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by Ranga Jayasuriya

As the government and the LTTE levelled accusations at each other on the quantum of ceasefire violations, the Head of the Scandinavian Truce Monitors Hagrup Haukland said yesterday that the two parties appeared to be at a "competition" on this issue.

SLMM chief Haukland said though the level of violence reduced since late January, this tug of war between the two parties had given a gloomy picture of the security situation.

"It looks like a competition to gain credit for the highest number of complaints, some of which were found to be exaggerated.

This is not a good situation in our perspective," he said.

"This has put the situation in a negative light even though the ground situation has improved since the two parties agreed to meet," he said.

He said nearly 100 complaints of ceasefire violations had been lodged by the government and the LTTE.

He said though most complaints of ceasefire violations were about minor incidents, there were some serious incidents.

Haukland said those incidents would not have any impact on the next round of ceasefire talks scheduled on April 19 in Geneva.

The SLMM is now working on a report on the implementation of the truce agreement since the Geneva meeting, which will be presented to the next round of talks.

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