[Bangla Daily Star] Sri Lanka yesterday rejected a ceasefire declared by Tamil Tiger rebels, as the United Nations said the ongoing fighting was preventing essential aid from reaching thousands of trapped civilians.Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse said there was no need for a truce as the military was on the verge of defeating the separatist forces, who have fought for 37 years for the creation of an independent Tamil homeland. "What is the need for a ceasefire when they are running away? They should first lay down arms, surrender and let the people go," Rajapakse said.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are accused of holding thousands of civilians hostage, said its ceasefire was "in the face of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis" and in response to international appeals. "All of LTTE's offensive military operations will cease with immediate effect," the rebels said in a statement.
A rebel spokesman, S. Puleethevan, said the Tigers would maintain their ceasefire only if the government reciprocated. "It is purely for humanitarian purposes and the duration will depend on the response of the Sri Lankan government," Puleethevan told AFP by telephone from the last patch of rebel-held territory in the northeast of the island.
UN humanitarian chief John Holmes, on a visit to Sri Lanka, had earlier on Sunday appealed to both sides to stop the violence, saying that recent fighting had taken "a terrible toll" on civilians.
The UN believes up to 50,000 non-combatants are trapped in a strip of jungle where Sri Lankan soldiers have surrounded the remnants of the once powerful LTTE. "We need a new humanitarian pause to get aid and aid workers into the combat zone," Holmes said in a statement.
The United States and the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations have repeated calls for a ceasefire, but the Sri Lankan government is determined to drive home its military assault and finally wipe out the rebels.
The Tigers controlled a third of the island in late 2006 but are now penned into a coastal area measuring just 10 square kilometres (four square miles). Their founder and leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is believed to be among the remaining Tiger fighters who have made a last stand, but the rebel spokesman declined to confirm the reports.
Streams of people have left rebel territory over the last week after the latest military advances, and the UN says 100,000 Tamil civilians who have fled the conflict zone are being detained in government-run camps. The government says the camps are necessary as it searches for former Tiger fighters hiding among civilians.
Soldiers captured another village on the edge of the Tigers' territory and freed about 500 people held hostage, the government said on Sunday.
The military successes have come at a huge cost, rights groups say, with the UN estimating as many as 6,500 non-combatants may have been killed and another 14,000 wounded in the fighting so far this year.
The United States has warned that Sri Lanka's leaders risked sowing the seeds of further ethnic conflict on the Sinhalese-majority island. "It would compound the current tragedy if the military end of the conflict only breeds further enmity and ends hopes for reconciliation and a unified Sri Lanka in the future," the White House said in a statement.
Paul McMasters, a British surgeon working for medical aid charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), said his team in a state-run hospital near the war zone had been overwhelmed by injured civilians. "It's so crowded that the nurses cannot physically walk around the ward," he said, estimating 320 patients were in one 45-bed ward. "There are simply too many people to treat them all."