A candidate in Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections was shot dead yesterday in the first political killing in the run-up to next month's poll, police said, as the incident was blamed on Tamil rebels.
A political party expressed fears that the slaying of the ruling party candidate could herald more to come. At least 41 people were killed around the last parliamentary election in December 2001.
Two gunmen shot dead Sinnathamby Sunderapillai while he was in a hospital in the town of Batticaloa receiving treatment for a gunshot wound he suffered in an attack on Saturday, police said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing, which came two days after the London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International asked Tamil Tiger rebels not to kill opponents during the electoral campaign.
Local officials said they suspected Tamil Tiger rebels may have been involved in the killing. There was no immediate reaction from the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"A police investigation is under way," spokesman for Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's party, G.L. Peiris, told reporters in Colombo shortly after the slaying.
"We cannot at this stage speculate as to who was responsible," he said.
Sunderapillai, from the minority Tamil community, had sought to represent the prime minister's United National Party at the April 2 vote despite threats from pro-rebel groups for him to keep out of the contest.
The LTTE has its own political wing, but is not contesting the election, instead backing the moderate Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which includes guerrilla proxies.
Private election monitors said they have received complaints of widespread violence in the southern and north-central regions of the island and feared there could be an escalation of politically motivated attacks ahead of the poll.
Amnesty noted there were reports of more than 100 election-related incidents of violence, including 40 party activists who have been injured in clashes in southern and north-central regions, after the close of nominations last Tuesday.
Four people have also allegedly been abducted by the LTTE in the east of the island since the elections were announced, Amnesty said.
Buddhist monks contesting the elections said they feared more election-related killings, but were not taking extra precautions for their candidates despite the deteriorating security environment.
"This is just the first killing and unfortunately it won't be the last," monk Athuraliya Ratana said. "There is a already smear campaign against our candidates and they may want to eliminate us, but we pray for them too."
President Chandrika Kumaratunga called the election nearly four years ahead of schedule after accusing Wickremesinghe of making too many concessions to the Tigers in his bid to end an ethnic conflict which has claimed over 60,000 lives since 1972.
The election campaign for the December 2001 parliamentary election was marred by violence that left at least 41 people killed and over 700 wounded. Nine people were killed in a single incident on voting day.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to