Sri Lanka declares emergency after minister killed

COLOMBO - Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency on Saturday following the assassination of her foreign minister, her spokesman said.

Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, who campaigned to outlaw the Tigers internationally, had long been at the top of the Tigers' hit list and died early on Saturday after he was shot by a suspected sniper in the garden of his central Colombo home. Police have blamed the attack on Tamil Tiger rebels.

"A state of emergency has been declared to ensure national security," presidential spokesman Harim Peiris told Reuters after holding an emergency meeting with Kumaratunga.

"It is a legal measure to enable the free deployment of emergency troops," he added.

The Tigers were not immediately available for comment.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff condemned the assassination of his Sri Lankan counterpart.

Mr Goff said he had constructive discussions with the late minister about how the peace process in Sri Lanka could be sustained.

He said it would be a tragedy for conflict to resume after 30 years of violence which has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Kadirgamar, 73, was an ethnic Tamil and a top adviser to President Chandrika Kumaratunga in a protracted effort to bring about a permanent peace with the Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate state in the north and east of the Indian Ocean island since 1983.

He was thought to have been shot twice in the head, once in the throat and once in the body while in a car near his Colombo home, which was normally surrounded by high security. He died soon after in the National Hospital in Colombo.

"The foreign minister passed away," Justice Minister John Senevirathne said outside the hospital early on Saturday. "It is a great loss."

Government officials declined to comment on who was to blame for the shooting, but Inspector General of Police Chandra Fernando said it was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

"It's the Tigers," he said.

The Tigers, who have repeatedly warned that Sri Lanka is on the brink of a return to the island's two-decade civil war after a rash of attacks in the restive east which the rebels and the military each blame on the other, were not immediately available for comment.

Kadirgamar was one Sri Lanka's most high-profile politicians, and as foreign minister for seven years until 2001 he tried to draw international attention to violent acts carred out by the Tamil Tigers in their separatist struggle.

He was instrumental in getting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) outlawed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and Britain.

Kumaratunga reappointed Kadirgamar as foreign minister in April 2004 when her party won parliamentary elections.

In both stints he served as one of the president's main advisers on the civil war, but he and Kumaratunga were unable to bring the rebels to the negotiating table.

After a change in government in late 2001, the rebels signed a ceasefire agreement with then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in early 2002. But face-to-face peace talks conducted with Norwegian mediation broke down in 2003 and Wickremesinghe lost a snap election in 2004.

The island's peace process has been deadlocked ever since, and Kadirgamar's assassination comes amid escalating tensions between the government and the rebels.

Kadirgamar grew up in the historic town of Kandy in Sri Lanka's central hills, and became an Oxford-educated lawyer who specialised in international and intellectual property law before turning to politics.

An eloquent orator, he was close to the media and often visited other countries, including India, in his campaign against the Tigers.

"Because he is a Tamil and doing that, he is considered one of the biggest enemies of the Tigers," an official in Kumaratunga's office said in 2003.

The Tigers have carried out numerous suicide attacks on Sri Lankan officials, and in 1999 tried to kill Kumaratunga, who lost an eye.

They also killed Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, two years after a Tiger suicide bomber murdered former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for sending troops to Sri Lanka to try to enforce a ceasefire pact.

Kadirgamar was a candidate in 2003 for the position of secretary general of the Commonwealth, the organisation of mainly former British colonies, but was defeated by Don McKinnon of New Zealand.

Kadirgamar's assassination came a day after the LTTE warned that the government's refusal to hunt down and disarm Tamil renegades fighting a silent war with their cadres in the east of the island could rekindle a war that has already killed more than 64,000 people.

The Tigers accuse the government military of helping a splinter faction led by a top former rebel commander called Karuna to kill their political and military members. They demand the government disarms the faction.

Dozens of rebel cadres, policemen and soldiers have been killed since a truce was agreed in 2002, and some diplomats and analysts fear the violence could spiral into all-out war.

The Tigers have repeatedly warned that their patience is at breaking point and the truce in danger of collapse, and Nordic monitors of the truce say Kadirgamar's killing will hurt a ceasefire already under severe strain.

"It is very, very serious in respect of the ceasefire agreement," said Vilja Kutvonen, acting spokeswoman for the Nordic Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, which oversees the truce.

"It's likely to have serious consequences. It puts the whole ceasefire under risk."

- REUTERS and NZ Herald