The Sri Lankan government has decided to withdraw from the
ceasefire agreement with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), government sources said Wednesday.
Military Spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said the cabinet made the
decision Wednesday night after an Army bus was attacked in
Colomboby suspected LTTE rebels Wednesday morning, killing four
people and injuring 24 others.
Nanayakkara said the government has not officially informed the
Norwegian government, the broker of the ceasefire agreement in
2002, about the decision.
According to the ceasefire agreement signed in February 2002,
the agreement will be annulled 14 days after either the government
or the LTTE informs the Norwegian government that it decides to
withdraw from the agreement.
Government defense spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella said that
the government has taken the decision because the Norwegian
facilitated agreement failed.
"The attempts made so far to have a negotiated settlement with
LTTE terrorists could bring no favorable results," Rambukwella told
media.
He said the government sees no point of having any attempt to
come to a settlement with a terrorist outfit as the government is
already in a negotiation process to address grievances of Tamil
people with democratic Tamil political segments.
Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have been accused of
blatant violations since the government came into force in Feb.22,
2002.
Analysts say the government's decision to pull out from the
agreement signifies the current undeclared war will turn into
all-out open hostilities.
The government and the LTTE held eight direct talks after
signing the ceasefire agreement, but failed to find a political
solution to the island's long drawn-out ethnic conflict.
More than 5,000 people have been killed as the conflict between
the government and the LTTE began to escalate in the end of 2005,
making the Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement exist only on
paper.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority,
the LTTE has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s to
establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north
and east.
(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2008)
