COLOMBO, Feb 9: Scandinavian monitors on Sunday rejected denials by Tamil Tiger rebels and said they had been caught smuggling arms and ammunition into Sri Lanka in violation of a ceasefire brokered by Norway.

The independent truce monitoring team known as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said three Tiger crewmen blew up their trawler after two Norwegian monitors found an anti-aircraft gun and ammunition aboard it Friday.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had blamed the SLMM and the Sri Lankan navy for the stand off which ended with the suicide blast off the island’s northern Jaffna peninsula.

The pro-rebel website Tamilnet.com reported the LTTE’s political committee as saying the trawler was engaged in “fishing” and the three rebels dismantled the gun to “assume a non-combative posture.”

However, SLMM spokesman Teitur Torkelsson categorically rejected the rebel version of events and noted that the two monitors who boarded the trawler had found the 23-mm anti-aircraft weapon concealed in a false bulkhead.

“One of our monitors found that new nails had been driven to a wall between two rooms in the trawler. On opening it they found the 23-mm gun barrel, greased and wrapped in paper together with sealed boxes of ammunition,” Torkelsson said.

He said after the discovery the rebels doused the trawler with kerosene oil, but one of the Norwegian monitors managed to snatch a lighter from a Tiger crewman who tried to set fire to the vessel with the foreigners onboard.

“At this time, another cadre had already set fire to the rear section of the trawler and that is when our two monitors decided to jump overboard,” Torkelsson said adding the rebels immediately blew themselves up taking the boat down with them.

The suicide blast overshadowed peace talks which opened in the German capital Berlin, but both the LTTE and the government peace negotiators played down the incident, blaming it on a “communication” problem.

LTTE’s chief negotiator Anton Balasingham said in Berlin they were committed to the peace process and there was no question of returning to war.

“We have had a bitter experience in engaging in a bloody war without achieving anything substantial,” he said underlining their commitment to remain engaged in talks with the Colombo government despite hiccups.

However, the Tigers’ political committee took a harder stance, blaming the SLMM as well as the Sri Lankan navy (SLN) for the trawler incident.

“The failure of the SLMM to handle the incident in a fair and responsible manner and the provocative, belligerent conduct of the SLN have resulted in three of our cadres taking their own lives,” the Tiger political panel said.—AFP