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SLMM gets tough with LTTE
After the Chalai snub, monitors get another one from rebels
SLMM chief Trond Furuhovde has had stern words with LTTE Political Wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan about the LTTE’s scant respect for truce monitors and the lack of cooperation with the SLMM in its attempts to carry out its duties.

Maj. Gen. Furuhovde was referring to last week's incident in Chalai where the LTTE cadres prevented the truce monitors from entering the area to clarify reports of an LTTE arms vessel.

The LTTE has also snubbed the SLMM by denying it access to two Sinhala homeguards detained by the LTTE in the Trincomalee district. Maj. Gen. Furuhovde said the SLMM's activities were hampered by the LTTE.

The two homeguards along with ten civilians were abducted by the LTTE from Gomarankadawala, a government-controlled area, and detained by the LTTE's police. The monitors did not get permission for almost two weeks. The civilians were later released.

But, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had intervened and obtained permission from the LTTE to visit the two homeguards. Accordingly, on Friday family members were allowed to visit the two detainees.

The SLMM Trincomalee district representative in an official letter has acknowledged that they had failed to draw a response from the LTTE until early this week despite raising the matter on August 12.

Trincomalee district SLMM chief Dagfinn Aadnanes in a letter to the North East Sinhala organisation which held a protest campaign about the detention of the two homeguards said that they had not been able to find out more details, other than what was available with the police.

The SLMM said the abductions were a violation of the Ceasefire Agreement. The monitors also appealed to the protesting organisations to refrain from having protest campaigns as it could further raise the ethnic tension in the area.

The family members were told on Friday that the homeguards would be produced before the 'LTTE courts' before releasing them. Meanwhile, the SLMM head told The Sunday Times that the threat of war was ‘very much there’ and that the lack of police investigations was the main cause why the SLMM could not pin the recent spate of killings in the east and in Colombo on the LTTE.

"They have not come up with the evidence necessary for us on the basis of the Ceasefire Agreement to come up with the rulings," the SLMM chief said.
(See interview)

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