Sri Lankan artillery pounded Tamil Tiger territory today in a heavy and prolonged barrage hours after the rebels offered to give in on a key government demand but warned new attacks would spark war.
The closure of a rebel-held sluice gate providing water to government territory last month prompted the first ground fighting since a 2002 ceasefire. Today, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they would re-open it.
But shortly after, as the head of the unarmed Nordic-staffed ceasefire monitoring mission, retired Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson, headed towards the sluice south of the northeastern port of Trincomalee, army artillery opened fire.
"(The government) have the information that the LTTE has made this offer," said Tommy Lekenmyr, chief of staff for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). "It is quite obvious they are not interested in water. They are interested in something else. We will blame this on the government."
The government said that the Tigers must leave the area of the sluice gate, which officially lies in government territory but which military sources said was in an area effectively controlled by the rebels.
"The Tigers must vacate the area and let the irrigation engineers come in as they have done before," head of the government peace secretariat Palitha Kohona told Reuters.
"The Tigers have caused complete mayhem with their illegal actions." Another government official said on condition of anonymity it was possible that troops had been on the verge of taking the sluice gate and that they viewed the Tiger offer as a gambit.
Earlier in the day, after meeting Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi, Tiger political wing leader S.P.Thamilselvan said the Tigers would unblock the sluice gate if fighting stopped and the government increased development in rebel areas.