AFP: Sri Lanka fighting claims 67 ahead of peace envoy trip: army

COLOMBO (AFP) - Thirty-six hours of intense fighting across Sri Lanka's north left at least 66 rebels and one soldier dead by midday Saturday, the military said, a day ahead of a visit by a Japanese peace envoy.

Japan, Sri Lanka's top aid donor, has voiced deep concern over Colombo's recent decision to formally scrap its 2002 truce with Tamil rebels, saying it feared the move would further stall peace efforts and worsen the conflict.

Yasushi Akashi was to arrive in Colombo on Sunday for talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse and government officials on "the current situation of the peace process and its future," Japan's embassy said here in a statement.

Analysts said Akashi's three-day mission might prove fruitless.

"The government is hell-bent on pursuing its military plans" to crush the rebels before entering into any peace talks," said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, head of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo think-tank.

"Japan has serious economic clout in Sri Lanka and it will be interesting to see what his message to the government is," said Saravanamuttu.

The envoy's trip follows an escalation by security forces of attacks along rebel-held areas in Jaffna and the slaying of a cabinet minister in a suspected guerrilla bomb attack on Tuesday.

Some 258 rebels have been killed so far this month while 10 troops have been killed in the same period, the military says.

The president said the killing of D. M. Dassanayake, the 51-year-old minister for nation building, who was due to be given a state funeral late on Saturday, marked a need "to redouble our efforts to rid our country of terrorism."

The government uses the word "terrorism" to describe rebel activities.

Fighting in the north of the country has been rising with government forces claiming they now have the upper hand in the decades-old war.

"Terrorists have suffered a heavy beating as security forces continue their thrust into the LTTE-dominated Wanni region (rebel-held areas)," the defence ministry said, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Tigers' full name.

There was no comment on the military's latest casualty claims by the rebels, who are fighting for an independent Tamil nation in the majority Sinhalese island.

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