AP reports from Batticaloa on the faltering ceasefire

(8 Jul 2006)
Vavunativu
1. Wide of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) members walking to the Vavunativo front line
2. Close up of automatic rifle
3. More of Tamil Tiger cadres walking
4. LTTE official looking from the front line defence position pan to no man's land area
5. Various of Tamil Tiger combatant aiming RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade)
6. Close up of trigger of heavy machine gun.
7. Various of other Tamil Tiger combatants pointing their guns
8. Wide of road and area that separates Tamil Tigers position and Sri Lanka Army camp
9. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil) Sudar, Tamil Tiger officer:
'' This is our position. Their (Sri Lankan army) position is 500 metres away from here. When our soldiers move from here, they attack us. They use 50 calibres and mortars.''
10. Tracking shot of Tamil Tigers combatants walking along the front line.
11. Tilt up of combatant
Batticaloa district
12. Set up of Dahaya Mohan, leader of political branch of LTTE in Baticaloa
13. Close up of LTTE flag
14. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil) Dhaya Mohan, leader of LTTE political branch in Batticaloa
'' The Government army has started a hidden war. After this war started, the Sri Lankan Army attacked the front line camps of the LTTE, specially the Vavunativu front line camp is being attack very often, with guns and shells.''
15. Set up of Brigadier Prasat Samarsinghe, Sri Lanka Army spokesman
16. SOUNDBITE: (English) Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka Army spokesman:
" When you take Vavunativu and Batticaloa specifically, so when the army was provoked and the army was attacked by small arms mortars and specially with RPG's and then only the Vavunativu troops retaliated and not targeting any civilians."
17. Cutaway close-up of name badge
18. SOUNDBITE: (English) Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka Army spokesman:
"Most of the LTTE fighters, they have been firing sometimes in the night and they just fire at the troops, we don't fire like that. When we know the exact location, when we get the exact point, or rather the LTTE camp targets, we fire at them when they fire at us!"
19. Close up of International Committee Red Cross sign
20. International Committee of the Red Cross headquarters in Batticaloa
21. SOUNDBITE: (English) Nicolas Von Arx, ICRC, Batticaloa district:
" What we can see here in the district is that the means used in attacks and retaliations have escalated. First it was like small guns, then it was grenades, then it was clamour mines, then it was aerial bombardments, then suicide attacks and so on. In that sense we can see a steady escalation of the situation at the moment."
22. Various of Sri Lanka Army soldier patrolling border area in Batticaloa
STORYLINE:
Four years after a cease-fire raised hopes for peace between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, Sri Lanka is teetering on the brink of a civil war.
Sri Lanka's violence is perhaps felt nowhere as acutely as it is around Batticaloa, a largely Tamil city under government control just miles from rebel territory.
Soldiers here patrol in full battle gear, teenage rebels dig fresh fortifications and a shadowy band of renegade insurgents lurk in the jungles.
More than half of the nearly 700 people killed in Sri Lanka since April have been civilians, according to international truce monitors.
Almost every night at the front line of Vavunativu there is exchange of fire of automatic rifle, snipers and RPG.
There are only 500 metres between the bunkers and the defence lines of the Tamil Tigers and the last Sri Lanka Army Camp and both side accuse each other of initiating attacks.

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