Britain and France Criticize Sri Lanka Rebels

PARIS — Britain and France issued on Thursday a strongly worded criticism of the Tamil Tiger rebels for preventing civilians from leaving the small conflict zone in the north east of Sri Lanka.
“It is clear that the L.T.T.E. have been forcefully preventing civilians from leaving the conflict area and we deplore their determination to use civilians as a human shield,” the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, and his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, said in a joint statement.
Sri Lanka imposed a two-day cease-fire Monday after President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered the military to restrict operations to a defensive nature for the Sri Lankan New Year.
The cease-fire was lifted late Tuesday amid counter claims about confrontations between the Army and the Tamil Tigers, also known as the L.T.T.E., for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Britain and France said they were “deeply concerned that there was no large scale movement of civilians away from the conflict area to safety as we had hoped to see, in the short period allowed for the pause.”
John Holmes, the United Nations humanitarian affairs coordinator, said Wednesday in New York that Sri Lankan civilians were being used as human shields by rebels holding out in a tiny sliver of land in the north east of the island.
Mr. Holmes said the cease-fire was insufficient to land relief supplies and to allow civilians to escape.
International pressure is also increasing on the government to protect civilians from the fighting.
In their statement on Thursday, Paris and London urged President Rajapaksa to announce a new pause in hostilities.
“Both sides must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and do all they can to protect civilians,” the statement said.
Mr. Holmes called on the Sri Lankan government to stop shelling civilian areas and urged the rebels to let non-combatants leave.
Advocates of the Responsibility to Protect, a project that advances the idea of foreign armies intervening to protect civilians, petitioned the Security Council to act to prevent ”mass atrocities” against an estimated 100,000 civilians trapped in the safety zone, a coastal area of about 20 square kilometers, or 7.7 square miles, in the north east of the island.
Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, the spokesman for the Sri Lankan military, said by telephone from Colombo that there had been no “no activity” on the battlefield Thursday.
He said government troops remained on the outskirts of the zone, where they are “observing activity.” A report from the Ministry of Defense Web Site said Thursday that the army had made some advances along the coast on Wednesday, killing 13 rebels and injuring 15.
Brigadier Nanayakkara said that 135 civilians had managed to flee the conflict zone on Wednesday, but that there were no further escapees to report on Thursday. The military also says that the rebels are preventing civilians from leaving and using them as human shields.
TamilNet, a pro-rebel Web site, said Thursday that the Sri Lankan Army had intensified its offensive against the safety zone “deploying maximum fire power in the fighting.”
On Wednesday, the site reported that the Sri Lankan Army had attacked the zone “killing and maiming hundreds of civilians.”
Independent media have been unable to verify the claims as they are restricted from the conflict zone area; both sides regularly exaggerate details.
Separately, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement that President Rajapaksa had made a “goodwill” visit to the town of Kilinochchi, a former rebel stronghold and the scene of recent fighting, on Thursday. It said it was the first visit to the region by a Sri Lankan head of state in nearly three decades.
The government in Colombo on Monday dropped Norway as a peace mediator, accusing Oslo of failing to protect its mission there from Tamil protesters.
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations in New York.

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