Two more Tamils assassinated in Sri Lanka

Assassins killed two Tamils in separate incidents in Sri Lanka’s north, the rebels and the military said today.

The attacks came a day after gunmen killed a prominent Tamil politician in the country’s capital.

Kanthaiah Sivanesan 48, was killed in the northern Jaffna yesterday.

In a separate incident, police recovered the body of Karunamalam Prabhakaran, 32, with bullet wounds in Vavuniya, also yesterday, the Defence Ministry said on its Web site.

The two deaths came after the assassination on Friday of Nadaraja Raviraj, a member of the Tamil National Alliance, as he left his house in Colombo.

His bodyguard was also killed, said K. Sivajilingam, a fellow member of Parliament.

President Mahinda Rajapakse condemned the killing, calling it a “cowardly and heinous act” by “those opposed to dissent and political pluralism in a democratic society.”

But the Tamil party blamed the government for the killing.

“We understand that a whole magazine has been emptied on them in broad daylight,” TNA politician Suresh Premachandran said. “This is a clear message to Tamil Parliamentarians ... ’Don’t open your mouth’.”

Raviraj, who also worked as a lawyer and was going to court when he was attacked, died after being admitted to the National Hospital, said hospital director Anil Jasinghe.

Raviraj became mayor of Tamil heartland Jaffna in 1999 following the assassination of his two predecessors.

He was elected to Parliament as a rebel-backed TNA representative in 2001 and 2004 and was a leading campaigner for Tamils’ self rule.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan deplored the many civilian deaths amid ongoing violence between the military and Tamil Tigers.

At the United Nations, a spokesman said Annan is ”increasingly concerned” about the growing violence in Sri Lanka and “deplores the many civilian casualties caused by the ongoing hostilities between Government forces and the Liberation Tigers.”

Annan is appealing to the parties involved in the conflict to “bring an end to the spiral of violence” and calls on them “to make every effort to return to the peace process as soon as possible,” the spokesman said yesterday.