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Sri Lanka Says Army Seizes Key Highway From Tamil Tiger Rebels
bloomberg.com,
9 january.
Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lankan forces seized full control of the highway supplying the northern city of Jaffna for the first time in 23 years, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said.
Sri Lankan soldiers “achieved an exceptional and historic victory,” Rajapaksa said today on state television after the army captured from militants Elephant Pass, a causeway that connects Jaffna and its peninsula to the Sri Lankan mainland. The road’s seizure will help the government’s drive to defeat the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and end the country’s 26- year-old civil war, government officials said.
The capture of Highway A-9 is the latest advance by the army, which last week captured the LTTE’s political headquarters, Kilinochchi. It comes a year after the government scrapped a six- year truce and vowed to seek a military victory in the war, which has killed at least 70,000 people.
The LTTE, which says Tamils are discriminated against by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, demands independence in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The LTTE says Tamils made up 11.9 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million and Sinhalese almost 74 percent in 2001, according to a census that year.
Rajapaksa’s government says ending the war is essential for the country’s $32 billion economy, which will likely see its growth weaken to between 5 and 5.5 percent this year, according to the central bank.
The highway’s capture will cut off the LTTE’s income from taxes levied on goods carried to Jaffna and will improve army supply lines as they drive toward the LTTE’s remaining stronghold, the eastern port of Mullaitivu, Education Minister Susil Premajayanth told state television.
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Published: Fri Jan 9 19:10:23 EST 2009
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BBC,
1-10-2009.
The main opposition in Sri Lanka has accused sections of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) of carrying out attacks on media.
