If this is called peace

Alex Perry

ASSASSIN: The one thing everyone remembers is how good-looking the assassin was. She had ochre skin, dark eyes, black hair that brushed her waist and, in that way of many pregnant women, her face glowed. "She was an intensely beautiful woman", says Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Nanda Mallawarachchi.

She was 21-year-old Anoja Kugenthirasa, an ethnic Tamil from the village of Poovarasakulam, a few kilometres from the de facto border between government and rebel territory in northern Sri Lanka.

Around 1:25 p.m. last Tuesday, Kugenthirasah arrived at the front gate of the Sri Lanka army headquarters in the capital Colombo, produced an identity card, and named an officer she said was her husband. Indicating her bump, she told the guards she was due at the army clinic for a check-up.

They had no reason to be suspicious: Tuesday was family day at the clinic and Kugenthirasah had been coming for weeks. A guard offered her a lift. She arrived at the clinic just as the commander of the Sri Lanka army, Lt.-Gen. Sarath Fonseka, was leaving his nearby office for lunch.

Eyewitnesses say Kugenthirasah walked away from the clinic and strode toward Fonseka's heavily guarded convoy. A motorcycle outrider spotted her, says military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe. Her determined manner, that bump-it didn't look right.

The outrider swerved, blocked her path and, when she kept coming, dismounted and kicked her to the ground. As she lay there with Fonseka's car a few feet away, a blinding flash erupted from her belly. Nine people died and 29 were injured. A 10th died three days later. Fonseka was in critical condition and on life support, but stable.

Forensic experts initially said Kugenthirasah's 'baby' was several kilograms of explosives strapped to her belly. Last Saturday investigators said hospital records showed that, under the explosives, she might indeed have been pregnant and had been attending maternity classes at the clinic for three weeks as she planned her attack. Kugenthirasah's head was found in a tree. Her face, that face, barely had a scratch on it.

Though they denied involvement, Kugenthirasah was thought to be a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) a rebel group that has been fighting for a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka for 23 years. In February 2002 the Tigers signed a ceasefire with the Sinhalese-dominated government in the south.

But sporadic attacks and killings have persisted since. The April 7 assassination of a pro-LTTE Tamil activist marked the beginning of a fresh escalation of tit-for-tat violence. Kugenthirasah's suicide attack sent that into overdrive.

The Sri Lankan Navy and Air force responded with artillery strikes and bombing runs on Tiger-held territory near the northeastern town of Trincomalee; at least 10 people died. On April 27, at least five soldiers were killed in two landmine blasts.

The same day, the decapitated bodies of five young men thought to be Tamils-two with their hands tied behind their backs-were found in a ditch near a rubber plantation outside Colombo. The death toll from the past three weeks of bloodletting: around 100.

Will full-scale war break out? The LTTE's political head in Trincomalee, Elilan, says the Tigers are ready to unleash attacks that would be "catastrophically disabling and devastating to the enemy," but adds that the rebels have no wish to "adversely affect the peace process".

Government defence spokesman Kehaliya Rambukwella speaks of "Co-ordinated retaliation" that will "continue as long as the LTTE targets the security forces." But President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a nationalist, declared himself a "man of peace" last week.

To be sure, Sri Lanka has had it worse. At the height of the conflict, which has claimed some 65,000 lives, up to 1,000 people occasionally perished in a single day. Jehan Perera, director of the Notional Peace Council, an independent Colombo think tank, reckons that, in Sri Lankan terms, both sides are showing restraint-neither has launched all-out assaults.

"The government knows the only way to stop the LTTE from killing more soldiers is to meet them at the negotiating table," says Perea. The Tigers, he adds, are keen to shore up their battered reputation with the international community, which can stymie fund raising among the Tamil diaspora and stop rebel sympathizers from travelling.

Last Friday government spokesman Rambukwella told Time that Norway, which has been acting as mediator, has scheduled fresh talks between Colombo and the LTTE in Geneva on May 10. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, says the situation merely "smells of war". Maybe. But it also smells nothing like peace.

Courtesy: TIME