Sri Lanka against direct relief aid to Tamil rebels

Sri Lanka’s government is allocating disaster relief to Tamils in rebel-controlled territory without discrimination, the prime minister said today, as he warned that the guerillas’ appeal for direct international aid would further split the war-ravaged country.

Rescue workers reported another 3,009 deaths from Sunday’s earthquake-triggered tsunami, lifting Sri Lanka’s toll to 21,715, said the National Disaster Management Centre.

Thousands are still missing, and efforts to track them are hampered by a breakdown of telephone lines, roads and railways.

More than 58,000 were killed across south and south-east Asia following a massive quake off the Indonesian coast that sent towering waves crashing into coastlines thousands of miles away.

Among Sri Lanka’s dead were at least 3,000 Tamils in the northern district, where Tamil Tiger rebels run an independent administration beyond the reach of the Colombo-based government.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said he had ordered the government to dispatch relief funds and aid supplies equally to all provinces – including the north under rebel control.

But an official of an international aid agency reported today that Sinhalese mobs were blocking relief trucks from reaching the frontier, diverting the supplies to their own hard-hit communities.

At least four trucks were stopped by a low-ranking government official from crossing into the Tamil zone, said the official.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for an autonomous homeland in the north where Tamils – just 18 % of the population – are concentrated. A truce brokered by Norway two years ago has held with few infractions, but peace talks broke down a year ago.

Rajapakse said the tsunami disaster had brought Sinhalese and Tamils together as “brothers in misery”, which could boost the flagging efforts to revive negotiations to end the ethnic conflict.

“We cannot discriminate in any area,” he said. “We have to get together to build up the nation. We have all suffered. No one has been spared,” he said.

But the rebels say they have not received a fair share of government help, and issued an appeal yesterday for aid from donor countries and UN agencies, as well as from Tamils living overseas.

“Assistance channelled through the government of Sri Lanka has failed to reach the displaced in the north-east,” TamilNet quoted the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation as saying.

A Tamil member of parliament, Joseph Pararajasingham, said government leaders “simply were not bothered about the plight of our people”.

Rajapakse said outside assistance to the Tamils would deepen ethnic divisions and send “a bad signal to southern extremists”, a reference to hard-line Sinhalese parties which oppose concessions to the rebels in peace talks.

The government has had no direct contact with the rebels on disaster relief. Aid to the north was being handled by the office of the Government Agent, a local official who serves as the liaison between Colombo and the regional authorities.

Rajapakse said Sri Lankan air force planes were scheduled to fly supplies later Wednesday to Kilinochchi, the town where the rebels have their headquarters.