By IANS
Colombo : Six soldiers were killed and 10 injured when Tamil Tiger guerrillas fired artillery shells at a church in northwestern Sri Lanka.
The incident took place Tuesday when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired 130 mm artillery shells at soldiers doing ‘shramadana’ or voluntary cleaning work in St. Sabastian’s church at Thalladi in the northwestern part of the island, a defence ministry spokesperson said.
The assembly hall of the church was reduced to rubble.
The base camp of the Sri Lanka Army in Mannar district is at Thalladi. The army had advanced eight kilometres northwards from there since military operations in the area began in September last year.
The objective is to capture Adampan and then Viduthaltivu, a naval base of the Tigers about 16 km north of Thalladi. Although the army has been meeting very stiff resistance, the government has vowed to militarily defeat the Tigers and clear the northern province entirely by August this year.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government announced that it would set up 14,913 civil defence committees throughout the country to enable local people to defend themselves against Tamil Tiger attacks.
About 150,000 youths will be members of these committees, which would work in coordination with the police and the security forces.
To avenge the military push, Tamil rebels have been planting bombs in buses and sniping at civilians and soldiers in far-flung areas in south and northcentral Sri Lanka to sow seeds of fear among the Sinhalese who comprise 70 percent of the country’s 20 million people.
For a quarter century the Tigers have waged an armed struggle to secure autonomy for Tamil-speaking northeastern Sri Lanka.
In a major step to ensure free and fair local body elections in the eastern district of Batticaloa, the pro-government Tamil group, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), has reportedly decided to lay down arms ahead of the poll.
The TMVP is a breakaway group from the Tamil Tigers.
The chairperson of the ‘Sri Lankan Committee for Free and Fair Elections’, Kingsley Rodrigo, said Tuesday that the TMVP had pledged to give up arms before the March 10 elections set to be held in some parts of Batticaloa. This could not be confirmed independently.
The TMVP’s rivals have complained that its cadres move about with arms and threaten its rivals with impunity, because it enjoys the tacit support of the government forces.
The TMVP has “banned” the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and has been trying to force the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) to enter into a deal with it. The main opposition United National Party (UNP) is boycotting the upcoming elections complaining of unfair practices.
There have been reports that the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has entered into a covert alliance with the TMVP. But this is denied by the SLFP.