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Suspected Tamil rebels kill 6 ethnic Sinhalese in the east, says military
Associated Press,
Sun April 1, 2007 15:03 EDT .
KRISHAN FRANCIS - Associated Press Writer - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels gunned down six ethnic Sinhalese laborers at a construction site in eastern Sri Lanka - on Sunday, the military said amid reports the government was looking for public support to formally back out of a cease-fire deal with the rebels. Also on Sunday, Sri Lanka - 's helicopter gunships hit a rebel mortar position near the village of Omanthai in retaliation for mortar fire from the area, the media center said. Omanthai lies on the de facto border between government and rebel-held areas in northern Sri Lanka - . Air force jets also bombed a rebel Sea Tiger base in Mannar district, 220 kilometers (135 miles) northwest of Colombo, the center said. TamilNet, a pro rebel Web site, said that several privately owned trucks had been hit in the raid near Omanthai. There were no reports of casualties. Rebel officials could not be reached for comment. As months of fighting escalated this week, the state-run Sunday Observer newspaper reported that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse would seek public support in a referendum for formally ending the five-year-old cease-fire agreement that has all but collapsed. However, officials in Rajapakse's office denied the report. The Norwegian-brokered cease-fire signed in 2002 that ended more than two decades of fighting remains intact in name only after violence resumed in late 2005. More than 4,000 people have died since then, though both sides still claim to abide by the agreement. The Sunday Observer, citing unnamed senior officials, said Rajapakse was looking to use the referendum to abolish the cease-fire in ``a democratic manner'' and that it would be held soon. The paper said Rajapakse was under pressure to abandon the deal after a series of brazen attacks by the Tamil Tiger rebels, including their first-ever airstrike, in which an air force base was bombed. Should Sri Lanka - back out it would likely precipitate a full-scale attack by the army on rebel-held territory. The army is currently involved in a major effort to oust the rebels from bases they control in the country's east and claim to have killed more than 140 rebels in recent weeks. But the president's spokesman, Lucian Rajakarunanayake, denied any plans for a referendum, saying the issue would be too divisive for the Sri Lankan people. According to the agreement both sides can pull out after giving two weeks' notice to the Norwegian peace-monitors. The monitor's spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson said the group had not heard of any planned referendum, but that it was up to the two sides to decide if they wanted to keep the cease-fire pact. The rebels said that if the report was true it would indicate a resumption of the full-scale war that killed some 65,000 people before the agreement was signed. ``They are already at war with us but if they intend to pull out of the cease-fire agreement it means they want to intensify the war,'' Seevaratnam Puleedevan, a senior rebel official, told The Associated Press by satellite phone. He declined to comment on the Tamil Tigers' reaction to a referendum. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels have fought the government since 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's 3.1 million Tamil minority after decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese-dominated state. Sinhalese form 14 million out of Sri Lanka - 's 19 million people. Associated Press reporter Gavin Rabinowitz contributed to this reportDiscuss this story
Published: Sun Apr 1 15:31:00 EDT 2007
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