(29 Apr 2006)
1. Army stopping cars on road
2. Soldier checking car
3. Pan from traffic to army check point
4. Various of soldiers on guard
5. Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, sitting in office
6. Close up document of "Geneva Talks"
7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process:
"While we were, on the government side, making every effort to ensure that the negotiations will take place, the Tigers also conducted a devastating campaign of exploding landmines, claymore mines, which claimed the lives of dozens of service personnel and civilians. They also used hand grenades, they murdered civilians in Sinhalese areas."
8. Cutaway to hand
9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process:
"The government still hopes that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) will come back to Geneva for a resumed session of the peace talks. We sincerely hope that they will put an end to this campaign of terror which they have been conducting, employing claymore mines."
10. Close up Kohona talking
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process:
"He will talk devolution of power in the context of a united Sri Lanka, in the context where the sovereignty of the country is protected and advanced."
12. Wide shot of Kohona
13. Market place
14. People and traffic in city
STORYLINE:
European peace monitors said on Saturday the Sri Lankan government violated a cease-fire agreement by launching deadly air strikes against Tamil Tiger rebel territory.
Security forces may also have conducted extra-judicial killings of civilians in the country''s Tamil-majority north and east the monitoring mission added.
It also criticised the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for continuing to attack government forces with anti-personnel mines.
The comments by the cease-fire monitors came as the government said it was prepared to travel to Switzerland any time to resume peace talks with the rebels.
"The government still hopes that the LTTE will come back to Geneva for a resumed session of the peace talks", Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, said.
The government launched two days of air strikes on rebel positions after a suicide attack in Colombo last Tuesday which seriously wounded the country''s top army commander and killed at least 11 others.
The air strikes killed 12 people and displaced thousands more. The rebels have said the 12 killed in the air strikes were all civilians.
The government earlier said it would not launch any more air strikes if the guerillas stopped their attacks.
The recent violence has posed the most serious threat yet to a 2002 truce between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, who seek a separate state in the north and east of the country.
The government and the rebels were scheduled to meet in Geneva on April 24-25, but the rebels refused to attend, blaming disputes with the government and alleged attacks against Tamil civilians.
Kohona said President Mahinda Rajapakse would raise the issue of devolution if the peace talks resumed.
"He will talk devolution of power in the context of a united Sri Lanka, in the context where the sovereignty of the country is protected and advanced," Kohona said.
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