspapers in Colombo, critical of the reaction by Lakshman Kadirgamar's security detail in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, said the gunmen could be anywhere.

"The manner in which Kadirgamar was killed was a disgrace to any security operation," The Sunday Island said in a commentary.

The area around Kadirgamar's home was not sealed off quickly after he was shot several times from a house across the street as he emerged from his swimming pool on Friday night, giving the gunmen plenty of time to escape, newspapers said.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which usually denied responsibility for attacks in Colombo before a ceasefire in the two decades old civil war was agreed in 2002, said it was not involved in the assassination.

Few in Colombo appeared to believe the Tigers, who have said repeatedly the ceasefire could collapse because of a rash of killings in the restive east that the government and rebels blame on the other.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government, which declared the ceasefire still intact, said the denial was hard to swallow.

"Twelve people have been arrested during yesterday's cordon and search operation and it is not specifically connected to this murder," military spokesman Brig. Daya Ratnayake said. "They were taken on suspicion."

CASINGS, FOOD

Investigators found cartridge casings from a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher and the remains of food in the house from which Kadirgamar was shot in Colombo's elegant diplomatic quarter.

They say the gunmen hid upstairs in the house and shot Kadirgamar four times; twice in the head, once in the throat and once in chest. A Tamil couple who own the property are under house arrest for questioning, but have not been charged.

The government is preparing a state funeral on Monday for the slain 73-year-old Oxford-educated minister Shops and cinemas will close in a mark of respect.

Kadirgamar had long been at the top of the Tigers' hit list for campaigning to have them labeled as a terrorist group by the United States and Britain. Because he was a Tamil, many hardliners called him a traitor.

There are no signs yet of a return to a war in which more than 64,000 people were killed and swathes of the north and east ravaged, but the killing has plunged the island's peace process into its worse crisis since the truce was agreed.

The Tigers have fought for a homeland for ethnic Tamils since 1983, accusing the government dominated by the majority Sinhalese of discrimination.

"The killing of Lakshman Kadirgamar is obviously going to strengthen the position of hardliners who argue that the LTTE has not changed at all," said Rohan Edrisinha, a political analyst at the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo.

SERIOUS BLOW TO TRUCE

"This is the most serious incident, the way we see it, during the 3-1/2-year ceasefire," Hagrup Haukland, head of the Noric Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission which oversees the truce, said on Saturday.

"I'm sure that the ceasefire is in danger more than ever before," he added. "I sincerely hope that it will hold."

The Tigers said the state of emergency was hampering the lives of minority Tamils and endangering the ceasefire.

"We strongly condemn this act," S.P. Thamilselvan, leader of the Tigers' political wing, told reporters in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

"Connecting the LTTE to this killing is very wrong and it will worsen the present situation,: he said. "There is no need for the LTTE to kill him."

Thamilselvan said the police accusations were an effort to sully the Tigers' standing with the international community, which the rebels are trying to woo in a push for interim self-rule and for a share of 3 billion US dollar in foreign tsunami aid.

PHOTO CAPTION

Soldiers raise their guns as they take over the guarding duty of Sri Lanka's slain Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar at his official residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005. (AP)