The Ceylon News

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday launched an angry verbal attack on Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband accusing him of basing his views on LTTE propaganda and said Mr. Miliband’s recent visit to the country was a waste of time.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the president's brother blasted what appeared to be the coordinated pressure being put on the Rajapaksa-government by the international community and said this week's visit of Mr. Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner, was a "waste of time".

He spoke after reports of a "stand up row" between him and Mr. Miliband during a meeting in Colombo in which the Foreign Secretary was trying to persuade the Sri Lankan government to declare a ceasefire to allow civilians trapped in the fighting to leave. Mr Rajapaksa, who is known as a passionate and feisty advocate of completely crushing the Tamil Tigers and capturing its leadership, said Mr. Miliband had interrupted him during their meeting.

"Maybe it's his way but I don't mind his attitude or his ways. My issue is the present situation and why he should interfere in these things. That's what I told him. People in this country approve of what the president is doing and a leader must listen to people in his own country not the foreign minister of Britain," Mr. Rajapaksa said.

On the eve of Mr. Miliband’s visit to Sri Lanka, Colombo denied a visa to Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who was hoping to join the peace mission, sparking a row with the European Union.

A Sri Lankan foreign ministry official indicated that Colombo felt it had already done enough by letting in Mr. Miliband and Mr. Kouchner.

Mr. Rajapaksa said Britain and other members of the international community were now plaguing Sri Lanka with "unnecessary" visits to please the Tamil communities in their own countries but had not been so vocal when the Tamil Tigers had assassinated top Sri Lankan politicians and innocent civilians.

"In Mr. Miliband's constituency there are many Tamils and they were keen to save the LTTE leadership, not the civilians. It's a joke. We have proved we can save these civilians by rescuing 200,000. So why are so many foreign ministers in this indecent hurry?

"When LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran killed so many innocent civilians, no foreign minister came or put pressure on the LTTE. Where was Mr. Miliband then? What happened to him? Was he sleeping? We're just wasting our time with these dignitaries and VIPs coming to this country over and over again because of their internal problem to satisfy the Tamil diaspora in their countries," he said.

The two men had apparently clashed when Mr. Miliband said he had received reports that army shelling was killing civilians. Mr. Rajapaksa accused him in turn of believing BBC reports which he claimed were influenced by Tamil Tiger propaganda.

The British High Commission in Colombo denied it had been a row but admitted there had been an "open and frank exchange of views and strong opinions were aired".

A spokesman for Mr. Miliband said he was not aware of there being a Tamil community in the Foreign Secretary's South Shields constituency.

"I take some exception to the suggestion that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, David Miliband, Bernard Kouchner, Hillary Clinton or the ministers of the G8 and European Union are motivated by electoral politics rather than a genuine humanitarian concern," the spokesman said.

It is not the first time Mr. Miliband has upset government ministers during a foreign trip. Earlier this year, the Indian government lodged a complaint about his "aggressive" and "arrogant" manner during a visit to the country.

A senior official spokesman said the government had been irritated by Mr. Miliband’s attitude, adding: "He did not come across as the Foreign Minister of a friendly nation".

By David Gray

PUTUMATTALAN, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Getting to the frontline of the Sri Lankan army's war with the Tamil Tigers entailed a hair-raising helicopter trip over the jungle and a bone-jarring ride past scorched homes to the war zone.

Foreign journalists and aid groups have generally been kept away from the area where government troops have battled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for months.

On those rare occasions when the government permits a trip to the front, the hazardous journey there and back takes just one day. Yet, as I found out, it could be a world away.

I was among a small group of journalists that took a pre-dawn military flight from Colombo to an airbase near the battle zone where we transferred to helicopters.

To avoid any ground fire, the choppers flew at maximum speed just above the height of the tallest trees, and when I say JUST, I mean scraping the tops of coconut palms.

This fast and furious ride lasted just 30 minutes to the town of Kilinochchi, the Tigers' one-time de facto capital.

From there we travelled in a clunky armoured personnel carrier along pot-holed roads that bore testament to the 25-year civil war that has torn apart this Indian Ocean island.

We were thrown around so much as the speeding vehicle hit the craters that I could barely hold my camera up long enough to take photos of the devastation we were passing.

Eventually, I managed to get a few useable frames of a scorched landscape. Every single dwelling was either destroyed or uninhabitable. Burnt-out vehicles lined the road. But what was most noticeable was the absence of people. There were simply no civilians anywhere.

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS

After what seemed like hours, but was actually one, we reached the ruined town of Putumattalan where we got into jeeps. The troops escorting us became noticeably nervous. They held their guns at the ready, looking alert and intently into the coconut groves as we passed. We must be close now, I thought.

Eventually we turned a bend in the dirt road and encountered thousands of weary civilians receiving small handouts of food and drink from the soldiers, enough to last them a day or so.

Our military escorts, it seemed, didn't want us around these civilians. After just 5 minutes, we were told to get back into the jeeps as we were headed to the front.

We soon arrived at a place where only days earlier government soldiers had pushed their way through the Tigers' defences, leading to a mass exodus of civilians.

Smoke billowed from less than a kilometre away where, we were told, troops were still fighting.

Being so close, our escort now numbered almost 100 heavily armed soldiers. We were severely exposed standing on a road that cut a path through the lagoon. Yet for a full 30 minutes, we photographed what we saw around us.

While walking among scattered clothes and rubbish, I found a packet of film negatives that showed mourners at a funeral.

It gave a glimpse of the terrible loss of civilian lives that has taken place out-of-sight of camera lenses and international scrutiny as the government seeks to end the Tigers' fight for an independent homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority.

There is no accurate civilian death toll from the fighting, including from being caught in the cross-fire of artillery shells from both sides, but the United Nations has put the number in the tens of thousands. A U.N. working document says 6,432 civilians have been killed since the end of January alone.

Retracing our perilous journey, we reached Colombo a few hours later. In a single day I had been to the front line of a war in a remote area of Sri Lanka usually banned to coverage by foreign reporters.

Exhausted and dripping with sweat, I got to have a hot shower and unwind. But I kept thinking about the people still trapped at the front, enduring the horrors of war in dire conditions and horrendous temperatures, with minimal food, water, medical aid or even shelter.

It seemed strange to be a fleeting visitor to a war zone for just one day when others have had to endure the bitter consequences of the fighting day in and day out for decades.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

Dear Sri Lankan’ s

Colombo South Teaching Hospital ( CSTH) has been in the forefront of treating terrorist casualties as well as many major accident victims around Colombo. The Hospital director has requested medical equipment which will help to save lives of innocent casualties via the APSL – Sri Lanka Hospital Needs website. This web site has been approved by the secretary to the Ministry of Health.

The items needed are listed under the Disaster Management Ward (Ward 2). The ‘general’ hospital needs also appear on this site as before.

Please have a look at it by clicking http://www.apsl.org.uk/scth/default.aspx

(if you are unable to access directly via this link please cut and paste in the web address column)



You may wish to consider donating these items as an individual/ family/ group/ charity/organisation or a company to ease the pain and suffering of these tragic victims as well for many other patients.

Donors are advised to purchase whatever the item they wish to donate from a local company (see web page links- local suppliers) and hand it over to CSTH authorities directly. Items needed are from about Rs 500 upwards.

At any time in the future , you could access it via. ‘Google’ by entering 'Hospital Needs of Sri Lanka' or via the APSL web site www.apsl.org.uk and then click Sri Lanka Hospital Needs .

As the first step of your contribution, please cascade this to all Sri Lankans in your address book. Gekurulla, thank you very much for your e-communications, contributions and continuous support. This is truly appreciated by your fellow country men & women.

Thanking You,

Dr.Uditha Jayatunga
Co-ordinator APSL
Medical Consultant,
University Hospitals of Leicester,

The Sri Lankan military fired scores of artillery shells into the northern war zone overnight, killing at least 10 civilians despite a pledge to stop using heavy weapons in its offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels, a health official in the region said Friday.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara denied the army had fired artillery into the 3-mile- (5 kilometer-) long strip of coastal land still under rebel control, and said the insurgents might be setting off the explosions themselves to implicate the government.

Suspected rebels also opened a new front in the war — in cyberspace — hacking the army's official Web site and replacing it with photos that purportedly showed civilian casualties of the war. The military, which blamed the Tamil Tigers for the cyber attack, said it planned to have the problem fixed Friday.

The shelling of the battle zone, which is crowded with tens of thousands of civilians, began Thursday night and lasted until Friday morning, with more than 100 shells hitting the area, said a government health official who witnessed the barrage.

One shell hit the top of a coconut tree and exploded, sending shrapnel raining down on the civilians below and killing 10, the official said.

The official declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Sri Lanka pledged Monday to stop using heavy weaponry to prevent civilian casualties. However, there have been persistent reports of continued shelling and airstrikes as the offensive has pushed forward.

International concern over the fate of the estimated 50,000 ethnic Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone has grown in recent days, following a U.N. report that nearly 6,500 civilians were killed in the last three months.

The British and French foreign ministers called for a humanitarian truce during a rare visit here Wednesday and Japan's special mediator for the conflict, Yasushi Akashi, was here Friday to call on the government to safeguard civilians.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa rejected the calls for a cease-fire, and on Friday he praised the war effort.

"We fearlessly stood up to a brand of terrorism that the entire world believed was invincible," he said in a May Day address.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for a state for minority Tamils in the north and east after decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.

The latest military offensive has cornered them in a tiny strip of northeastern coast and appears on the verge of defeating the rebel group.

Early Friday, naval forces fired on two rebel suicide boats and a third attack craft, destroying them and killing 23 Tamil Tiger sailors, Nanayakkara said.

The government and aid groups, meanwhile, were struggling to cope with more than 120,000 civilians who fled the war zone last week, overwhelming displacement camps.

The government said Friday it had begun resettling some of those who had been displaced by earlier fighting, returning more than 400 people to their homes in the Mannar district Thursday.

UN Security Council members see no point withholding an IMF loan or taking other steps to punish Sri Lanka, the Council's president said, the same day Sri Lanka's President rejected international calls for a ceasefire with rebels.

"I have not heard anyone suggesting that," Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller, president of the 15-nation council, told reporters on Thursday after an informal session on Sri Lanka.

Colombo has been under fresh pressure this week, from the European Union among others, to allow a truce so civilians trapped in the tiny area the Tamil Tigers still hold can escape.

Asked if all council members agreed penalties such as withholding the USD 1.9 billion loan were unnecessary, Heller said, "Absolutely."

US officials said this week that Washington was trying to delay the loan to pressure Sri Lanka to do more to help civilians caught in the fighting.

But Sri Lanka's central bank said there was no delay in its application for the loan and negotiations were in the final stages.

Sri Lanka looks to the loan to help weather the global economic crisis and pay for postwar reconstruction. News of the US officials' comments hurt Colombo's financial markets before the central bank's statements restored confidence.

British Ambassador John Sawers said London agreed punishing Sri Lanka did not belong on the Security Council agenda.

"We're not in the job of penalising the government of Sri Lanka," Sawers said. "We want to help the government of Sri Lanka to address this problem. I just wish that the government ... was more open to the offers of help that have been extended to it."

Earlier in the week, British and French Foreign Ministers visited Sri Lanka and echoed a European Union call for a humanitarian ceasefire so civilians could escape the war zone.

But in a speech on Thursday in Sri Lanka before the Council session, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said, "We have at no time gone for a ceasefire. We will not do so now."

Colombo fears a ceasefire could allow the Tigers to regroup and re-arm, but says it is taking care not to target civilians in the rebel-held area of coastline the military puts at around five square kilometres (three square miles).

Trapped

The United Nations estimates up to 50,000 civilians are trapped there. The government puts the figure far lower, and said this week it would not use heavy weapons against the Tigers, while concentrating on trying to free civilians using small arms.

"Rescue operations are going on. Troops are advancing into the five kilometre stretch," Sri Lanka military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said on Friday.

The area is the last redoubt of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who have been fighting a 25-year war with the government for a separate ethnic Tamil homeland.

In remarks prepared for the press, Heller said the council repeated calls on the government not to shell the conflict zone and urged the Tigers to stop using civilians as human shields and lay down their weapons.

The Tigers say the shelling is continuing and taking a heavy toll of civilians. The government denies that, but US Ambassador Susan Rice made clear Washington had doubts.

"Despite the government of Sri Lanka's promise to suspend combat operations, most accounts indicate that shelling into the conflict zone continues," she said in remarks prepared for delivery at the closed-door meeting.

One of the highest-level European delegations to visit this war-torn country in years has failed to persuade the Sri Lankan government to declare a temporary truce with ethnic Tamil rebels.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka emphatically rejected the appeal Thursday and told Western governments to stop lecturing him, news agencies reported.

“The government is not ready to enter into any kind of cease-fire with the terrorists. It is my duty to protect the people of this country. I don’t need lectures from Western representatives,” he said in a speech distributed by his office and quoted by the news agencies.

“They’re not willing,” David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said in an interview after talks Wednesday with Mr. Rajapaksa and other officials. “The furthest the government has gone is to commit to no heavy weaponry and to minimize what they call collateral damage, mainly the damage to civilians.”

The Western delegation, which also included Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France, paid a one-day visit as intense fighting raged near tens of thousands of civilians who were being held as human shields by Tamil rebels.

Also on Thursday, The Associated Press reported that Balasingam Nadesan, a top Tamil Tiger leader, had ruled out a surrender. “Surrendering and laying down our arms are out of the question,” Mr. Nadesan was quoted as saying in an e-mail to The Associated Press from the combat zone.

Tamil groups say the government has broken its promise, made Monday, not to use heavy weaponry.

Mr. Kouchner, who has spent four decades in conflict zones and is a co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, said in an interview before his departure that he did not entirely trust the Sri Lankan government’s assurances.

“Do I believe them? No, not completely,” he said. But he said he discounted claims by the rebels even more.

Both foreign ministers will report their findings to the European Union and the United Nations Security Council.

Tensions have risen between Sri Lanka and foreign governments over the plight of the estimated 50,000 civilians captive in the combat zone.

As a reflection of those strains, the European delegation was without a third official, Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, who was denied permission to enter the country. Sweden recalled its top diplomat in the country over the episode. Sri Lanka now says Mr. Bildt is welcome to visit in May.

Reuters reported late Wednesday that the United States had decided to delay a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout for Sri Lanka’s central bank to pressure the government to do more to help trapped civilians.

Mr. Kouchner said he recognized the difficulty faced by the government, which believes it is close to winning its 25-year war against the Tamil Tigers. The government and its supporters say they fear that any lull in the fighting would allow the Tigers to regroup, as they have in the past.

“They told us: ‘This is not Iraq, this is not Afghanistan. This is our internal fight,’ ” Mr. Kouchner said.

As he and Mr. Miliband toured refugee camps on Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s Defense Ministry reported “hours of intense close-quarter fighting” between rebels and government troops.

The Sri Lankan Navy, meanwhile, said it had thwarted a sea-borne rebel attack, destroying what it described as four suicide boats. Rebel-controlled territory, which once covered nearly one-third of the country, has been reduced to three square miles, the military said Wednesday.

As a measure of the civilian casualties in the conflict, a field hospital that Mr. Kouchner visited received 60 patients on Wednesday alone.

Around 6,500 civilians have died since late January and twice that number have been wounded, according to the United Nations.

The European delegation is the latest of several high-profile visits in recent days centered on the plight of the civilians. Senior Indian officials and the United Nations humanitarian coordinator both failed to persuade the government to stop the fighting.

The United Nations and foreign governments have also tried but failed to persuade the Tamil Tigers to let the civilians go. It is unclear whether they would change their minds if the government agreed to a cease-fire.

Humanitarian conditions in the rebel-held zone and in the camps across northern Sri Lanka are dire, according to doctors, aid agencies and the United Nations.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees described “overcrowding, malnourishment, dehydration and limited medical facilities” at the refugee camps.