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　　Tension mounted in Sri Lanka after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) announced on April 20 they would boycott the second round of talks with the Sri Lankan Government scheduled to be held in Geneva. The attempt to assassinate the island country’s Army Chief Sarath Fonseka in Colombo by a suicide bomber on April 25 and government forces’ retaliatory air raids on LTTE territory pushed the tension to the edge of a civil war.
　　Over 250 people have been killed in the northern and eastern provinces since the beginning of April. Violence is endangering the Norwegian-backed ceasefire that had largely held since 2002 despite violations blamed on both sides. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran recently clearly indicated that it would continue to increase its military struggle for the purpose of establishing a separate state of the country’s minority Tamil people.
　　The country’s tense situation has been widely monitored by the international media. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on May 12 called on parties in Sri Lanka to bring the country back on a path to peace.
　　In a statement released by his spokes