Sri Lanka: Truce Truly Terminated

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November30, 2006: Cambodia and Thailand are cracking down on LTTE arms smuggling. Sri Lankan diplomats have gotten all the countries (including India), where local gunrunners have been supplying the LTTE, to make it more difficult for these shipments to go out. This, plus increased Sri Lankan navy patrols off the coast, have much reduced LTTE supplies of weapons and munitions. While the 60 million Tamils living in India still have a lot of sympathy for the 2.5 million Tamils in Sri Lanka (the result of a migration of plantation workers to Sri Lanka over a century ago), there is growing distaste for the LTTE violent tactics.

The LTTE has not done much for its reputation by refusing to cooperate with government efforts to send food to Tamils isolated by the fighting. And then there are the revelations that the Norwegian diplomats who brokered the failed truce, were rather too cozy with LTTE leaders.

November 29, 2006: Although there's not a lot of fighting on the ground, there is a lot of artillery and mortar fire, and air force bombing attacks. The LTTE likes to stay in residential areas, so over 50,000 Tamil civilians have fled their homes, leaving them to the LTTE fighters, and any government firepower in the area.

November 28, 2006: The LTTE affirmed its demand that the island be partitioned into Sinhalese and Tamil states. The rebels also admitted that the truce was dead, and the war resumed.

November 26, 2006: The LTTE splinter group (the Karuna faction) appears to have gained control of much LTTE territory in eastern Sri Lanka. Most LTTE military leaders from east Sri Lanka, have moved to LTTE bases in the north. But many LTTE fighters remain in the east, where they are caught between the armed forces trying to kill them, and the Karuna faction trying to recruit them. Meanwhile, the LTTE civil war has spread to the Tamil expatriate community in Britain and Canada, where loud demonstrations, lawsuits and physical attacks have become more common.

November 25, 2006: The LTTE continues its campaign against Tamil politicians and notables who oppose the idea of partition, and setting up an LTTE led government. LTTE assassins kill and intimidate those Tamils that oppose the LTTE.

In the north, the air force discovered a camp used by LTTE suicide bombers (the "Black Tigers") and hit it, causing many casualties.

November 24, 2006: For the last three days, army artillery and air force bombers have hit LTTE targets in eastern Sri Lanka. There have been a few clashes between ground forces as well. There appear to have been over a hundred casualties, most of them LTTE.

 

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