news Sri Lanka resumes shelling despite pledge not to use heavy weapons

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Sri Lanka resumes shelling despite pledge not to use heavy weapons



Tue Apr 28, 8:16 AM





By Ravi Nessman, The Associated Press


COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan forces pounded rebel territory with a fierce artillery barrage Tuesday, a day after the government pledged to stop using heavy weapons to prevent civilian casualties, a rebel-linked website and a doctor in the region said.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara denied the accusation, saying that the Sri Lankan forces were using only small arms in the battle.

The bombardment by artillery, mortar shells and multi-barrel rocket launchers started late Monday and lasted through Tuesday morning, the TamilNet website reported.

About a dozen shells hit a makeshift hospital inside rebel territory, killing five patients and sending many others fleeing for their lives, said Dr. Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, a government physician working in the war zone. Other civilians in the area were also killed, he said.

"I saw four dead bodies on the side of the road outside the hospital and two bodies in a trench," he said.

Journalists and aid groups are barred from the war zone, making reports of the fighting difficult to verify.

The government has faced intense international pressure to accept a temporary truce to allow tens of thousands of trapped civilians to escape the fighting. Instead, it said Monday it would stop using artillery attacks, air strikes and other heavy weapons in the offensive to ensure the safety of the civilians.

The government, which accuses the Tamil Tigers of holding the civilians as human shields, said it would not agree to a truce because any letup in the battle would allow the rebels to regroup just as they stand on the verge of defeat in their quarter-century separatist war.

Early Tuesday, Sri Lankan forces took over a line of earthen fortifications the rebels had constructed to protect the tiny strip of land they still control along the northeast coast, Nanayakkara said. Troops recovered the bodies of seven rebel fighters, he said.

Sri Lankan forces also foiled a rebel attempt to send an explosives-laden truck barrelling at them, Nanayakkara said. The truck exploded short of its target, wounding several soldiers, he said, without elaborating.

International concern has grown over the safety of the estimated 50,000 ethnic Tamil civilians still trapped in the war zone, especially in light of a recent United Nations report that nearly 6,500 non-combatants have already been killed in the recent offensive.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner were to arrive in Colombo on Wednesday to mediate an end to the conflict and press the government to agree to a ceasefire. The pair were among the highest level European officials to visit the island since the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was also to have made the trip, but he said Tuesday he had been denied entry by the government. Bildt said no reason had been given for the decision.

Sri Lankan officials denied refusing Bildt permission to enter. A statement from the Foreign Ministry said he was welcome to visit next month. It did not elaborate on why Bildt could not visit now.

Bildt had been scheduled to visit this week with Miliband and Kouchner, who he said were granted permission.

"This is remarkable," he told The Associated Press by phone from Luxembourg. "You just don't act this way."

He said he would not take up the invitation for a later visit.

The Foreign Ministry in Stockholm said it would recall Sweden's charge d'affaires from Colombo for consultations because of the snub.