After meeting Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Memnon Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama in Kandy said India will not interfere with the present war conducted in Sri Lanka to eliminate terrorism from the island nation.
[ad#200×200] “During the talks the world ceasefire was never mentioned,” the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister told reporters in Kandy when he visited the Heads of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters of the Siamese sect of Buddhism to obtain their blessings
Some South Indian politicians had demanded that India should impose a ceasefire in the war in Sri Lanka and stop the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Although the Sri Lanka army commander, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka believe that the LTTE Supremo might have escaped the Mulaitivu area where he fled from Kilinochchi , when it fell into the hands of the Sri Lanka Army. He has also predicted victory sooner than he thought, at the time of planning of the long running Eelam war 4 . He said at an annual dinner he had hosted for war correspondents that the LTTE resistance in the war was weaker than he expected.
Judging from the LTTE leader’s attachment to his family and food the Sri Lanka Army Commander had said that Prabhakaran would not have stayed in Mulaitivu when the army was so close. He refused to speculate where he had fled but was sure he would have fled by the Mulaitivu sea.
Although Prabhakaran expected his followers to swallow the cyanide capsules the army commander said he would neither commit suicide nor get caught like Iraqi President Sadam Hussain did.
As Fonseka was speaking, Sri Lanka army troops were marching towards the heart of Mulaitivu where about 1000 trained fighters of the LTTE were cornered to an area restricted to 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) by 15 kilometers ( about 9 miles) by nearly 50,000 Sri Lankan soldiers.
In the forward march by the soldiers they captured a highly fortified garrison at Maruthampuvel, the army said. They ran over a Tiger boat-manufacturing factory there where troops found two fast attack vessels and seven small boats used by rebels for suicide attacks, Defence Ministry further said. Their naval wing called Sea Tigers rams small vessels packed with explosives into government naval ships in suicide attacks.
To demonstrate the sorry plight of the Tamil Tigers Army Commander further told reporters, “When the war started, I used 50 map sheets to plan it. Now I only need one sheet to plan it,”
Some local people have speculated that Prabhakaran would have been taken by a submarine of a Scandinavian country to give him refuge.
By Walter Jayawardhana
source:Lankaweb