Colombo, Sri Lanka - Furious Buddhist monks, their eyes streaming from teargas, denounced on Monday Sri Lanka's plans to share tsunami aid with Tamil Tiger rebels as riot police broke up the second protest by clergy in a week.
Sodden by jets from water cannon and coughing amid the acrid gas, around 300 monks carrying banners declaring "Defeat the joint mechanism death trap" ran for cover as gas canisters rained down to halt their advance towards President Chandrika Kumaratunga's palace.
"We are protesting for the future of your children" yelled one shaven-headed monk in saffron robes, his bloodshot eyes watering and voice breaking as his peers ran for cover.
Hardline Sri Lankan monks say the Tigers are fascists who should be crushed.
Kumaratunga met politicians from her ruling coalition as well as the main opposition United National Party (UNP) on Monday in a bid to muster support for the pact to share $3.0 billion in international aid with rebel-held areas in the north and east.
Senior aides say the pact will go ahead despite the threat by the Marxist People's Liberation Front (JVP) to quit the coalition government this week unless Kumaratunga does an about-face.
"There is no back-tracking," a top government aide said. "It will be signed. But there are certain things that needed to be ironed out and they are being done."
Kumaratunga managed to defuse a fast-to-the-death by one monk on Friday by promising to consult senior Buddhist clergy before any final decision on the aid pact, but other monks have since begun their own fasts.
GOVERNMENT MAY FALL
The JVP has given the government until Wednesday to ditch the aid pact and vows to cross to the opposition the following day if it refuses. That would reduce the government to a minority in parliament and could trigger snap elections.
"If there is a joint mechanism, the Alliance (government) is dead," said Kethesh Loganathan, an analyst for independent think-tank the Centre of Policy Alternatives. "I don't see it serving it's full term."
The government could limp on with a minority if its nemesis, the UNP, supports it on the aid pact issue. Loganathan said the UNP would likely make any support conditional on presidential elections being held by the end of the year.
The coalition is hamstrung by the same political bickering that has stymied efforts to convert a 2002 ceasefire into lasting peace after two decades of civil war, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are in a win-win situation.
"The LTTE ... only have to sit back and watch things happen," Loganathan said.
Kumaratunga has not made a final draft of the aid pact public, and even some of her closest aides have not seen it.
Diplomats say it envisages forming three tiers of committees, which include members from the rebels, the government and the Muslim community, which can recommend, prioritise and monitor aid projects.
But it does not directly hand the Tigers aid pledged to rebuild the Indian Ocean's shattered coastline, where nearly 40,000 people were swept to their deaths by the tsunami.