Agence France-Presse,
COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government Wednesday offered an amnesty to Tamil Tiger rebels who surrender, but rejected international appeals for ceasefire talks and vowed to crush those who fight on.
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told parliament that some rebels were ready to lay down their arms as they face imminent defeat in their decades-long battle for an independent ethnic Tamil homeland.
“It is a wise decision and we are ready to welcome them,” Wickremanayake said.
The government, however, at the same time rejected international calls for negotiations to end the fighting, which has triggered global concern for the tens of thousands of civilians caught up in the war.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon telephoned President Mahinda Rajapakse Thursday to discuss the plight of civilians trapped by the fighting and was assured that they would not be harassed, a government statement said.
“This assurance was given when the UN secretary general, who was in New Delhi, had a telephone conversation with President Rajapakse earlier this evening, on the situation in Sri Lanka,” the statement said.
The UN, which has a presence in the island's embattled areas, reported at least 52 non-combatants were killed in a single shelling earlier this week — though it did not say who was responsible.
The United States, the European Union, Japan and Norway asked the rebels to lay down their arms and take part in a political dialogue to end Sri Lanka's vicious unrest which has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives since 1972.
In a statement, Sri Lanka's foreign ministry welcomed the calls, but said it was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who had been preventing civilians from getting out of the conflict zone.
“The government notes the timely call (by the foreign governments) to the LTTE to lay down arms,” the ministry said, adding that it had repeatedly called on the rebels to surrender their weapons and join the democratic process.
But Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse dismissed international calls to negotiate the Tigers' surrender. “Nothing could be as ridiculous as this,” he told the Island newspaper.
“Nothing short of unconditional surrender of arms and cadres could bring an end to the offensive,” he said.
According to the newspaper, Rajapakse believes Tiger leaders must be “tried and hanged” but low level rebel soldiers could be “rehabilitated”.
There was also no immediate reaction from the LTTE.
Overall, the Tigers have lost almost 99 percent of the territory that was under their control a year ago and Sri Lanka's army chief has said LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran may have already fled the island.
The defence ministry said that on Thursday, 700 more civilians had fled rebel-held areas, where it says 120,000 are still being held by the Tigers as “human shields.”
The pro-rebel tamilnet.com website said seven civilians were killed and another 27 wounded on Thursday in another alleged government attack on a hospital in the conflict zone.
In the latest fighting and in a fresh blow to the embattled rebels, government troops fought their way to the Chalai base of the Sea Tigers, the LTTE's naval unit.
The military said at least four senior Sea Tigers and eight other rebels were killed.
With the fall of Chalai, the Tigers are left with just 20 kilometres (12 miles) of coastline in the district of Mullaittivu, where the territory under their control is now less than 200 square kilometres (77 square miles).
The defence ministry said that the Tigers tried to use suicide bombers to prevent the army from taking Chalai, but the attacks had been thwarted.
“As LTTE's heyday is nearing its Waterloo, (the) desperate Tiger leadership appears to be using its last trumpets by sending brainwashed teenagers for suicide missions,” the ministry said.
