Sri Lanka says offensives will continue to end water spat with rebels

The Sri Lankan government said Friday that military offensives will continue until the present impasse with the Tamil Tigers over an irrigation sluice gate is solved.

Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of Policy Planning and the government's defense spokesman, said that "we have a planned operation to see an end to the problem and we will implement it."

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have shut down a sluice gate in a canal in the eastern Trincomalee district's Verugal area since mid-last week.

The government said the decision by the rebels have deprived some 15,000 people of drinking water and the water for around 30, 000 acres of cultivate land.

Rambukwella said air strikes by the Sri Lanka Airforce fighter planes continued for the third day on Friday.

"It is purely a humanitarian issue as we want to supply the civilians with water", Rambukwella said, adding that the rebels had committed "a crime against humanity" by shutting down the canal.

The rebels claim that a water tank promised by the government to provide water to areas under the rebel control had not been fulfilled and as a result the Tamil civilian population had been deprived of water.

The Head of the government's peace secretariat Dr Palitha Kohona said that the government had written to the LTTE with a proposal to build the tank and no reply had been received to date.

Rambukwella said that the government opted to use force after a week of negotiations on the issue had failed.

The water spat is the latest in a series of disputes involving the rebels and the government.

The ever growing disputes and the escalation of violence since the end of 2005 have jeopardized the Norwegian-backed process to end the separatist armed conflict.

Nearly 900 people have been killed in the upsurge of violence.

Source: Xinhua