Heavy Rebel Losses In Sri Lanka

Fresh fighting by separatists to seize a strategic causeway in northern Sri Lanka left at least 30 guerrillas dead, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.

The rebels launched a major offensive last week to recapture from soldiers their former stronghold, Jaffna, which is about 185 miles north of the capital of Colombo. The rebels are trying to capture the Elephant Pass causeway that links the northern Jaffna Peninsula with the rest of the country to the south.

In the latest fighting Saturday, the rebels tried to attack army artillery positions in Iyakachchi, near the Elephant Pass causeway, but were fought off by the soldiers, the military said in a statement.

Soldiers later found the bodies of 21 guerrillas in the area, it said.

In another area in the Jaffna peninsula, seven rebels were killed when air force jets and artillery pounded a rebel armored vehicle in the Nagar Kovil area. Another two guerrillas were shot dead elsewhere in the north.

The Voice-of-Tiger, a clandestine rebel radio station, said in its news program Saturday night that 71 guerrillas had been killed in six days of fighting. The military, however, says 150 rebels were killed and more than 350 guerrillas were wounded.

The Tigers say more than 700 government troops have been killed and wounded since the attack was launched. The army put its loses at 85 soldiers killed and 613 wounded.

It wasn't possible to explain the discrepancies.

Despite the fighting, the government and opposition parties in parliament say they are committed to the peace process.

"The peace process is on track provided the perpetrators of terrorist violence do not close the present window of opportunity for a negotiated political solution," Sri Lankan Ambassador to the United Nations H. M. G. S. Pallihakkara told the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva on Thursday.

Pallihakkara said a peaceful solution would preserve the multiethnic, democratic character and territorial integrity of the country.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga is offering autonomy to each of the country's eight provinces, including the one dominated by Tamils, to help end the 17-year-old ethnic conflict. She has met the main opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe five times this month to win his backing for the proposal.

But the rebels say they will not accept anything less than an independent homeland for the minority Tamils. They accuse the majority Sinhalese community of discriminating against the Tamils in education and jobs.

Thursday, a military plane bringing troops home from battling guerrillas crashed, killing the four Russian crew members and all 36 military personnel aboard, air force officials said.

More than 61,000 people have been killed since the war began in 1983 in this small island nation off India's southern coast.