Flags, war songs mark rebel celebrations

Flags fluttered and war songs played throughout Sri Lanka's north and east yesterday as the island's Tamil Tiger rebels honoured their war dead.

The Heroes' Week of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is their biggest celebration of the year.

Fighting in the 20-year civil war for a separate Tamil state has been on hold since a ceasefire was signed in February last year, but monitors overseeing the truce said celebrations of Heroes' Day had raised tensions.

"The situation has been pretty tense during the last couple of days, but it seems to be under control," said Agnes Bragadottir, spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

She said monitors had stepped up foot patrols and had brokered several meetings between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lanka army to try to defuse tensions.

Shops were closed in the rebel headquarters in the war-scarred town of Kilinochchi, with war songs blaring from loudspeakers and scores of rebel red and yellow flags depicting a roaring Tiger strung along the main street.

Maps showed the boundaries of Tamil Eelam -- the large swathe of northern and eastern Sri Lanka the rebels claim as a Tamil homeland.

In the ethnically mixed city of Trincomalee in the east, a life-size cut-out of the Tigers' reclusive leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and photos of fallen cadres were on display in the town's centre. Shops in Trincomalee and elsewhere in the east were also closed.

Norwegian-brokered talks stalled in April, and a chance to get the process back on track was scuttled earlier this month when a power struggle erupted between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Prabhakaran told European Union External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten on Wednesday he was committed to peace but that it was up to leaders in Colombo to avoid a return to war.