Tamil Tigers cut off water

SRI Lankan troops slogged through minefield and mortar fire as they advanced towards a Tamil Tiger-held water supply yesterday, while jets hit rebel positions and a military transport ship was attacked in incidents that look increasingly like open warfare.

The government accused the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of attempted ethnic cleansing through cutting off the water supply to some 65,000 mostly Sinhalese people, but said they were still committed to a fading 2002 ceasefire.

The military said Tiger artillery, mortar launchers and gunboats attacked a ship entering Trincomalee port, north of where troops are battling to secure a rebel-held sluice gate in a dispute that has prompted the worst and longest violence since the truce.

"As our passenger ship carrying 854 soldiers was entering the harbour, she was fired on by LTTE mortars and artillery," a military spokesman said. "She is now safely in harbour and there are no reports of casualties."

The pro-rebel website Tamilnet reported a naval fast attack boat was sunk, the naval headquarters were hit and at least eight navy sailors killed.

The military denied the claims, although admitted the occasional shell was being fired towards the naval base.

The rebels hold the south edge of the harbour entrance and have used it for attacks before. The navy said three small Sea Tiger craft were sunk and three damaged, including explosives-laden boats piloted by suicide bombers.

The army said one soldier was killed as troops edged towards the disputed sluice gate in their first offensive since a 2002 ceasefire. Twenty-seven soldiers and once civilian bus driver died in action on Monday in the area, along with at least three rebels. The army said Tiger deaths were higher.

Army sources said the troops were having to cross open ground under mortar fire and that the area was heavily mined. One army officer said getting to the sluice gate could take two more days. "Now we are very close to the blockade. We are taking every step possible to reach there and as soon as troops capture the Mavilaru reservoir, gates will be reopened immediately with the support from the engineers," Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said.

The air force has now conducted seven consecutive days of aerial bombings on rebel positions in the east. More than 830 people have died this year and some say a two-decade civil war, which has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983, has resumed.

On Monday, one senior rebel said the army offensive meant the ceasefire was over and that the war had started.

A defence spokesman said the government will not embark on further military action if the Tamil Tiger rebels agree to open the Mavilaru sluice gates and restore water supply.

The government peace secretary, Palitha Kohona, said cutting off the water was aimed at forcing the majority Sinhalese and Muslim populations away from ethnic Tamil areas where the Tigers want a separate homeland.

The Tigers evicted thousands of Muslims from the northern Jaffna peninsula in the 1990s, and Mr Kohona said they were trying to do the same again in the north-east.

"I would definitely call it ethnic cleansing," he said. "Water is critical to human existence. Our objective is to secure the water and we will get it."

But he said the government remained committed to the ceasefire and hoped a visit by Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer later this week might help bring them back to talks.

"In reality there is no ceasefire in Trincomalee, but the paper [truce] is still valid," Major-General Ulf Henricsson, head of the unarmed mission that oversees the truce, said late on Monday. "I still don't believe in a full-scale war ... Call it a low intensity war."