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by Frances Bulathsinghala

The Chief of the Sri Lanka Ceasefire monitoring mission Major General Trond Furuhovde is to meet the LTTE hierarchy on 7 April to broach the subject of ceasefire violations by the LTTE mainly reported in the East of Sri Lanka. According to the ceasefire monitors 33 violations have been recorded within the past one month with 31 of them having occurred in the Eastern Batticaloa and the other two in Mannar and Vavuniya respectively.

Major General Furuhovde in an interview with the writer revealed that these violations ranged from extortion, provocation and forced entry into military areas by over 200 LTTE cardes mainly between the ages of 12 and 16. Over the recent months attention was focussed on Vavuniya, Mannar and Trincomalee which has Muslim settlements among the Tamil majority in the area, over allegations that the LTTE were demanding ransoms from Muslims in the region.

"Moving as a unit without notifying the monitoring mission is a violation of the ceasefire agreement and we will take the matter seriously with the LTTE", the Ceasefire Monitoring Chief said while sources at the Military Media Unit in Colombo which daily circulates press releases of LTTE violations to the media through the Government Information Department claiming that there was a lapse in the ceasefire monitoring structure which failed to identify and record some blatant provocations. He said that there were no serious incidents recorded in Jaffna and that the cease-fire monitoring team in the area would be alert so that no incidents would hamper the ceasefire after the LTTE takes on its political work in Jaffna after establishing its political office on Monday, April 8.

"We are aware that we may not have covered most of the violations. But we are in the process of strengthening our presence at ground level in the North East areas and will take up the issues at our next meeting with the LTTE on 7 April", Furuhovde said.

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