July 19, 2007	Thursday	Rajab 03, 1428

COLOMBO: As Colombo was swathed in posters congratulating government troops on their ousting of the LTTE in the eastern Batticaloa district and preparations were afoot for Thursday’s government organised public celebration of the victory, civilians, in both north-east and Colombo are bracing themselves for the LTTE rebels to keep to their gruesome vow of terror, pledged last week in face of defeat.

Hours after losing their last eastern stronghold in the Thoppigala forest terrain, the Tamil Tiger separatists declared they would ‘adopt every possible mode, tactic and tool to engage the enemy’, raising fears of the rebels resorting to their notorious suicide bombings, targeting civilians and state organisations.

“Security has been tightened throughout the country, especially in Colombo and large hauls of weaponry has been captured in the past one week from north-eastern areas”, military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe told Dawn, a day after suspected Tiger rebels shot dead Eastern Province Chief Secretary Herath Abeyweera.

Abeyweera was shot dead on Monday evening while in his office in the eastern Trincomalee district, days after the military declared the east was cleared of the rebels.

As analysts say the Herculean task for the government and the military would be to keep the newly ‘liberated’ east out of rebel infiltration, an urgent bill calling for fresh local government elections in the eastern province will be presented to parliament soon after the victory celebrations in Colombo on Thursday.

Political sources said cabinet had decided to bring in the legislation as an urgent bill in the national interest and referred it to the Supreme Court for a special determination.

However, fears are rampant that the government’s aim to hold elections in the east to elect a pro-government civil administration would result in the rebels fighting ‘anonymously’, infiltrating government control areas in the guise of Tamil civilians.

“There is, in the east, a desperate expectation of normalcy and the development of the region as promised by the government. But always there is the fear of rebels coming back”, Ismiya Nurul, a social worker operating in the east, working with war displaced persons said.

Meanwhile, Public Administration Minister Karu Jayasuriya said foreign donors to Sri Lanka would be asked to fund reconstruction projects running into millions of dollars in the newly seized eastern province.

“Our main concern is the resettlement of war displaced persons and development projects that will give them jobs and other opportunities”, Jayasuriya said.

However, social workers argue that development without a definite peace accord between the government and the rebels would be hinged on uncertainty.

“These regions have exchanged hands before and without peace talks many fear to hope of normalcy”, a representative of a civil organisation in Batticaloa said.

Last week government spokesman Anura Priyadharshana Yapa told reporters that the government has not abandoned the peace process and would respond if the LTTE makes a move to initiate negotiations.

The rebels, however, has shown no inclination to revert to talks and have only promised fresh hostilities, while the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna has issued an ominous ‘warning’ to the government against resuming the peace process.

“It’s a dead end so far where the peace process is concerned. But what one can hope at least is for some measure of stability for the hundreds of families who had been displaced in the eastern district in the past months of fighting”, Saroja Sivachandran, human rights activist and member of the Human Rights Commission said.