Drastic drop in violence since talks announcement - Haukland

BY ANANTH Palakidnar

A drastic drop in violence has been noted over the past five days since the Government and the LTTE agreed to resume the talks on the Ceasefire Agreement in mid-February, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Chief Hagrup Haukland said.

Haukland told the Daily News it was remarkable to see that the signs were positive towards the CFA getting strengthened after a period of one month." I could rate last month as the worst one as far as the implementation of CFA is concerned.

Since the CFA came into effect in February 2002, last year, particularly the month of December had more violence resulting in more than hundred deaths of Armed Forces personnel, civilians and the LTTE cadres. The situation even threatened very much the existence of the CFA.

However, the violence eased since the Government and the LTTE leadership agreed to have talks on the CFA in Geneva, next month. It is a big relief for the SLMM," Haukland said.

He also added that Norwegian Special Envoy Erik Solheim met him when he was in Colombo last week and discussed the overall situation with regard to the implementation of the CFA.

"When the talks on the CFA takes place in Geneva the SLMM expects that it should table its views on stabilising the CFA. I have even told this to the Norwegian facilitator. Let us hope that the Geneva talks will lead to the constructive beginning of the peace process," Haukland added.

Meanwhile, the Military Media Unit told the Daily News that apart from a grenade throw in the North on Friday, where a soldier was injured no major attack has been reported for the past five days.

In Vavuniya another incident took place on Saturday where a mother and her two children were injured in a grenade attack.

Earlier the Army Media Unit released a report indicating that 77 Armed Forces and Police personnel along with 42 civilians were killed from 1st December last year until 26 January this year.