As Sri Lanka spirals violently downwards, both the Colombo government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) prefer to project themselves as victims of a war forced upon them. In all the incidents of the past weeks, including the claymore mine attack on a civilian bus in Kebbitigollawa, the gruesome murder of a Tamil family in Mannar District on 8 June, the shocking killing of civilians in Jaffna District, and the bombing of a church compound in the north, the government and LTTE accused each other of outrages while denying their own culpability.
The horrific bus bombing, where an unprecedented number of civilians died or were wounded, could have been the LTTE's way of retaliating for the difficulties in which it finds itself. The organisation is bitter at the ban slapped on it by the European Union, which has made it an outcast in the world's most influential countries. Some of the Tamil Tigers' leading cadres have been killed in recent weeks by subversive forces of which the government denies having any knowledge, and a large number of pro-LTTE civilians have also been killed in brutal fashion.
The new phase of warfare in Sri Lanka is likely to be very costly to civilians. Killings are already taking place on a regular basis in the northeast, for which any responsibility is denied. As a result, all political activity in the region has come to a halt, as people live in mortal fear of getting on the wrong side of the gun carried by any one of several forces. Amidst all of this, the targeting of international NGO workers is a new phenomenon that has affected their relief activities. And the northeast is where these agencies are most needed.
Civilians living outside the northeast are also in danger from the LTTE's violent agenda. Meanwhile, the government is not above threatening peace activists who argue for a negotiated political solution. A parliamentary committee is presently investigating NGOs deemed to be threats to national security. In the days ahead, organisations critical of the government and the LTTE are likely to be more cautious in the work they do.