Calls for ceasefire rejected

SRI Lanka’s prime minister yesterday rejected calls for a ceasefire from donor countries concerned by reports of growing civilian casualties in the South Asian nation’s civil war and instead demanded the Tamil Tiger rebels’ unconditional surrender.

Sri Lankan forces captured the insurgents’ biggest sea base yesterday — cutting off their main supply point in the latest in a string of military victories that has squeezed the Tamil Tigers into a 85sq km sliver of coastal land.

Even before the base was taken, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told parliament that the “last moment” of the rebels’ 25-year-old fight for a separate Tamil homeland was near.

More than 70,000 people have died in the conflict.

Wickremanayake said: “Our forces have now surrounded the last strong-hold of the terrorists. Our troops are challenging the Tigers waiting in front of their den. The last moment of Tigers will be painful as well as decisive.”

The statement effectively rejected a call by the US, Britain and Canada for both sides to halt fire to allow civilians and the wounded to leave the area.

The military’s spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayak-kara, said 1,282 civilians crossed over from the rebel area to government land on Wednesday and yesterday.

But the United Nations and other aid agencies have said some 250,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone.