NO INDEPENDENCE
Getting a clear picture of events in the war zone -- known as the Wanni -- is next to impossible, as it is generally closed to outsiders and those within it are not fully independent of pressure that is often applied at gunpoint.
"Nothing that comes out of the Wanni can be objective and independent. We know LTTE is in full control and these public servants are under pressure," Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told reporters, referring to the doctors.
The pro-rebel web site
www.TamilNet.com quoted a senior LTTE official as saying that 2,000 people had been killed, and denied the rebels were responsible.
"We call upon the international community and the U.N. Security Council 'as a matter of urgency' to take all measures capable of genuinely preventing any further massacres," TamilNet quoted LTTE diplomatic head Selvarajah Pathmanathan as saying.
Pathmanathan for years was the LTTE's chief weapons smuggler and is wanted by Interpol.
Diplomats said the U.N. Security Council was due to have another informal meeting over Sri Lanka on Monday with the foreign ministers of Britain and France, who had a stormy visit to Sri Lanka at the end of April, due to attend.
The council is split over whether to elevate discussion of Sri Lanka's war to a formal level where it could act. The United States and Britain are pushing a ceasefire, while Russia and China have backed Sri Lanka's opposition to a truce.
Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the LTTE timed the attack to come just before the meeting, the daily newspaper the Island reported on Monday.
The LTTE has been fighting an all-out civil war since 1983 to create a separate state for minority Tamils in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
(Writing by
Bryson Hull;
Editing by
Alex Richardson)
