Sri Lanka's parliament suspended over civilian killings

Sri Lanka's parliament was suspended for a brief period here Tuesday as legislators traded verbal abuse over last week's incident in which 68 civilians were killed in a passenger bus explosion blamed on the Tamil Tigers, officials said.

Disturbances began soon after the main left party legislator Wimal Weerawansa made his speech on the claymore mine explosion at Kebithigollewa in the north central province on June 15.

Weerawansa condemning the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) for triggering the explosion killing civilians belonging to the majority Sinhalese community.

"This has exposed to the world the brutality of LTTE terrorism", Weerawansa told parliament while calling for the House to observe a two-minute silence as a mark of respect for the murdered civilians.

The legislators of the Tiger rebel proxy party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), protested that when the Tamil civilians were killed by the government troops, no such silence was observed.

The TNA legislators then got around the Speaker's chair, forcing the Speaker to suspend the sittings temporarily. The parliamentary session was resumed 20 minutes thereafter, officials added.

After the bus blast, the government troops carried out two successive days of air raids of rebel positions in the north and east provinces in retaliation. The Tigers then issued warnings that they would carry out attacks in retaliation if the air raids were continued again.

The violence in the north and east has seriously endangered the Norwegian backed efforts to find a solution to Sri Lanka's long drawn out separatist armed conflict.

More than 800 people have been killed in the upsurge of violence since December last year despite public statements by both sides that they remain committed to the cease-fire.

Source: Xinhua