A Sri Lankan government minister said in Colombo Friday that the
government was prepared for a truce with the Tamil Tigers to
co-ordinate humanitarian relief for thousands of Muslims displaced
by the fighting in the Muslim dominated town of Muttur since
Wednesday.
"We are willing to go in for a cessation of hostilities
immediately purely from a humanitarian point of view," Mahinda
Samarasinghe, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights,
said.
He said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were yet to
respond to the unilateral offer by the government. The government
response came as the leader of the main Muslim party Rauff Hakeem
of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress called for diplomatic pressure
being put on both the government and the LTTE rebels to end
fighting by agreeing to a temporary cessation of hostilities.
"It is a massive humanitarian crisis," Hakeem said, adding that
over 20,000 people had begun fleeing Muttur into the town of
Kantalai. "If fighting does not stop Muttur will end up as a ghost
town," Hakeem said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross officials warned of
severe food shortages, sanitary facilities in Muttur for a
population under siege since the early hours of Wednesday when the
LTTE rebels started attacking Muttur with mortars and artillery in
an apparent retaliation for a government troop advance into their
territory elsewhere in the eastern province.
The government claimed that the town of Muttur was under full
control of the government troops denying rebel claims of
control.
The national security media center here said that the Navy was
able to thwart an attempt by the rebels to take control of the
Muttur jetty by killing around 40 rebels while sailors suffering
minimal damage.
The clashes in the eastern province are the worst since the two
sides entered the Norwegian backed ceasefire in February 2002.
The international backers of the peace process have urged the
two sides to cease hostilities and resume the process of
negotiations. More than 64,000 people have been killed in the
ethnic separatist armed conflict since the mid 1980s.
(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2006)
