Sri Lankan fighting
April 16, 2009In a joint statement on Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, welcomed the Sri Lankan government's original announcement on April 12 of a two-day pause in its military offensive in order to protect civilians, but they said they were concerned that the Tamil Tiger rebels had not allowed civilians to leave the conflict area.
The Sri Lankan military has announced that it is now free to begin a final assault to end the 25-year war against the rebels. It says only 1,000 rebels remain, and it accuses the fighters of holding around 100,000 civilians as human shields.
The British and French foreign ministers called on the government to announce a new pause, saying that "democratic governments are rightly held to higher standards for civilian protection than terrorist organizations."