As Sri Lanka’s military launched a new offensive against the Liberation Tigers this week, India re-iterated that war was not the way to resolve the island’s conflict.

“We do not believe that war is the way out...We do not think violence, whether from LTTE’s side or an armed conflict, can resolve any issue,” press reports quoted India’s Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran as saying in Delhi Monday. Meanwhile, The Hindu newspaper reported that, worried over the violence in Sri Lanka, peace-facilitator Norway and India “are engaged in quiet consultations to defuse the situation.”

“About 12 to 15 members of the Pakistani Armed Forces, including four or five from the Pakistan Air Force, are stationed in Colombo to guide the Sri Lankan security forces in their counter-insurgency operations” - Mr. B. Raman

The army told us, if there was any incident, any violence by the militants, they would come and kill my wife, kill my child'

“I can’t see anyone getting back to peace talks until a clear change in the balance of power on the ground has been accepted, and likewise with the ceasefire.”

Analysts say the real reasons for the fierce fighting could run deeper than the government’s explanation that it has launched a “humanitarian gesture” aimed at ending the Tamil Tiger blockade of the Maavilaru waterway.

‘Now we cannot trust them’

“The number reaching Tamil Nadu each day is less than a hundred but they continue to come non-stop.”

Over fifty Tamil detainees were massacred by Sinhala inmates and jailors in Welikade prison.

The International Commission of Jurists observed: “the evidence points clearly to the conclusion that the violence of the Sinhala rioters on the Tamils amounted to acts of genocide.”

The image of the lone Tamil boy cornered by a group of Sinhala youth touched a nerve in a beleaguered minority.