What the bloody fighting failed to achieve then is now being done without firing a single bullet. Both the army and the rebels are busy clearing land mines in the Vavuniya axis, which cuts across the ltte-held Wannia or the northern mainland, to enter the Jaffna peninsula. The entry point at Vavuniya, the northernmost mainland town under government control, opened this week, and within a month land mines will also be cleared from the Jaffna end of the highway, connecting the government-held peninsula to the mainland for the first time in a decade and allowing people and goods to move without hindrance.
It was amidst all this that I stepped into Vavuniya last week, to see a team of the International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc) supervising army engineers busy removing hundreds of anti-personnel mines ahead of its trenches. About 500 metres away the rebels were involved in a similar exercise. But soon the clearing operation hit a snag. The rebels demanded that they wanted to clear 60 metres further towards the army lines. The army refused.
Academic Interest 
You don't discard, but donate, your worn-out clothes in this bank 
