COLOMBO • Sri Lanka's president sought approval for the country's largest-ever defence budget from Parliament yesterday as government forces captured a key village from Tamil Tiger rebel control in the north.
The Tamil National Alliance party — with 22 ethnic Tamil lawmakers in the country's 225-member Parliament — walked out of the chamber during President Mahinda Rajapakse's speech, protesting that Tamil civilians were being targeted in the government's military campaign.
Rajapakse, who also serves as defence and finance minister, proposed to spend 177bn rupees ($1.6bn) on defence for 2009, an increase of 6.4 percent from 166.4bn rupees ($1.5bn) allocated this year.
In his speech, Rajapakse said Sri Lankan soldiers had seized several rebel bases and large swathes of land in the Tamil-dominated north and were close to crushing the separatist guerrillas.
"It is to eradicate terrorism through this true humanitarian exercise that we spent a substantial amount of money on national security," he said.
Saying rebel territory was gradually shrinking and the Tigers' strength deteriorating, Rajapakse called on the guerrillas to lay down arms and surrender. "If not, they would be militarily defeated," he said.
Government troops have made dramatic progress in recent months, on the northern front, but the rebels have offered stiff resistance as the soldiers close in on their administrative capital, Kilinochchi.
Hours before Rajapakse presented the budget, his troops captured the northern village of Akkarayankulam, moving a step closer to securing the strategic guerrilla-held town of Kilinochchi.
Army troops took control of the village after three days of fighting, said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, without giving details of casualties.
It was not possible to contact rebel officials for comment because most communication lines have been severed. Independent accounts are difficult to obtain from the battlefield because journalists are barred from the war zone.
Separately yesterday, fighter jets bombed a command centre used by senior rebel leaders in Kilinochchi, said air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara.
Damage and casualty details were not available, he said, adding the pilots confirmed the target was hit "accurately."
Rajapakse's budget is expected to be debated over the next three weeks. If it fails to pass in Parliament, the government could fall, forcing new elections.
The total government expenditure for next year is estimated at about 1.2 trillion rupees ($10.8bn) — far in excess of expected revenues of 855bn rupees ($7.8bn).
In other violence, soldiers attacked rebel positions on Wednesday in northern Mullaitivu district, forcing insurgents to flee with casualties, the Defence Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Following a new government policy, it did not give casualty details.
