Sri Lankan police break up Tamil service to honour separatist war dead

Sri Lankan police broke up a remembrance service for ethnic Tamils killed in the separatist war, residents said yesterday, as the military prepared to celebrate its victory over Tamil Tiger rebels five years ago.

Tamil politicians attempted to stage the remembrance on Friday at local council offices in the battle-scarred northern town of Jaffna, defying a ban on public commemorations of war victims, witnesses said.

The government was planning a major military "victory parade" today to mark five years since the defeat of the Tigers, who waged a decades-long battle for a separate homeland for Tamils.

There is a ban on services to honour Tamil rebels and remember civilians killed in the conflict, which ended in 2009 after claiming at least 100,000 lives.

In Jaffna, police barricaded the building, preventing politicians from entering, and smashed a banana-tree branch brought to the service in a Hindu religious practice to commemorate the dead, witnesses said.

"They lit camphor lamps just outside the council wall because they could not go in," a witness said, asking not to be named. "But a policeman stamped on the camphor and snuffed out the flames."