Both troops & Tigers rearm despite talks

Violence in Sri Lanka's minority Tamil-dominated north and east pushed the island to the brink of war in January but has fallen off sharply since the two sides agreed to hold their first direct talks since 2003. But Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka said both sides were continuing to prepare for battle.

"I know they are building up the capacity of their military," he said of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"I don't know that they can build up their forces and be serious about peace. We also are building our forces. But building up a legitimate army is very different from building up a terrorist force."

Both sides repeatedly say they want to avoid a return to Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war, which killed more than 64,000 people and shaved an estimated 1-2 percentage points a year off economic growth before the 2002 truce.

But the rebels have warned that unless concessions are made, war may return.

A strike gripped Sri Lanka's restive northeast yesterday as Tamil Tiger rebels and the Colombo government traded allegations of reneging on their latest pledges to uphold a troubled truce.

Shops and offices shut in the district of Trincomalee in response to the one-day strike called by a Tamil Tiger rebel front organisation, local residents and officials said.

They said the Pongu Thamil organisation which ordered the strike to protest alleged truce violations by security forces is a front of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Tension has been rising in the troubled region, with the guerrillas accusing the military of building new bunkers in violation of their four-year-old truce.

At the launch of a new army Web site in part aimed at highlighting rebel ceasefire breaches, Fonseka told reporters the Tigers had increased recruitment of children. UN children's agency Unicef says there is no evidence child recruitment is up.

Fonseka said the rebels are firing at the army to try and provoke them, but the Tigers were not "misbehaving" as seriously as before the talks were agreed. It is now over a month since a suspected rebel attack injured a soldier.