Colombo, July 25: Cease-fire monitors from Europe strongly urged Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to dismantle a camp they allegedly built in a government-controlled area, a spokeswoman for the monitors said. Sri Lanka's military last month complained to the monitors that the rebels had encroached into their area and built a camp. The cease-fire bars both sides from building camps in each other's territory.
The chief of the Norwegian-led monitors, Tryggve Tellefsen, met with rebel leaders earlier this month and asked to remove the camp but the rebels' political wing leader, S P Thamilselvan, wrote to the monitoring mission Thursday refusing to comply, insisting the camp was in a rebel-controlled area, said the monitors' spokeswoman, Agnes Bragadottir.
She said Tellefsen had replied strongly, asking Thamilselvan to honor the rebels' commitment to abide by the monitors' rulings on the cease-fire, which include the ban on camps. A Norway-brokered ceasefire between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stopped 19 years of civil war and paved the way for peace talks.
The rebels fought the government in an attempt to create a separate state for minority Tamils, accusing majority Sinhalese of discrimination in education and jobs.
About 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The rebels withdrew from peace talks in April, accusing the government of being too slow to help thousands of Tamils displaced in the war. Bureau Report