SRI LANKA:Sri Lanka's government yesterday promised to drive out Tamil Tiger rebels from jungles in the island's east after capturing a key insurgent stronghold in the area. But it said the rebels could avoid more fighting if they agreed to peace talks.
The military claimed last Friday to have driven the Tigers from the coastal town of Vakarai in the undeclared war raging between the two sides. The fallen enclave, spanning the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, some 240km (149 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo, was an important maritime supply line for the Tigers to their main base in northern Sri Lanka and is a major strategic loss for them.
Tens of thousands of refugees are now housed in rudimentary camps in both districts, many of them earlier displaced by the war or the 2004 tsunami or both.
The government's ultimatum came hours after the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) clashed at sea off the island's northern tip and as troops scoured for routed Tigers trying to withdraw to camps in the eastern Toppigala jungles near Vakarai.
Defence spokesman and government minister Kehelia Rambukwella said the military was not threatening to push the Tigers out of their main base in the north, which officials concede would trigger an all-out return to a civil war in which more than 67,000 civilians, troops and rebels have died since 1983.
In recent months the government has stepped up military activity in the east, aiming to seize pockets of territory held by the Tigers to force them back into abandoned peace talks and to negotiate a settlement to the conflict on its terms.
To help achieve this, the Sri Lankan military has increased its capability and last month acquired four overhauled MiG-27 ground-attack aircraft from Ukraine. Military analysts said these fighters would supplement the military's Israeli-built Kfir jets, which have been used frequently to attack rebel positions.
Defence analysts, however, said military gains in Tamil-held territory raised the spectre of the LTTE sending out suicide bombers against "high-value" targets in Colombo and other popular tourist spots in the south in an attempt to panic the government and foreign investors.
The Tigers have been fighting for more than two decades for a separate homeland for the country's Tamils, who claim to have suffered discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese.