International   

EU: negotiated settlement alone can bring peace

COLOMBO: A day after the assassination of Highways Minister Jeyraj Fernandopulle, an influential member of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government, by a suspected LTTE cadre, Sri Lanka’s air force on Monday claimed to have bombed a base of Tigers suicide squad northwest of Mankulam in the Vanni.

The raid came a day after the President asserted that the killing of Mr. Fernandopulle “will not weaken our resolve to eradicate terrorism from our midst, and bring peace, harmony and democracy to all our people, which was also the constant and unqualified wish of the slain Minister.”

In recent months the SLAF has attacked several targets suspected to be camps where the suicide squads, called Black Tigers, are trained.

Air force spokesperson Wing Commander Andrew Wijesoriya said the sorties were launched early in the morning based on information gathered through air surveillances and ground intelligence sources and that the pilots had confirmed that the target was hit accurately. Separately, MI 24 helicopter gunships attacked LTTE bunker defences, south of Muhamalai in Jaffna.

Meanwhile, messages condemning Mr. Fernandopulle’s assassination poured in from all parts of the world. While condemning the assassination the EU and the U.S. also made it a point to insist that there could be no military solution to the ethnic conflict in the island nation. The U.S. while condemning the attack said that its perpetrators had achieved nothing other than to cause further suffering among the people of Sri Lanka.

“The United States denounces this vicious and reprehensible terrorist attack on civilians in the strongest possible terms. Its perpetrators have achieved nothing other than to cause further suffering among the people of Sri Lanka. Only a political solution, not continued violence, offers the way forward to end the country’s conflict.”

Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner strongly condemned the killing and said, “the EU continues to believe that there can be no military solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka and only a negotiated settlement can open the way for a lasting peace.”

Tamil United Liberation Front leader V. Anandasangaree in a statement here said Mr. Fernandopulle had been championing the cause of the minorities without fear and on the ethnic question his views were fair and acceptable to all right-thinking people.

He was a gentleman par excellence, he said.

“The LTTE had foolishly targeted a person whom they could have made use of to achieve anything other than a division of the country for which he was totally opposed. It is a pity that a gentleman who had proved himself as a great son of the soil and an asset of the Nation had been snatched away prematurely depriving the country of his contributions for peace,” he said.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the reckless killing of a senior politician who represented a minority Tamil Christian community along at a district marathon had once again drawn attention to the fact that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had to be dealt with in a manner terrorists deserved.

He said he would draw the attention of the international community to this fact once again. “We have experienced this in the past year. We have lost Presidents, we have lost Foreign Ministers, and we have lost others in this struggle. At the same time LTTE has to be dealt accordingly and this is why I am calling upon international community to look at this incident once again,” he said.

Separately, in a statement posted on its website the LTTE alleged that the Iruthayanathar church located inside the Madhu church complex had suffered heavy damage from the artillery shells fired into the church complex by the Sri Lankan military.

“The Sri Lanka military began and is continuing artillery shelling into the Madhu church complex since 10 a.m. on Saturday. The Iruthayathar church and several other building inside the complex have sustained severe damages as the shells fell on and around these buildings,” it said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Protests mar torch relay
EU: negotiated settlement alone can bring peace
Poll campaign ends in Nepal
All eyes on Musharraf’s China visit
EU nod for in-flight use of mobiles
China confirms bird flu outbreak
Pavarotti mimed at final performance
Smoking tourism: newest travel trend
India Tourism Office opens in China

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu