Colombo, June 28: Sri Lanka's independent truce monitors today cleared the Navy of violating the ceasefire by their sinking of a Tamil Tiger merchant vessel and said the LTTE rebels disregarded a UN convention by not flying an appropriate flag. The Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), comprising Scandinavians, said the Navy had acted within international law and had the right to intercept the vessel entering its waters as it was "without nationality".
"The SLMM concludes that LTTE violated the United Nations convention on the law of the sea of 10th Dec 1982 by not flying an appropriate flag and official, visible identification," the SLMM said in a four-page statement. "The Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) had the right to inspect the LTTE tanker. Hence, the SLMM does not consider that SLN violated the ceasefire agreement by intercepting the LTTE tanker," said the statement.
The SLMM also rejected LTTE allegations that the Sri Lankan Navy had arrested 12 crewmen aboard the vessel which the Navy said was sunk two weeks ago within Sri Lankan waters, but the Tigers maintained was in international waters. It said the fate of the vessel's crew was unknown and that no evidence was there that they had been captured by the Sri Lankan Navy.
The SLMM, however, blamed both parties for not informing it on time to prevent an escalation of the incident, which came as the peace talks between the government and the LTTE remained deadlocked. Bureau Report