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The government is expected to make a formal request to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to play a more active role in sea operations and have monitors on board all SL Navy vessels at all times.

The decision to ask for more monitors follows the sinking of the LTTE vessel off Mullaitivu on June 14 and the subsequent controversy over the contradictory statements made by the Navy and the LTTE, that has further impeded peace talks.

Defence Minister Tilak Marapana said that the government had already suggested this to the SLMM and asked for monitors for both big and small vessels. Implementing the request, he said, would require an additional 50 monitors to the existing cadre.

Minister Marapana said the arrangement to have monitors on board all Navy vessels was there, but that it needed to be implemented. "We want to suggest that there should be more monitors. There must be a monitor on all our vessels," he said, explaining that if there were monitors on board the Navy vessel, it would be easier to monitor incidents like the sinking of the LTTE vessel in Mullaitivu.

He said their presence would automatically make the evidence unequivocal and the LTTE would not be able to say they were carrying oil or they were being fired at. Meanwhile, Agnes Bragadottir, the SLMM spokesperson told the Sunday Observer that they had added nine more monitors to intensify ceasefire monitoring in the North and East, bringing the total to 57.

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