May 11 (Washington Times)- A
suicide bomber who was thought to have been five months pregnant
when she blew herself up last month in a military hospital in
Sri Lanka was the final provocation that brought a targeted
response from the country’s navy and air force against rebel
positions in a port city.
However, the rebel Tamil Tigers skillfully manipulated
reporters into blaming the government for the latest violation
of a shaky four-year-old cease-fire, said Sri Lankan Ambassador
Bernard A.B. Goonetilleke.
"Their well-oil propaganda machine went into effect. The
rebels even used the word genocide," he said over lunch this
week at The Washington Times.
The ambassador expressed his frustration over the press that
reported the rebel version of the military response but failed
to provide equal coverage to an investigation by Norwegians who
monitor the cease-fire. Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricsson reported that
the armed forces "definitely targeted military positions and
offices" of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. He said 10 to
12 persons were killed in the attack on the port city of
Trincomalee, about the same number killed in the April 25
suicide bombing at the hospital.
Gen. Henricsson, head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission,
has held the rebels responsible for 3,500 violations of the 2002
cease-fire and the government responsible for 170.
Mr. Goonetilleke accused the rebels of repeated attacks
against both military outposts and civilians in attempts to
force the government to over-react. The rebels said the
government itself was mounting the attacks or that other armed
groups were responsible.
"They blame others. It is like we are fighting against
ghosts," he said.
The Tamil Tigers have a long history of human rights abuses
documented by independent groups over their 20-year brutal
struggle for an independent homeland for the ethnic Tamil
minority on the South Asian island nation.
The rebels, led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, are responsible
for "gross abuses," including suicide bombings, assassinations
of rival Tamil leaders and attacks against Tamil critics living
in other countries, according to Human Rights Watch. The group
also denounced the government for past "massacres of Tamil
civilians."
The United States, which includes the Tamil Tigers on its
list of terrorist organizations, accused the rebels of
"politically motivated killings, disappearances, torture,
arbitrary arrest" and other human rights violations in the areas
under their control in the north and east of the island.
Mr. Goonetilleke, who helped negotiate the cease-fire,
complained that the rebels always find a last-minute excuse to
avoid reaching a permanent peace accord.
