The Ceylon News

Government forces have made significant gains against the LTTE in recent months [EPA] The Sri Lankan government has said that it will open two safe routes to let civilians escape fighting between the army and Tamil Tiger separatists in the northeast. Aid groups have said that tens of thousands of civilians are trapped in a no-fire zone on a 12km strip of the coast. "One route will lead north past Chalai and the other south past Mullaittivu town," a government official told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. "The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] has been invited to facilitate the movement along these routes." Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said that orders for the plan had come from the president's security council. The ICRC is the only agency which has been permitted a premanent presence in the conflict region. UN concerns The move came as the UN reasserted its concern over the mounting death toll, including many children, in the fighting. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, called on the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end hostilities, allow civilians to escape the area of conflict and provide access for humanitarian aid. "There is an urgent need to bring this conflict to a speedy end without further loss of civilian life," Michele Montas, a UN spokeswoman said, speaking for Ban. "The secretary-general is extremely concerned over the deteriorating situation for civilians trapped in northern Sri Lanka," he said. "He strongly deplores the mounting death toll of civilians in the area of fighting, including a significant number of children.'' A government doctor working in the region says shelling is continuing daily in a so-called "safe zone". About 200,000 civilians are trapped in that area. 'Concerned about civilians' Udaya Nanayakkara, the Sri Lankan defence spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the military has rescued sick and wounded civilians from the northeast. "We are concerned about the civilians. We know there are civilians in the safe zones. We demarcated the safe zone for the civilians so they will not be harmed during out operations," Nanayakkara said. "We are not engaging those locations considering the safety of those civilians. "Yesterday, we made arrangements to rescue the sick and wounded ... with the help of ICRC." Sri Lanka's military has forced the LTTE into a tiny area of the northeast over the past few months. The government is seeking a decisive victory in their civil war, which is in its third decade and has seen thousands of people die.

Troops have pushed the rebels into a small area of jung

The Sri Lankan government says it plans to open two safe routes for thousands of civilians trapped in the war-affected north-east.

Foreign secretary Palitha Kohanna told the BBC that the two routes would allow civilians to escape the conflict area.

The latest offer by the government comes amid increasing international concern over the safety of thousands of civilians trapped in the area.

Aid agencies say up to 150,000 people may be trapped by the fighting.

Killed or injured

The government has been under intense pressure from the UN, the European Union and neighbouring India in recent weeks to declare a temporary ceasefire that will enable Tamil civilians to be evacuated out of the war-affected areas to secure locations.

Aid agencies say hundreds of people have been killed or injured in the fighting between security forces and the rebels in recent months.

Much of the north-east has been devastated by fighting

Now the Sri Lankan government has released plans for what it says will be a safe passage for civilians.

Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohonna told the BBC that one route would lead north past the coastal village of Chalai, while the other would be south past the town of Mullaittivu in the north-east.

He said since both routes were situated within the government-declared safe zone the security forces would not fire into the area.

Dr Kohona said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would be informed about the safe passage plans.

There has been no comment yet from the Tamil Tigers on the government's latest offer.

Earlier, the ICRC said one of its local employees - who played an important role in the evacuation of civilians - had been killed by shrapnel inside rebel-held territory on Wednesday.

His nine-year-old son was also injured in the incident.

Colombo, Sri Lanka - In 1992, Lt. Col. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa retired from the Army after two decades in uniform. A year later, he moved to Los Angeles and began working in IT. In 2001, he heard President Bush declare that "you're either with us or against us" in the global war on terror.

Mr. Rajapaksa didn't need convincing. The decorated officer – today Sri Lanka's defense secretary – had long ago concluded that his own country's fight against extremism, which broke into civil war in 1983, required a military solution by a united front.

"The lesson that I have learned is that peace talks will never go anywhere.... Tell me a place where this has worked," he says.

After a massive buildup of troops and equipment, Sri Lanka appears on the verge of victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. If successful, It will have succeeded where others in the region, such as India and Pakistan, have failed in putting down an armed rebellion by force.

Behind Sri Lanka's war machine is Chinese military hardware, foreign intelligence sharing, and a focus on military professionalism. "They've insulated the way the Army operates. It's purely military logic," says a Western diplomat in Colombo.

The government has also tried to clamp down on LTTE overseas funding, with limited success. While the United States has frozen two Tamil charities as terrorist fronts, European countries have dragged their feet, say Sri Lankan officials.

To its supporters, including exiled Sri Lankan Tamils, the LTTE are freedom fighters. That view had sympathy in India, home to more than 60 million Tamils, and in the West, whose governments sought to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table, most recently in 2002.

But a hardening of global opinion against the kind of violent tactics used by the LTTE has emboldened Sri Lanka to revive its own war on terror. Its chief architect is Rajapaksa, who returned as defense secretary after his elder brother, Mahinda, won the presidency in 2005.

Sri Lanka's allies were skeptical that it could take on the Tigers, says foreign secretary Palitha Kohone. A Swedish general who had commanded NATO forces in Bosnia and who led a cease-fire monitoring mission to Sri Lanka told him they had no chance. Other diplomats here shared this gloomy view.

"We didn't expect the LTTE to collapse so soon. They'd built such a reputation for themselves as being invincible," says Mr. Kohone, a former UN diplomat.

That reputation was sustained by generous funding from Sri Lanka's Tamil diaspora, who live mostly in Canada and Britain and are estimated to number about 800,000. Many fled the country after anti-Tamil riots in 1983 and are loyal backers of the LTTE's fight for self-rule.

Exiles also show up in the opposite camp. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is a US citizen after 12 years there. Army Chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka holds a green card. Researchers point out that just as exiled Sri Lankan Tamils often cling to hard-line positions on homeland politics, so do those in the majority Sinhalese community, like Rajapaksa. And, in a mirror of the LTTE's fundraising, Sri Lanka's Central Bank has begun selling "Patriotic Diaspora Bonds" to support postwar reconstruction.