14 dead in Sri Lanka bombings, president says winning war

by Amal Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (AFP) - At least 14 people were killed in two roadside bombings in Sri Lanka, as the island's president marked independence day by insisting he was winning the war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

A bomb in the northeast of the ethnically-divided island killed 13 bus passengers and wounded 16 others, including children, the military said, adding that among the dead were two women and two off-duty soldiers.

A similar blast in the south against a military vehicle killed one soldier. Three other soldiers escaped with injuries.

The attacks, both blamed on the Tamil Tigers, came hours after an annual military parade at Colombo's seaside Galle Face promenade to mark Sri Lanka's 60th anniversary of independence from Britain.

In an address to the nation, President Mahinda Rajapakse said the "challenge bestowed upon us by history is the defeat of terrorism," and said government forces had cornered the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north.

"We faced this challenge squarely without avoiding it. Our security forces are today achieving victories against terrorism unprecedented in history," he said.

"Terrorism is receiving an unprecedented defeat," said Rajapakse, whose government last month pulled out of a tattered truce with the rebels, who are fighting for an independent ethnic homeland in the Sinhalese-majority island.

According to the defence ministry, the rebels have lost at least 908 fighters since the beginning of the year, compared to just 37 government soldiers killed.

Scores of civilians have also died during the same period, according to both sides.

Monday's celebrations went ahead despite threats from the LTTE, and following two weekend bomb attacks that killed 34 civilians and wounded nearly 200 others.

Two more blasts just outside the capital earlier Monday did not cause any casualties, but an electricity transformer was destroyed in one of the attacks, police said.

The government ordered all schools in the capital to shut for a week as students mourned seven colleagues who perished in a weekend bomb attack.

Ringed by tight security, Rajapakse also brushed off threats of foreign aid cuts due to the worsening ethnic conflict and human rights situation.

The president said Sri Lanka had "established new relations with our neighbouring states, Arab states and Buddhist states."

"Our neighbouring states trust us. Our problems and issues are also problems and issues of our neighbouring states," he said.

His remarks followed a thinly veiled warning from Japan, the island's main financial backer, that it may review its aid policy unless there is a decline in the level of violence.

The United States and Britain, Sri Lanka's former colonial ruler, last year announced aid cuts to the island citing human rights violations and high defence spending by the government.

Washington has also stopped selling lethal military hardware to Colombo.

"We have been able to obtain and use aid that is beneficial to the development of the country," the president said at the military parade, which featured multi-barrel rocket launchers, and Israeli-built Kfir and Russian MiG-27 war planes.

To mark independence day, the island's prisons chief said around 2,280 inmates serving time for minor offences had received amnesties.

Source: AFP