Sri Lanka accused the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of using civilians as “cannon fodder” in the north as Tamils said army shelling killed more than 70 people in the past three days.
“The terrorist outfit is using the thousands entrapped as cannon fodder in its attempt to stall the multifrontal military advance,” the Defense Ministry said on its Web site yesterday.
At least 66 civilians were killed in army artillery and rocket attacks in recent days, the TamilNet news agency in the north reported, citing T. Varatharajah, the regional director of the Mullaitivu district health service. In a separate incident, an army shell struck a makeshift hospital yesterday, killing five people, he said.
Sri Lanka’s military says it has driven the Tamil Tigers into a 400-square kilometer (155-square mile) area in the northeast as it tries to end the 26-year civil war. Defense analysts say LTTE fighters will now pursue their fight for a separate homeland by using guerrilla warfare in the jungles in the north.
“LTTE terrorists have reportedly drawn artillery batteries, heavy mortars and satellite bases inside civilian settlements and makeshift camps that were earlier declared as no-fire zones,” the Defense Ministry said. The rebels are attempting to create a civilian crisis in Wanni district, it said.
UN Protest
The United Nations said yesterday the Tamil Tigers refused to allow UN workers traveling with an aid convey to Wanni to return from the north.
“The UN calls on the LTTE to meet their responsibilities and immediately permit all UN staff and dependents to freely move from this area,” the Office of the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator said in a statement issued in the capital, Colombo.
The UN two days ago called on the government to ensure the safety of civilians and appealed to the LTTE to allow children and families to leave conflict zones and to release child soldiers.
Clashes in the past three weeks have displaced tens of thousands of civilians inside the conflict zones, the International Committee of the Red Cross said this week.
The government said Jan. 21 it expanded a safe zone for civilians in the north. As many as 200,000 civilians are trapped in the conflict zone, Dharmalingham Sidharthan, leader of the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam, said earlier this week in a telephone interview from Colombo.
Army Advance
The military estimates the LTTE has only about 1,000 fighters left after its political headquarters at Kilinochchi was captured Jan. 2 and is targeting the jungle bases of the group’s commanders, including its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Police in Malaysia are on a nationwide alert after reports that Prabhakaran may have fled to the country, the New Straits Times newspaper said on its Web site yesterday.
Soldiers two days ago captured an LTTE base equipped with underground bunkers, an auditorium and a communications room, the Media Centre for National Security said in a statement. Troops recovered maps of Sri Lanka and other documents that gave “all the deployments up to the brigade level of the Sri Lankan army,” according to the statement.
Tamils made up 11.9 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million in 2001 and the Sinhalese almost 74 percent, according to a census that year. The LTTE says Tamils are discriminated against by the Sinhalese.
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