The Ceylon News

	TMVP says 25 more children are currently on their ranks

The Tamil Makkal viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) says only 25 more children are currently in their ranks.

The Sri Lanka government, TMVP and UNICEF signed an action plan to end child recruitment and to release children in TMVP ranks in December, last year.

The children were handed over to the Child Protection Authority in front of UNICEF representatives in Batticaloa.

A Child Welfare Unit built under the action plan was declared open by the three parties.

133 children

UNICEF chief of mission in Sri Lanka, Phillippe Duomelle, Secretary to ministry of Justice Suhada Gamlath and TMVP provincial councillor Edwin Silva Krishnananthan (Pradeep Master) attended the ceremony.

	The unit was opened under an agreement between TMVP, UNICEF and govt.

In an earlier statement, UNICEF said there were 133 children still in TMVP ranks.

However, Pradeep Master told BBC Sandeshaya that UNICEF figures might be based on old data.

He insisted that only 25 youngsters under the age of 18 left in their ranks.

The TMVP that runs the eastern provincial council and many local councils contested the regional elections together with President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling coalition.

TMVP was formed by Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan (Karuna) after breaking away from the LTTE in 2004.

He was later appointed as an MP by the ruling coalition.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Who didnt understand real Sri Lankan problem) today called for a humanitarian ceasefire to enable humanitarian assistance to be delivered to civilians cut off by government and rebel clashes in the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka.

Steinmeier expressed concern for more than 300,000 refugees on a coastal 30-kilometre strip of land, in the area held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group.

"They have been completely cut off from international aid for more than 10 days," the German foreign minister said.

"The most important thing now is to negotiate a ceasefire, to enable aid deliveries and medical care for the civilians in the disputed areas," he added.

The military says that the rebels will soon be defeated

Sri Lanka's army says it has captured what it believes is the main operations centre of Tamil rebels in the north.

Army spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said troops had found detailed maps of army and rebel deployments in an empty building in Mullaitivu district.

Meanwhile the UN has criticised the Tigers for not allowing safe passage to its workers in areas they control.

There has been no comment from the Tamil Tigers, who have suffered a series of reverses in recent months.

The rebels are now confined to their sole remaining stronghold in the north - the area surrounding the town of Mullaitivu.

There are fears for some 250,000 civilians trapped in the fighting. The pro-rebel TamilNet website has accused the army of shelling the intensive care unit at Mullativu hospital.

On Wednesday the military said it had designated a safe zone for civilians as it pushes ahead with its offensive in the Mullaitivu area.

There is no way of confirming any of the claims as independent journalists are barred from conflict zone.

'Key centre'

Brig Nanayakkara said that the operations centre captured by the army consisted of an auditorium and a communications room.

Concern is growing for the safety of people in the conflict area

"We believe that this was their main operations room because it is located close to a three- storeyed bunker, which troops came across during clearing operations in the Dharmapuram area."

He said that troops found a detailed map of Sri Lanka which showed rebel positions and army deployments up to brigade level.

"We think it is a very significant place. This must have been a key centre they used."

He said that the captured centre was partially underground.

The army claims came as the UN issued what it said was "its strongest possible protest" to the Tamil Tigers.

It accused them of refusing to allow UN staff to return from rebel-held areas where they travelled last Friday to deliver food and emergency supplies to displaced people.

"The UN calls on the Tamil Tigers to meet their responsibilities and immediately permit all UN staff and dependents to freely move from this area," a statement said.

"The denial of safe passage is a clear abrogation of their obligations under international humanitarian law."

The convoy was the 11th to take supplies to people in the war-affected areas. Since October the UN says it has delivered about 7,000 tons of food and relief supplies.

On Wednesday, Sri Lanka's military said it had set up a safe zone for civilians on the A-35 main road which links Paranthan and Mullaitivu.

Human rights groups and aid agencies have raised concerns over the safety of people living in the conflict area. They want security guarantees from both sides so they can take aid and medical equipment to the north, and evacuate wounded and ill people.

TamilNet said that the intensive care unit at Mullaitivu hospital had been destroyed by army artillery fire overnight.

It said that the unit "was serving scores of wounded civilians" and had been "rendered completely out of function."

"There are several dead bodies on the sides of the road and under the trees of the hospital," TamilNet said, "and all the medical staff and the patients who managed to move sought refuge in the bunkers and continue to remain there as shells continue to explode."

'Move the war'

The campaign group, Human Rights Watch, recently accused the rebels of preventing people from fleeing the conflict area. Aid agencies say there are about 250,000 civilians in rebel-held areas.

The ICRC has appealed for the dead to be taken to Vavuniya

But the Tamil Tigers say that they are protecting civilians who voluntarily move with them.

Correspondents say the rebels are also trying to move the war to the east.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for a separate homeland for 25 years. At least 70,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.

The rebels had established a de facto state squeezed between government-controlled Jaffna in the north and the rest of the country.

But the latest military offensive has forced the rebels to give up much of their territory.

The military is on high alert to prevent the possible escape of top Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, although some analysts say it is unlikely he will be captured alive.

The United Nations said on Thursday Tamil Tiger rebels had violated international law for refusing to allow local staff and their families to leave Sri Lanka's war zone.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are now cornered in less than 400 sq km in northern Sri Lanka along with what aid agencies say are around 230,000 people trapped between the separatist rebels and a massive Sri Lankan military onslaught.

"The United Nations in Sri Lanka has issued its strongest possible protest to the LTTE for their refusal to allow U.N. national staff and dependents to return from the Vanni with the present U.N. convoy," a U.N. statement.

The convoy went into the war zone, a region known as the Vanni, on Jan. 16 and was only able to leave on Thursday, the U.N. statement said.

"The LTTE's denial of safe passage is a clear abrogation of their obligations under international humanitarian law," the U.N. office in Sri Lanka said.

The LTTE could not be reached for comment.

Rights groups say the Tigers have forced civilians to stay in the war zone to provide a human shield, and is making some fight or work to build defences. The rebels have denied that.

Sri Lankan government on Wednesday denied reports that the United States intends to set up a missile base in the key naval port of Trincomalee.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told Parliament that there was no move by the US to station missiles on the country's soil and there had been no discussion between Colombo and Washington in this regard.

The minister, who was replying to allegations levelled by JVP Member of Parliament Anura Dissanayake, said senior officials of US Pacific Fleet Command, led by Major General Tomas L Konent, had visited Sri Lanka for a briefing on war against Tamil tiger militants and on an humanitarian mission.

"The objective of their visit is to engage in a school rehabilitation project in the eastern province and not to carry out any military operations in Sri Lanka," Bogollagama was quoted as saying by the State run Daily News.

"Both the US Pacific Fleet Command and USAID will fund the project. This is a humanitarian project and will be implemented to improve the social and economic standards of the people living in the Eastern Province", the minister said.

The team also had bilateral discussions on the current security situation with the heads of the Sri Lankan Security Forces.

Sri Lankan forces pushing toward the Tamil Tigers' last stronghold in the north captured what appeared to be the rebels' main operations center, the military said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear what impact the capture would have on the raging civil war. Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said the rebels almost certainly have set up a new command center inside their shrinking stronghold in the northeast.

In recent months, the army has pushed the rebels out of much of the territory they once controlled in the north, capturing the group's administrative capital of Kilinochchi and a key stronghold at Elephant Pass.

On Wednesday, soldiers overran a building in the Mullaittivu district they believe was used as the Tamil Tigers' main command center, Nanayakkara said.

The building, which included underground bunkers and an auditorium, was filled with detailed maps showing the military's deployments across the north and east as well as rebel positions, he said.

Most of the equipment had been removed from the building and the rebels must have set up a new center before the army moved in, Nanayakkara said.

Tamil Tiger spokesmen were not available for comment. Independent accounts were also not available because journalists and aid groups are barred from the conflict zone.

Battles continued Wednesday, and the military recovered the bodies of three slain rebel fighters, Nanayakkara said.

With the fighting raging, international aid groups have expressed concern over the fate of hundreds of thousands of civilians reportedly living in the shrinking area controlled by the rebels.

In a statement, the rebels accused the government of killing 17 civilians and wounding at least 50 in extensive shelling on Monday and Tuesday. The military has denied firing into civilian areas.

The military dropped leaflets in the north Wednesday urging civilians to move to a "safety zone" on the edge of rebel territory, from which they will be transported into the government-held area. The military will not fire into that zone, Nanayakkara said.

The government also warned that with the rebels on the run, they might resort to a wave of suicide attacks in the relatively peaceful southern part of the country.

Police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera said 14 Tamil Tiger suicide bombers were currently hiding in the capital, Colombo, and its suburbs and called on people to be vigilant. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Colombo area in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, a bomb strapped to a bicycle killed two people outside a police station in eastern Sri Lanka. Authorities blamed the rebels for the attack.

The Tamil Tigers are listed as a terror group by the United States, the European Union and India.

They have been fighting since 1983 to establish an independent state for minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization at the hands of successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.

Malaysia has sounded an alert for LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran after reports that he may have entered the country as Sri Lankan troops were closing in on his remaining stronghold of Mullaittivu.

Police chief Musa Hassan said he had ordered a nationwide alert following reports that Prabhakaran may have fled here or to Thailand, a media report said today.

"If Prabhakaran is not here, my men will be monitoring all entry points into the country to ensure he does not enter," Musa told The New Straits Times.

"We are also using our local intelligence network to ascertain if he is already in the country," he said.

The action by the Malaysian police follows the Sri Lankan army chief Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka's comments that LTTE supremo might have fled the country.

The Tamil Tigers are now surrounded in their last bastion of Mullaittivu with reports claiming that Sri Lankan forces had overrun their military command headquarters deep in the jungles of the coastal district.

Prabhakaran is wanted in India in connection with the assassination case of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his organisation LTTE is banned across Europe and in the US.

An international arrest warrant is out against Prabhakaran for among other things the 1996 bombings of Central Bank of Sri Lanka in which 91 people were killed.

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka expanded a safe zone for civilians fleeing fighting in the north as the army captured Tamil Tiger defense lines in its drive to seize the last main rebel base and end the country’s 26-year civil war.

Civilians are “making constant efforts to flee” from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to areas in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts captured by the army in the past three weeks, the Defense Ministry said on its Web site.

Soldiers overran LTTE defense lines at Udayarkattukulam, west of Mullaitivu, after “hours of fierce fighting,” the ministry said in a statement late yesterday. The LTTE hasn’t commented on the report.

The Tamil Tigers have been driven to the northeastern region after suffering the biggest defeats in their fight for a separate homeland in the north and east of the island nation. 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 military estimates the LTTE has only about 1,000 fighters left after its political headquarters at Kilinochchi was captured Jan. 2. Some defense analysts say the number is higher and the Tamil Tigers will now undertake guerrilla warfare in the jungle terrain in the north.

Displaced People

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government said two days ago it is taking steps to deal with the increasing numbers of displaced people in Wanni and Mullaitivu districts. Three centers have been set up to house about 30,000 people, it said in a statement.

The United Nations yesterday 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.

“Any camp set up for IDPs has to meet international standards,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children in armed conflict, said in a statement. “The government of Sri Lanka should work with international and local humanitarian actors to ensure their safety and security.”

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 the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

People are fleeing from indiscriminate shelling by the army, the TamilNet news agency in the north reported. There are no international rights groups in the region to protect civilians who are facing “a slow genocide,” it said, citing the Vanni People’s Welfare Organization.

LTTE Leader

Sri Lanka’s military is targeting the jungle bases of LTTE commanders, including its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

“I am not sure whether he is in Sri Lanka,” Army Chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka said earlier this week in Colombo, according to Indian state-run broadcaster Doordarshan. “There are ways to escape.”

Police in Malaysia are on a nationwide alert after reports that Prabhakaran may have fled to the country, the New Straits Times newspaper reported on its Web site today.

Intelligence officials are investigating whether Prabhakaran is already in the country and police will monitor all entry points to ensure the rebel leader doesn’t enter Malaysia, Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan told the newspaper.

A Tamil Tiger plane was forced to turn back as it tried to fly out to sea near the port of Mullaitivu yesterday, Reuters cited an unidentified military official as saying.

The navy said earlier this week it attacked rebel boats trying to leave the coast near Mullaitivu.

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.