'Lankan govt, Tigers don't want to talk¿

Sri Lankan sailors remove bloodied military equipment from the wreckage of buses in Habarana yesterday after the island's worst-ever suicide bombing. At least 103 people were killed and 150 wounded in the attack on October 16 against Navy personnel at a transit point for sailors and officers heading home on leave. PHOTO: AFP

In the latest carnage, more than 100 people -- most of them sailors -- were killed when Tiger suicide bombers detonated a truck packed with explosives next to a convoy of naval buses near the restive district of Trincomalee.

The government, which last week also suffered a major battlefield defeat in the northern peninsula of Jaffna with the loss of at least 133 soldiers, has hit back with air strikes.

"Both sides are stubborn," said Harry Goonetileke, a retired air force chief and a political advisor to a former president.

"It seems the Tigers want to provoke air attacks. That will be their excuse for not going for talks. The government is playing into their hands," he said, adding that the recent debacles should encourage the government to adopt a more conciliatory attitude.

Former Tamil rebel turned politician, Dharmalingam Sithadthan, argued that neither side was keen on talks partly because they had no political basis to negotiate.

"Even if they go for talks, what they want is to use the international audience to expose the other side as insincere," Sithadthan said. "There is no genuine effort to talk peace. This is a charade."

Sri Lanka's main peace broker Norway is nevertheless trying to keep alive plans for a meeting.

Norway has been working to restore the February 2002 ceasefire and end spiralling violence which has claimed more than 2,300 lives since December. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the three-decades-old conflict over a Tamil homeland on the Sinhalese-majority island.

Special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was due to meet with officials here Tuesday on the proposed peace talks in Switzerland from October 28 to 29 under an agreement reached last week just before the latest fighting flared.

Japan's top peace envoy Yasushi Akashi has also held talks in Colombo with President Mahinda Rajapakse on resuming peace negotiations and ending an eight-month deadlock in the process.