The Sri Lankan military and rebels traded blame today for an artillery attack that reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, with the army accusing the encircled Tamil Tigers of launching the assault to pressure authorities for a truce and the guerrillas saying the deaths were further evidence of government atrocities.
The attack took place late Saturday and early today when artillery shells were reportedly lobbed into a densely packed area of northern Sri Lanka, resulting in at least 378 civilian deaths, according to the rebels.
Foreign governments and U.N. agencies have repeatedly asked the government to halt the hostilities so that noncombatants can reach safety. But the army argues that any halt would allow the rebels, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, to escape or regroup.
"The LTTE fired mortars indiscriminately into this place," army spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said today. "They fire indiscriminately at civilians because it's the only weapon left them. And they may be forcing doctors to give these kinds of statements."
TamilNet.com, a pro-Tamil website, in turn accused the government forces of carrying out the artillery barrage, which it said killed at least 378 people and wounded 814, quoting unidentified medical sources.
"More than 2,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the last 24 hours," it said, quoting Selvarajah Pathmanathan, the Tigers' foreign relations intermediary and longtime weapons smuggler wanted by Interpol. This, it said, amounts to "state terrorism and a war crime."
Bitter accusations, propaganda and a lack of credible information have been longstanding features of this conflict.
The army has severely restricted access into the area by media or humanitarian groups -- both of which it has at times accused of being Tamil Tiger sympathizers -- citing safety concerns.
The Tigers, accused of numerous human rights violations, have rarely allowed media access to areas they've controlled. The U.S. and European Union have labeled them terrorists, while the U.N. has accused it of using civilians as human shields.
Today, the government deported three journalists from Britain's Channel 4 on charges their stories were "tarnishing the image of the country."
Channel 4 broadcast a report last week quoting what it said were Tamil aid workers inside one of the humanitarian camps for war-displaced people saying they were underfed, mistreated and that some women were sexually abused.
The government called the report Tiger propaganda, adding that the camps were considered largely up to international standards by U.N. and foreign officials.
The civil war has raged since 1983. The Tigers seek an independent homeland for ethnic Tamils marginalized in Sinhalese-majority Sri Lanka.
After years of relative stalemate, the army recently made dramatic advances and now has the Tigers trapped in a 2-square-mile area on the island's northern coast surrounded by 50,000 troops.
As the military end-game nears, a man who worked closely with Tamil Tigers' leader Velupillai Prabhakaran said the Tiger guerrilla will never surrender and will soon be "eliminated."
Col. Karuna, whose real name is Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, joined the Tigers when he was 19. He led forces in eastern Sri Lanka until 2004 when he defected to the government side, paving the way for the latest military advances.
"The LTTE is nearly finished," Karuna said during an interview at his heavily fortified headquarters in Colombo, the capital, where visitors are frisked. "I am No. 1 on the LTTE's hit list," he said. "Prabhakaran hates me."
Once Prabhakaran is killed or dies -- the Tigers carry cyanide capsules with them in case they are captured, he said -- the rebels won't appoint another leader, he predicted. "There are no new leaders waiting in the LTTE," Karuna said. "They are finished."
Thileepan Parthipan, a spokesman for the LTTE, who spoke by telephone from what he said was a bunker, agreed that Prabhakaran would never give himself up alive.
"He's fighting for his people and is still with us," he said. Reports that the guerrilla leader had fled the conflict zone were army disinformation, he said, adding that people in the area were starving and the international community needed to intervene to prevent a humanitarian disaster.
Parthipan denied the Tigers were using civilians as human shields. "You should realize, these are our own mothers, brothers, wives," he said. "It's the army that is using our people as human shields."
In the interview, meanwhile, Karuna sought to paint Prabhakaran as a leader who kept himself out of danger while demanding great sacrifices from his cadres, and someone who failed to read the political situation correctly.
"Prabhakaran made many mistakes" by not seriously pursuing peace negotiations, the burly, mustached former fighter said. "I spent 22 years with him and he never came to the battlefield."
Karuna, appointed the new minister for national integration and reconciliation in March, said it is unsafe for him to travel around the country.
Some analysts and regional diplomats fear Sri Lanka could win the war but lose the peace if its postwar policies prove prejudicial to the marginalized Tamil community, thereby providing fertile ground for a new LTTE-like group.
Karuna, himself accused of appalling acts of barbarism both as a Tiger fighter and a government supporter, said Prabhakaran must die, not because he holds any remaining sway over the Tamil populace but as punishment for the things he has done.
"He's a very horrible man," Karuna said. "He has to be eliminated
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