Page 1
Tamji
TIMES
TAMIL TIMES
ISSN 0.266-4488
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION
UK India/Sri Lanka.............., F9,00 All other countries....... E15/USS24
t Published monthly by TAMILTIMES LTD P.O. BOX 304 London W139 ON United Kingdom
CONTENTS
Editorial..,,,,,,.........,,,, 2
"End This Madness" ..........., 3 Bulldozing The Tamils.4 A Plea For Sanity,...,
South African and British Mercena ries Bomb Tamil
Areas............................. ...,,,,,,,.6 Sri Lanka — Bleeding To Death.........................,,, ... iii.7 TäTi|Trävails,..., 8 Weaping Mothers of Sri Lanka .................................. O Repression in The Guise Of Stability................................... TT
TenSiOTS in Sri Lanka: Non-ethic causes.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,12
Delhi's Response to Colombo's
Genocide................................... 14 Tallis Shouldn't Be Returned
TO Sri Lanka.............................. 16 What The Others Say................ לך Book Review......................... 18 Letters TOThe Editor.............,,, 1ց Protest Against Persecution,...,20 Classified Ads.......................... 22
Air Lanka Plane Blasted .24
Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the Editor orth B publishers,
The publishers assumero responsibility for, rc turn of Lunsoliĝitig-drTian Luscripts, photographs and artwork.
Printed By Clarendon Printers Ltd, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire,
Mr. Crijeda T1 har rr, r'ıE V Minister of Pric Adiri
N INDIAM dele
Union Minister Administrative R Chidar Tn baram, arriv 29 April iп puгsшап to help in the pro political settlemen Continu ing ethnic C
The Other Them The Tiber delegatic former Foreign Sec Bharth (dar i Who beca | International Affai Congress(I) after hi. Balakrishnan, Lega: |nliär HCITig Mir Mathai, Under Secre Ministry,
Before the tea to Sri Lärı ka situation various proposals government of reported to hawe bo di SCusse data 21o Delhi presided a Parthasarathy, Ch Policy Advisory attended by Foreig A.P. Wenkateswara Secretary, Mr. C.R. (
By past experient the ridian team coul easy one. Two years by India had in penetrating the wa
 

75р
Wol. W No. 7 May 1986
AN DELEGATION
NI COLOMBO
gader af khe Indian desegaflor, vfth Mr
straffer P
gation led by the for Personnel and efort, Mr. P. red in Colombo on Ce to India's effort :ess of reaching a it to Sri Lanka's Inflict,
befs of the four in ircluded the retary, Mr, Romesh The the head of the 's Comittee of retirement, Mr. S. | Adwisor to the stry, and Ranjän tary in the Foreign
*t for ColqurTmEJO, tha ni general and the ut forward by the Sri Lanka WÈrE en reviewed and ir meeting held in wer by Mr. G. irrillarm, Mlational CO mitte ärd in Secretary, Mr. and Additional harekhan.
, the task before d mot hawe been är of sustained effort succeeded in of intransigence
. Нагіпdга Согва, Sгї Lапkaп Deputү
with which the Sri Lankan goverient had surrounded itself. it also had reneged on solemn undertakings it had given in the face of extremist Sinhala opposition to any meaningful concessions to the Tamils. However, the fact that the visit itself took place was significant in the context of the sharp deterioration of inter-state relations between Color board New Delhi which was reflected in tha excharge of [un] diplorTimatic acrimonious notes in the recent past and India's oper and blunt accusations of grave human rights violations and arbitrary and indiscriminate killings of Tails in Sri Lanka before the recently held Sessions of the UN HLiman Rights Commission.
Before leaving for Sri Lanka, Mr. Chidam bara Tn Said, "We wi||te|| the Sri Lankan government what the Tarı ils want and will ask thern to te|| Lus in Lumambiguous terms what they can Concede Hind what is not possibe'. has had previous experience with those at the helm in Colombo said, 'Do not expect any earth shaking developments".
The India tear is understood to have had talks with the leadership of the Tati United Liberation Front (TULF) before departing to ColorTibo.
CoRtifueಛಿ on back page

Page 2
c. جمہ:...۔ 0:معنی۔ بیبری بھی ۰۶°8ھہۂحت:خ
PRESID
RESIDENT JAYAWARDENE has declared his readiness for a quick military solution to the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka in a recent interview (Sunday Times, 11 May 1986). He said, "I must warn everybody that if the proposals are rejected, then we will have no option but to go for a military solution'.
The proposals to which he refers are those which his government has put forward for setting up provincial councils with limited powers of devolution. However, they were not drafted in consultation with the representatives of the Tamil people. If the President is serious and genuine about a negotiated political solution, he should endeavour to discuss his government's proposals with the representatives of the Tamil people instead of giving them a unilateral ultimatum: "accept my terms, or else I will finish you militarily".
It was only at the beginning of this month that a foismember delegation of the Indian government was in Colombo to discuss matters with the Sri Lankan authorities as part of India's effort to resurrect the negotiating process. Hardly had the Indian delegation returned to New Delhi, President Jayawardene launched his menacing threats to unleash his military might and troops against the Tamil people.
Not that his troops were observing the Buddhist precepts of compassion, kindness and tolerance hitherto. For the last three years, they have been marauding the Tamil areas wreaking havoc and destruction, pillaging and plundering, Committing murder, rape and arson on a gigantic scale.
Obviously what President Jayawardene has in mind is to intensify his bombing and shelling of Tamil areas and to literally obliterate the Tamil people and their homes, villages and towns with the help of his hired South African, former Rhodesian and British mercenaries.
It is the continued denial of the legitimate rights and freedoms of the Tamil people that had spawned armed rebellion by some
E BATTLE between the Tigers and TELO is a dream come true for Colombo. What Sinhalese state terrorism, political duplicity, and years of unremitting repression could not achieve has been partially secured in an orgy of inter-Tamil gunfire and reprisal beyond the resources even of a Palaly or a Gurunagar: the elimination of part of the fighting strength of the Tamil people.
Who should be congratulated on such a victory for Colombo, is an open question. But history, when the dirty record is read in daylight, will probably award first prize to the agents provocateurs and other troublemakers who always prosper when political necessity drives immature adventurers - as well as heroes – to arms, and good men (and boys) to extremes of desperation.
In the heat of battles which are not of the Tamils' choosing, violence is no respecter of persons. But the black flags raised in Jaffna we raise here also, in mourning and protest for the blood of sons and brothers shed in the name of an ever-advancing cause, but shed without thought for the outcome, and shed without mercy.
That such crimes of gang-rivalry and division can be committed at a time when the world community is increasingly united in its perception of the justice of the Tamil struggle, at a time when Colombo's economic and political vulnerability is growing, and its leadership incompetent or senile, or both together; at a time when much of the Northern and parts of the Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka are out-of-bounds to the terrified and demoralized security forces, at a time when Colombo's dependency upon India to shield it from world disapproval by means of another bout of negotiation is. becoming more intense, at a time when tens and hundreds of
 

- MAY 1986
ENT'S ULTIMATUM I
sections of the Tamil population. It is the cruel and systematic use of state terrorism against the Tamil people that resulted in the emergence and growth of the Tamilguerilla movements. Instead of making a genuine attempt to remove the causes that led to armed rebellion by Tamil guerillas, the President and his government are presently pleading for support from abroad to suppress them. He has asked the so-called English speaking world for help "to suppress the alarm and rebellion' in Sri Lanka.
There is no doubt that President Jayawardene is seeking to use the hysteria produced by the Reagan-Thatcher effort against what they describe as 'international terrorism' to mobilise support for his military venture against Tamil resistance to Sinhala chauvinist hegemony and state terrorism in Sri Lanka.
It is not an accident that the Air Lanka plane should have been blown up killing several foreign nationals to synchronise with the Tokyo summit, and that the Sri Lankan government should rush, even without a preliminary investigation, to blame the Tamil militants for the blast. It is also not an accident that President Jayawardene should spell out his decision to impose a military solution in a major interview shortly thereafter.
Jayawardene and his government ought to realise that the struggle of the Tamil speaking people has a legitimate cause, and that cause is their desire to protect their identity as people fossessing the power to determine their own destiny and to live in equality and justice with all other people within Sri Lanka and outside. They also must realise that peace and tranquility cannot be restored with the help of the despicable dogs of war the President has hired. Numerically the Tamils of Sri Lanka may be too few to permit the thought that they could be suppressed and trounced militarily. But they are too many to allow the luxury of the illusion that peace and tranquility could ever return to the island without their active help and positive participation.
Tamils/Wightmare
thousands of endangered Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka need physical protection against the savagery of the Sri Lankan army - that such crimes can be committed now reveals how high a price is being exacted from the Tamils by the relentlessly vicious pressures placed upon them by Colombo.
For this struggle to the death in Jaffna, among the fighters for a common cause, is itself a deformed product of that greater deformity which is Sinhalese racism and its genocidal intentions. It is the cruel result of cruelties even greater, the violent outcome of a much greater violence.
Yet it may be argued, and is being argued, by partisan Tamils who support one or the other grouping, that unity in the Tamil struggle cannot be achieved- and should not even be sought - at the expense of commitment to a particular political direction, left, right or centre. Moreover, it is true that every national movement in history, on or beneath the surface, has contained irreconcilable differences of class interest and of political purpose, divergent beliefs - socialist or anti-socialist, Marxist and non-Marxist - and varieties of position (from Gandhian to Leninist) on the question of violence.
But one thing is absolutely clear. Gun-battles and shoot-outs in the manner of the Sicilian Mafia or Chicago hoodlums, whatever, their explanation, remain politically, morally, tactically and physically nothing but a Tamil nightmare and a Tamil disaster. A just war for liberation against a brutal and cunning oppressor, and in defence of Tamil birthright, home and culture, is one thing. Fratricide in pursuit of personal or faction power is another. Indeed, once the idle and immoral justifications' for it have been finally silenced, there is one word for it, and one word only. The word is MURDER.

Page 3
MAY 1986
'LET US PUT AN END
THE FOLLOWING is the text of the statement issui by the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), joint front of three Tamil militant groups- the Tan Eelam Liberation Organisation, Eelam Peopl Revolutionary Liberation Front and the Eela Revolutionary Organisation - on the recent cla: between the LTE and TELO:
: "The Sri Lankan government is now intensifying its preparat for the final solution of the Tamils. It is creating the milit political, economic and ideological conditions at home and diplomatic conditions internationally in order to assist it in task. Assisted by international terrorists such as Mossad, SAS also the mercenary forces from Pakistan, Sri Lanka is exer every ounce of strength and every rupee available in orde prepare the ground, according to a definite plan for the subjuga of the Tamils. We are now approaching the critical momen ‘decision between survival and extinction and must preparations for resistance in order to save the Tamils.
Political, military, economic and educational preparations our defence are all necessary for armed resistance to save the Ta people from impending peril, and none of them should be dela for a moment. But the key that will ensure victory for our art resistance is the winning of political democracy and freed Armed resistance requires the maintenance of domestic peace unity, but the relative peace of recent times achieved by pushing army behind the barracks cannot be consolidated and internalu strengthened without democracy and freedom. Armed resista requires the mobilisation of the people, but you will not mob, them without democracy and freedom. Unless peace and unity consolidated, people are mobilised, our armed resistance meet the same fate as those forgotten by history.
To achieve our historic task we must immediately throw subjectivism which is causing great harm to the analysis of political situation and which incapacitates us in responding to
LTE ATACKS TELO
Over one hundred and fifty members of the Tam Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), including it leader, SriSabaratnam, are reported to have been kille when those belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tam Eelam (LTTE) mounted a concerted attack on th former. The attack upon TELO units and bases whic reportedly commenced on April 29 lasted nearly fou days.
This clash between two of the major Tamil militar organisations has left the Tamils of Sri Lanka, bot within and outside the country, saddened. Despite th explanations given by the LTTE that their attack upo the TELO was provoked by the kidnapping of two ofth former's field commanders by the latter, many Tamil and their sympathisers feel outraged by the scale an the sheer brutality of the response by the LTTE.
in any event, the beneficiary of this conflict and th resulting deaths is the government of Sri Lanka, whic could not have hoped, even in its wildest dreams, t inflict such a heavy loss upon the Tamil militants in suc a short time, lamented a member of the Jaffna Citizen Committee. .
The Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), of whic TELO is a constituent member, has denounced th attack upon the TELO as an act that would objectivel serve the interests of the Sri Lankan government.

ΤΑΜΙLTIMES 3
To This MADNEss" - ENLF
ons
ary,
the this and ting r fO tion
t of
'ush
for tmil yed ned
ጋሆበጌ. '
and the nity '}፲Cé ilise
盔Té
wil.
Ollí the the
e
imminent threats that confront us. The subjective analysis of the political situation and subjective guidance of work inevitably results in opportunism or in conspiracies. This combined with individualism is a cancer the growth of which will surely suppress llS.
Comrades, retiation of any kind arises from purely personal considerations, to the neglect of the concepts of a liberator and resulting in the abandonment of the people. Its target is not the enemy but our own heroic fighters from whichever group they come. It is a corrosive which saps the will of the people, weakens their strength and ultimately their fighting capacity.
Some comrades who consider only the interests of their group and ignore the general interests of the people develop the mentality of the 'small group'. Even on the surface it does not appear as pursuit of personal or group interest; it exemplifies the narrowest individualism and has a strong corrosive and centrifugal effect. Comrades, we cannot afford the luxury of the 'small group" mentality at such a dangerous time as this, for by its very nature it cannot even help to mobilise the people for their historic task.
Any individual who is a member of a group should understand
that he is an instrument initially for carrying out the tasks of the
resistance and ultimately to throw out the illegitimate Sri Lankan State. Some do not seem to think that they are the makers of a new dawn and a new era for the ordinary Tamil man and woman, but instead think that their responsibility is merely to their own individual superiors or their group and not to the heroic task that confronts them. This passive mentality of an "employee' is a sad manifestation of individualism and explains the rivalry between groups. Their attitudes stuck publicly and given effect to inaction will help only the masses and drive them away from participating in the struggle. This attitude also explains why there are not very many
activists who work unconditionally for the liberation. Unless this
attitude is eliminated, the number of activists will not show and the heavy burden of the liberation will remain on the shoulders of a small number of people.
Comrades, this liberation struggle belongs to the people and is not the private property of any individual or group. Let us not
convert it to a trial of strength between the groups based on the
bankrupt ideology of roving rebel bands. Comrades, let us dedicate ourselves to the glorious task of freeing our people from their bondage and burying their “contest of attrition' among us, which deflects us from the struggle and destroys our objective. Let us help to unite the strength and will of all our people to achieve the historic tasks in front of us. ༤༨, ༢ t
The recent tragic incidents in Eelam where over 300 freedor fighters of our organisation and 26 of another died, rank among the darkest hours in our recent history. The spectacle of our own sons battling with each other in a struggle for power bleeds the heart of the ordinary Tamil people and strengthens the hopes of our enemy to crush us. These actions betray our liberation. It must be stopped.
To prevent a recurrence of events of this nature requires steadfast commitment to principles and values. Let us keep sight of our youth. For if we do not we will destroy the momentum we have built up in this movement and in the end will only fritter away the enormous victories we have achieved for the people. Let us all unite our forces in the noble task of restoring the democratic rights of the Tamil speaking people rather than fight among ourselves and earn the contempt of our people and the rest of mankind.
It is in this spirit, and on behalf of the Tamil speaking people, that we appeal to all those gallant fighters in all the separate groups and to all patriots who support the liberation movements, let us act together to erase this hour of shame from our memory. There is a glorious future awaiting us, not very distant in time, but we have to march together with determination to reach it. Let us make sure the blood sacrifice of the best of our youth was not in vain. Let us all come together and guide this heroic struggle by bringing peace and unity among our people so that together we can march to the promised land."

Page 4
ZTAMILTMES
BULLDOZING
The real targets of the Sri Lankan Government's military offensive do not appear to be the militants but the ordinary Tamil people themselves. They are being bombed from the air and shelled from the sea. Ilsit part of a larger strategy?
THE Sri Lankan Government's sharpening military offensive against the Tamil militants is
unmasking itself very fast as a 'war of attrition' designed to wear down the nerve of the Tamil people and reduce them to a benumbed acceptance of any political solution, however threadbare it may be, say Tamil observers.
There is clear evidence that there is a 'certain amount of confidence' on the part of the Sri Lankan Government that it has brought the East under control and it is now ready to tackle the North, feels the Tamil United Liberation Front Secretary-General A. Amirthalingam. “Following President Jayawardene's assertion that he would first clear the mainland areas of the East and the North and then start on Jaffna the security forces are now concentrating on the Jaffna peninsula,' said he. \: Their strategy seems
assessment which, of course, I don't agree with," observes Amirthalingam, "that they have successfully cleared up the East and with the Army being able to move about there relatively easily, they must begin mopping-up operations. And they seem to have
embarked on this, they are arresting
large numbers of youths there..."
Under Siege
What would appear to give substance to the assertions that the real targets of the Government's military offensive are not the militants but the Tamil people themselves is the fact that they are increasingly coming under siege, relentlessly bombed from the air and shelled from the sea. A Jaffna-based source says that days prior to an air attack, helicopters are seen circling the sky, evidently marking out the areas. And then one day, the planes come out. They are seen diving down and then soaring upwards again, and as they ascend, the bombs drop. "It's like a scene out of a war movie,' remarks the source. y According to this source, there are likely to be electronic devices planted in the Tamil areas which emit bleeps to the planes, indicating certain targeted locations. These planes, now drawn to precise targets, make another round in the sky and then return to drop the bombs. As for instance, in Kokuvil and
to be proceeding from their assessment, an
, .
BY MALINPART
Valvetty which were the targets were ir areaS.
When the method heavily civilian ter bombardment, how the power of accura be, the fact remains densely populated
enhances the vuln
civilian popula Amirthalingam: “Fror we get, the civilian least ten times as mu casualties."
The Toll
According to a re newspaper quoting
workers in Sri Lanka, preceding this Februa were killed, 12,015 and 547 missing. The a document Subm Minister Rajiv Gand about 2,000 Tamils ha about 10,000 fami burnt down by the between May 1985 ar The security forces
tactics in the Jaffna the mainland areas. reflects the reality 'ceasefire' announced militants have man certain edge in the After the ceasefire ct
wherein the securi
confined to the cam managed to preserve by ensuring that ev personnel ventured exploded. Therefore land, the military tao bomb from the air a
Sea.
The TULF report says: "The areas of K Suthumalai, Thavad were subjected to a by bombs being dro and also firing from the Sri Lankan Arme victims of the atta civilians, a fact wh been clearly foreseen The spate of bombing was followed by a attacks on Februar
* addition to these pla * Mathagal came und
apart from having bo from the sky, was she boats. V−
While the pattern perpetrated on the Ta be aerial bombing there are definite a possession of the la

ΜΑΥ 1986
THETAMILS
HASARATHY
bombed recently, variably civilian
of attack on a ritory is aerial ever disputable te targeting may
that bombing a
area logically erability of the tion. Says
n the reports that casualties are at ch as the militant
port in a British human rights in the ten months |ry, 2,587 civilians persons arrested TULF reported in litted to Prime hi in March that ad been killed and |-owned houses security forces ld February 1986. employ different peninsula and in In a sense, this that since the d in June last, the aged to seize a Jaffna peninsula. eated a situation ity forces were ps, the militants this confinement 3ry time Security out, land mines , wary of using ctics has been to nd shell from the
to Rajiv Gandhi okuvil, Kondavil, dy and Manipay eria attacks both pped from planes the helicopters of di Services . . . the cks were Tamil ich Should have by the attackers." gs on February 19 nother string of y 27 when, in aces, Suruvil and ær fire. Mathagal, mbs rained down led by naval gun
of State violence mil people might and sea-shelling, attempts to take
Tamil people to evacuate their homes, as for instance in the coastal areas of the Jaffna peninsula. This is part of a plan to secure the coastal areas,' charges Amirthalingam, 'and then to fan Out into the interior."
Leaflets were dropped from helicopters throughout the Jaffna peninsula in the first week of April by the Northern Military High Command, ordering the people of four coastal villages, Kankesanthurai, Thondamannar, Valvettithurai and Point Pedro to vacate their houses to avoid being trapped in the offensive planned against the militants reportedly active on the coastal belt. > . . . . .
And as the people on the Jaffna coast found themselves turning into homeless wanderers, Palaly, which houses the peninsula's most important military complex, found itself becoming the focus of the military action in recent weeks. About a kilometre and a half from the sea and
ringed by a fertile red soil belt, the area
was to be cleared (according to an announcement by the security forces) to help connect the army camps to the naval base. What has happened is that
While earlier, the security forces would launch full-scale
- attacksonvillages and "subsequently unleash rape,
arson and crop-burning, now these acts precede an Army
attack. Ti
about 200 hectares of the red soil belt have been taken over by the army, a territory encompassing schools, temples and cultivable land. The residents of the occupied territory were told to vacate their houses, which were then reduced to rubble by bulldozers on the pretext that these houses, once empty, would become militant hide-outs. ... Meanwhile, in the Eastern Province, the situation, according to Tamil perceptions, is that of "total war' where the distinctions are blurred between
taxas-Ss
the "killing of civilians and militants'
and between the destruction of property and life." The military strategy there stems from the Government's determination to reduce the Tamil presence in an area which has become of crucial economic value because of the potential of the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme.
In recent months, according to observers, the pattern of the Security forces operations has reversed. While earlier they would launch full-scale attacks on villages and Subsequently unleash rape, arson and Crop-burning,
nd by forcing the-sama-aa-. Continued opposite

Page 5
MAY 1986
BULLDOZING THE TAMILS - continued
now these acts precede an army attack, a reality that the villages have learned to dread: they flee before the security forces Come.
The pattern of violence in the Eastern Province as described vividly in the TULF report to the Prime Minister is reminiscent of the "Killing Fields' of Pol Pot's Kampuchea. According to the TULF, on February 19, apparently a particularly bad day for Tamils all over the island, farmers working on a paddy tract in Thirukovil, Amparai district, were gunned down by armed personnel who arrived in large numbers in several trucks. About 103
armers were reported killed.
Says the TULF account: "The dead bodies were burnt, straw in the field was used to burn the bodies . . . many skeletons and several partly-burnt bodies were seen at the site of the massacre by members of the Citizens' Committee who visited the scene later." The report adds that "the Sri Lankan Government has not demonstrated a willingness to hold an independent probe into this horrible
deliberate i military offe breaking the people as a believe. Th having the w solution is cor on the milita there so tha' political solu Amirthalinga
But someo is true that t military offer Tamil people crushed acce political solut strengthened phenomenon that is the acq operational forces. Some
particularly o'
have come t fighting a wa win. The Al exercise its C fancies and a
crime and has made every effort to in a fragile conceal the truth." Could have The increasing atrocities against the implications t civilian Tamil population point to (Courtesy of
SRI LANKAS DOGS OF WAR
The names of the British ex-SAS mercenaries employed by Ministry of Defence to train the Special Task Force and advis military operations against the “Marxist terrorists' were reve by the Communist MP, Sarath Muttetuwegama, in Parliam
They are Mike Bolas, David Butler, Dick Paxton, Sandy Ri and Deal McWith.
Sarath Muttetuwegama said that he had a list of other na which he was checking, but had confirmed those whom he mentioned.
Minister of National Security Lalith Athulathmudali, althc present, remained silent.
The Communist MP also charged that these mercenaries paid salaries of between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds sterling (rou Rs. 3 lakhs) a month from state funds.
The leader of the mercenaries, Mike Bolas, was a man who been sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Zimbabwe spying for South Africa.
Sarath Muttetuwegama also called upon the governmer inform Parliament of what transactions it had with the K Meeni Corporation, an international agency for suppl mercenaries to Third World governments.
Commenting on the government's purchase of helicopters CP's MP alleged that two of these, which had been bought fo million US dollars, had originally been ordered for Presi Marcos, who had paid an advance. Our government had bo them after the order was suddenly cancelled by the Philippin. Another helicopter had been bought for 3 million US do when the going international price of this model was just unde million dollars.
He added that several air force servicemen had been inj because 10 of the newly-purchased helicopters and gunships \ not bullet-proof.
He also asked why the STF was not incorporated into regular army, why its members were given much higher pay better conditions than regular servicemen who were expose similar dangers in the north and east, and what were qualifications of the President's son, Mr. RaviJayawardene, t placed in charge of the Special Task Force.

TAM TIMES 5
ntensification of the hsive with the aim of morale of the Tamil whole, Tamil sources e Government, while prld think that a political ning, wants to press hard ry front and to succeed they can impose any tion they want,' says
. bservers say that while it he intensification of the sive is to bulldoze the into a demoralised or ptance of any kind of ion, the intensification is by a new and sinister within the Army. And uiring of an "independent mind' by the security sections of the Army, F the major colonel rank, o believe that they are r - and a war they must rmy being allowed to hauvinistic and hawkish Cauiring a will of its own and sensitive situation disturbing political hese observers fear. "Frontline’April 19-May 2, 1986)
SCOT's Successful Effort
The Standing Committee of Tamil Speaking People (SCOT) marked the occasion of the Tamil New Year with a well attended get-together and lunch on Sunday, 13 April 1986. The net proceeds of the lunch approximated to f1,200 and the raffle drawn on the same day resulted in a net gain of f 1,500. The collection of f2,700 on this one occasion by the SCOT for its relief and rehabilitation work is regarded as a successful effort by the organisers.
The winners of the raffle will be notified individually.
TAM SCHOOL NO. 13
London has now one more centre for
the acquisition of a knowledge of Tami in all its manifestations - language, culture, music and dance. The inauguration of "The Institute of Tamil Culture' took place on 19 April at St. Matthews Parish Hall, Douglas Road, Surbiton, Surrey, Classes will be held on Saturdays from 9.30 a.m.-11.30 a.m. For further information please contact Mr. MV. . Thayalan, the Institute's Administrator at 334, Raeburn Avenue, Surbiton, Surrey KT59EF.
| th | International Alert Advocates Cessation alled in a special visit to india and Sri Lanka in February 1986, the , , ent. Chairperson of the International Emergency Committee on Sri ussel Lanka, Dame Judith Hart, PC, MP, met with Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi and also with President Junius Jayawardene.
Dame Judith expressed the growing international concern CS about the continuing ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka, the tragic loss had of life, liberty and property. The International Emergency Committee on Sri Lanka was created to focus international )ugh attention on the fact that development and human rights are both victims of the continuing violence. Aid programmes are Ver’e suspended in parts of Sri Lanka and non governmental ghly development programmes in the island are frustrated. The high level of international development aid from govhad ernments is permitting other resources to be used to fund the
internal Conflict. for In a press briefing in Geneva on her return from her mission, Dame Judith announced that she had advised President it to Jayawardene and members of his cabinet of the intention of eeni the International Emergency Committee to advocate the ying cessation of government aid to Sri Lanka pending a political settlement acceptable to the people of Sri Lanka. It would be , the recommended that a fund be established to assist in the r 1.8 implementation of a peaceful, political solution and the dent rehabilitation of the economy and the well being of the Sri
Lankan peoples. ught All those concerned with the emergency situation in Sri S. Lanka who wish to contribute to bringing the crisis to an end llars are urged to contact the International Emergency Committee r 15 at the below address and to approach aid-giving governments to urge them to advocate the withholding of aid grants at the ured next meeting of the consortium of governments convened were through the offices of the World Bank in Paris in June 1986. The international community has been too long silent with the regard to the tragedy of Sri Lanka. This concern is certainly d shared by some within government and Sinhalese circles who
would welcome international Support. 嵩 The above statement was issued on 4 March 1986 by te Martin Ennals, Secretary General, o be lnternational Alert, 24 Chancery Lane, London MVC21LS

Page 6
6TAMITMES
APLEAFORSANITYona,
PERHAPS the most damning indictment of the wayward policies which have led this country and its people into a dangerous cul-de-sac has come from the Minister of Finance in a prize day speech at Bishop's College on March 20th. Issuing as it does from within the Government's own upper ranks, it is worth quoting as reported in the Island of March 22nd.
Mr. de Mel is not given to mincing words and his pragmatic good sense and practical sensibility need to be taken seriously even at this eleventh hour, when all seems lost. "If we don't find a solution to the present national crisis soon, as the Finance Minister I can tell you this country is heading for disaster - we are going down a slope slowly to destruction. Sri Lanka is passing through its greatest crisis in recent history and that was not the time to split hairs or score debating points with any one.”
The Minister called for the abandonment of what he termed "the traditional frog in the well attitude', and to understand the present problems in their real perspective. “We must accept the realities of our geographical situation, which no one can change. Canwelive in any other way but in peace with our big neighbour India. This is not only an ethnic question we face today, but a deep seated political, economic, social and geographical problem, which we have to appreciate in all its complexity and arrive at a peaceful political settlement soon.'
It is well to dwell briefly on the terrible pass we are in today. One of the poorest countries in the world community, a small island of 16 million people, is spending 600 billion rupees in its current budget for fighting, what is to all intents and purposes, a "civil war' with a significant minority of its own citizens. Half of its population depends for survival on food stamps, 40% of its children are undernourished, while the scourge of inflation in the last decade has become a mounting infliction on most segments of the people. Any development has been achieved at the cost of an enormous and growing burden of foreign debt. To add to it all, the toll of human life, the scale of suffering and material destruction, and the staggering total of helpless refugees within and outside the borders of the country beggar description. Yet, the government seems committed to waging a bitter and unrelenting armed campaign in the North and East, and the Tamil people in those regions seem equally determined not to give up their long standing campaign for self-determination which has now culminated in an apparently inextinguishable struggle for national liberation by militant
S.
Nine years ago the ruli manifesto for that "famous identified the just grievan people of Sri Lanka, and pro through the open forum of debate. Overwhelming Presi authority and the massi majority (even though flawe representative character anc after 1982) squandered th political initiative and mom support they had obtained
have now, as a result of a fail faltering leadership, is a squ in which no quarter is askec resounding asseverations fro. a peaceful political settleme the governments agenda claimant, or even more so, is desire for a military solu awesome consequences. Th moderation, realism, and been fouled up by hidebound images of a febrile racism, a of chauvinistic bravado. The
been too grievously violatec
psyche riddled and tormente fantasies of a seemingly hubris. The climate for act reconciliation is virtually no hope of a peaceful politicals have receded out of sight.
However internal the prob gainsays that central fact, no is possible without Indian me goodwill. This cardinal tr neglected at our peril.
therefore, that all persons - country, be they Sinhalese,
and who do not wish to see it left a bleeding corpse, rais voices to persuade the gov ways of racial harmony and p demands of the Tamil pe recognised, and their legit contained within a just, m. workable constitutional arri while guaranteeing the unity the nation, will at the same t Tamils appropriate and auth regional self government. It that the granting of regional, will not in any way violate united Sri Lanka.
To cry halt to the insanity o continuing carnage is the com hour. No final resolution stalemate can otherwise be ac
BASES IN RETURNFOF
XTERNAL Affairs Minister of India, B.R.
Bhagat told the Indian Parliament that despite Pakistani denials, there was suspicion of a quid pro quo between Pakistan and the United States regarding bases and facilities in Pakistan for the latter in return for military aid.
Mr Bhagat, who was replying to a call attention notion in the House on the presence of the US Seven Fleet vessels off Karachi said it was significant that in addition to the Diego Garcia base, right at the same tine US vessels were in Pakistan waters, Pakistani naval ships were visiting Colombo.
"It is a matter of concern," he said as this
revealed a network involv and Sri Lanka.
The call-attention notic Mr Dharam Pal Singh M. H.S. Ramoowalia (Akali Kurup and Mr Saifuddin members expressed grav US Seventh Fleet presence it was an attempt to intim so when there was a nu also along with the fleet at "Enterprise".
The Minister said the US
India had informed the C
telephone" that the US shi Karachi for "rest and recre

MAY 1986
Goonetileke
ing regime in its victory correctly ces of the Tamil mised swift redress national political dential power and ve parliamentary d somewhat in its moral legitimacy he unprecedented entum of popular in 1977. What we ure of vision and a alid and blood war or given, despite mtime to time that nt remains high on ... But, equally the overwhelming tion with all its e paths of reason, compromise have positions, bigoted nd strident stances : Tamil psyche has l, and the Sinhala d by the myths and incurable insular commodation and n-existent, and all olution appears to
lem is, and no one realistic settlement diation and Indian uth can only be It is important, who love their Tamil or Muslims, dismembered and se their colective 'ernment into the eace. The primary ople need to be imate aspirations lagnanimous, and angement, which, and sovereignty of ime secure for the entic measures of is time we realised federal autonomy
the concept of a
if this senseless and pelling need of the
of the political hieved.
South African
And British Mercenaries Bomb
Tamil Areas
by Simon Winchester
BRITISH helicopter pilots are operating against Tamil guerrillas in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Three pilots, two Britons and one South African, have been seen manning helicopter gunships which regularly bomb rebel positions in and around Jaffna and Trincomalee. Other, unconfirmed, accounts say that former Special Air Service officers are leading ground raids against Tamil hideouts.
The first direct evidence of the Britons' involvement came last week when they were discovered piloting Bel212 helicopters for the Sri Lankan airforce at Palali airbase near Jaffna, and the China Bay air station near Trincomalee.
None of the men wanted to talk, and turned away whenever a camera was pointed at them. “You’ll be writing that you've found the mercenaries, won't you?' said one.
It has been known for some months that men - usually former SAS soldiers or RAF helicopter pilots- have been hired to the Sri Lankan government by a Channel Islandsbased security firm, Keeni Meeni Services. But KMS and the government had always insisted that the men-who are paid £2,500 a month - are used only for training.
Now, with the discovery that foreigners are taking part in, and even leading, antiguerrilla missions, there will be calls for a full account of the KMS operations.
The British government is "seriously embarrassed' by the men's presence. "We want to make it clear that we have nothing to do with these people', the British High Commission said, before learning that KMS pilots were operating gunships. "Even if they only train the local forces, it may be just a matter of time before one is killed, or captured. And then there could be grave diplomatic implications.'
Courtesy of SUNDA YTIMES (London) 11 May 1986
RUS MILITARYAID
it clear that the Government did not believe that any "rest and recreation" was available in Pakistan where even serving of liquor was prohibited.
Asked whether the Government had protested about it, the Minister said that there was no need for protest, as the US claimed it was a routine visit.
However, he said the Government drew great satisfaction from the fact that both in Pakistan and US there was an increasing Concern over this involvement between these two countries in military affairs. He quoted extensively from non-official media in Pakistan which had objected to the presence of the US fleet.
ing US, Pakistan
in was tabled by alik (Cong-l), Mr Dal), Mr Suresh
(CPI-M). All the e concern at the and alleged that idate India. More clear submarine daircraft carrier
S Ambassador in Government "on ps were going to ation." He made

Page 7
MAY 1986
'LANKA S SLOWLY AND
“This country is slowly but surely bleeding to death. Thousands of Sinhalese and Tamils have been killed’, the Sri Lankan Minister of Finance, Mr. Ronnie de Mel, lamented while speaking as the Chief Guest at the 20th Annual Celebrations of the Young Men's Buddhist Association of Kandy in central Sri Lanka recently.
Called upon to perform the insurmountable task of balancing the unprecedented huge budget deficit of nearly Rs.30 billion in 1986 in the context of an ever mounting military expenditure required by the Sri Lankan government to prosecute a “war against a section of its own people, the Minister added, “Rs.9 billion have been allocated for defence already this year. This may increase as the year goes on. Already this is fifteen times more than the Rs.600 million allocated for defence in 1978. Money voted for defence this year is also more than the entire budgets of the late Dr. N.M. Perera and the late Mr. Felix R. Dias Bandaranaike. This money could well have been spent om agriculture, industry or housing to give employment, to raise salaries, to increase food stamps or for education and health. What about the damage done to government installations all over the island? Even the cost has not been counted. Several billions of rupees will have to be spent to repair the roads, bridges, buildings, trains, buses and factories which have been damaged or destroyed.’
The Minister continued, “Rs.700 million had to be spent last year to import rice because we could mot get rice from the North and East (of Sri Lanka). Onions, chillis and even fish had also to be imported. People do not know the
- Sri Lanka
tremendous dam When will all thi like a running so Sri Lanka.”
Continuing in Minister added, " people of the cou peace and stabi Tamils who hav homes and from to peacefully car peaceful politic receive the endor of the people bo South. I have no are sick and tired Mr. de Mel als the history of eve forget about legi issues and seek
سےسسکح۔
*Runnin
serie
--ܖܥܓ بسخگویی
ܗܝ
っ
三っ
(Courtesy of "The Is
CIVILIANS KILL
N AIR ATTAC
THREE persons were killed and five, including three ladies, injure carried out an air strike, for the second week running, in Thaw,
Mathagal in northern Sri Lanka.
Three planes and two helicopterstook partin the aerial bombar about 7.30 in the morning on Thursday (27th Feb.) and went on fo
The dead are: Amirthalingam Sivarasa (50), officiating priest of the Nagapooshani Amman Kovil, Konda vil, Lucas (21) of Tha vady and Jeyamani Catherine John (62) of Suru vil. The injured are: Velupillai Kanammah (60), two sisters Thiagarajah Anusha (13) and Thiagaraja Jegatha (25), K. Uthiyakumar (21) and M. Aruleswaran (18).
About nine houses were damaged in the air strike. Here's an on-the-spot report from a reader who went to the scene a little while after the bombing: I was on the scene by 9.30 a.m. By then life had returned to normal except hat Crowds of sightseers were milling inside the lane behind the temple on Suthumalai Road, 150 yards from KKS Road. An elderly man remarked 'lf all these sightseers will turn freedom-fighters
target was a broo many that have co employment for refugees. Men we from the house, smoking. A side
storing straw fo wreck. The entire
branches and a concrete and b random helicopte girl, in their earl grave faces, shell they were marble noticed sight was lying in the lane. the helicopter, as will probably go c
victory will soon be ours." The apparent annals of the Nati
T

TAMITMES 7
SURELY BLEEDING TO DEATH',
Finance Minister
age done to our economy. ; destruction end? This is re which is slowly killing
the same strain, the “The vast majority of the ntry wish for and desire ity. The Sinhalese and been driven from their heir jobs want to go back y on with their work. A il solution today will sement of more than 90% th in the North and the doubt about that. People of this conflict'.
said: “There is a time in y nation when we should lities and constitutional political solutions to
political problems. This is such a time få the history of our country. This is not a time to split hairs or score debating points. Only fools will resort to such things when the whole country is burning. This is also not a time to seek petty political advantages and Party gains. What is the use of a Party gaining when the whole country is being ruined?' he asked. ; : y
Probably realising that the Buddhist clergy, by and large, had hitherto resisted and thwarted all attempts to arrive at a reasonable negotiated political solution to the country's ethnic conflict, the Minister pointedly addressed the large number of members of the Buddhist clergy present and appealed to the Ven. Mahanayakes, the Maha Sangha and the entire Buddhist laity to help the government in every way to arrive at a peaceful political solution to the present problems with the help and support of India before it was too late.
land”, 25.4.86)
d when the security forces ady Kondavil, Suruvil and
dment which began round ir more than half an hour.
nstick factory, one among me up recently to provide displaced persons and -re removing broomsticks a portion of which was of a neighbouring house r cattle was a smoking area was a mess of broken ew fallen trees. Chipped uised trees testified to rfiring. I saw a boy and a y teens, displaying with s they had picked up as if s. Another poignant, littlethe body of a dead dog le had come out to bark at dogs are wont to do. He own as a 'terrorist' in the )nal Security Ministry.
"Home Guards' Attack School Principal
Haj M.M.A. Azeez Hadjiar, aged 53, Principal of a Government School in Kathankudy in the eastern Sri Lanka, has been warded in the Batticaloa Hospital after being attacked by so-called Home Guards of the government.
The Principal in question has made a complaint in which he has stated that some Home Guards' had severely assaulted him and subjected him to humiliation by parading him through the streets and shouting slogans.
PROHIBITED
JUNGLES"
All the forests situated in the northern Vavuniya district have been made out of bounds for humans. The Army Coordinating Officer for the Vavuniya district, Kingsley Jayawardene, announced the government decision to declare all forests in the district as a Prohibited Zone under Emergency Regulations at a recently held conference of government officials.

Page 8
8TAMITMES
l PADDY STACKS THE
t Udumbankulam is a tract of paddy land about 100 acres in extent adjoining the village of Thangavelaythapuram in the A.G.A.'s Division of Thirukkovi. It is situated about 7 miles off the ThirukkovilPottuvil main road. The approach is along a gravel road in a poor state of repair. These fields are cultivated by Tamils from Akkaraipattu and the village of Thangavelayuthapuram which has a population of about 500 persons.
At about 7 a.m. on 19th February members of the Armed Forces, some dressed in camouflage uniform, others in blue uniform carrying weapons surrounded the paddy fields, firing in the air. At this time work was in progress in the fields.
At the time of this incident the paddy fields were ready for harvesting. There had been a number of persons cultivating these lands. One individual cultivated about 35 acres, others cultivated lesser extents ranging from two to five acres.
Reaping and threshing had commenced about a week earlier. According to people of the area these paddy lands are cultivated only once a year. Work had commenced in September-October 1985 and the fields were now ready for harvesting. In normal circumstances the entire operation of cultivation would have ended in mid March. Most of the cultivators of this tract are poor peasants whose existence for the entire year depends on what they get from the crops. They said that their entire resources plus heavy loans incurred had gone into the fields and they had hoped to recover all these from the fields then laden with grain. But, now ruin faced them: their men had been killed; only women were left. Left with a burden of debt to bear.
The fields belonging to Suwany David had been threshed on the previous day. Tractor No. 37 Sri 5359 belonging to Mr. Kandapper Elayatham by driven Manapody Thiviyanathan was loading the bagged paddy to be taken to Akkaraipattu. According to Mr. Elayatham by this was a new Ferguson 240 Tractor purchased only 5 months earlier by obtaining a bank loan.
in the threshing floor belonging to Kathiresu Vyramuttu the paddy stack had been partly threshed. Kathiresu Vyramuttu, his grandson V. Suntharalingam and eight others were working at this time.
In the threshing floor of E.K. Arnolisappuhamy Sellammah of Kolavil, she and her daughter Kusumawathy were working. Two other tractors David Brown 36 Sri 4666 belonging to Kanapathippillai Nagarasa of Akkaripattu driven by Thasappu Selliah and David Brown 22 Sri 8047 owned by Seenitham by Ponnambalam driven by Gnanamuttu Buvanendran were working in the fields.
In another threshing floor, there were eight gypsies from Aligambay. This paddy stack belonged to Mr. Arumugam Nallatham by of Akkaraipattu who owned thirty five acres out of the total extent. He had been there for a few days along with his two sons and son-in-law who were assisting him and three ladies who were cooking for the party. They had completed some of the threshing earlier and the paddy already bagged was stacked up by the side
of the threshing floor. A there to remove the bags In yet another threshi persons from Akkaraipat This stack belongs Kulanthavel of Akkaraipa There were a numb Thangavelayuthapuram fields. A number of p, already stacked. A nun women were in the fields paddy dropped while gat for stacking.
According to witne soldiers who came th collecting the people wo The men were tied up tw were brought to the gra the field. The women v there. They were all mac as by now it was noon.
Other groups of soldie points where people According to complain groups tied up all the complained that she ha men had been assaulted all the while questioning knew where the 'Kotiyas was going on another g the Wadies collecting va According to witnesses as radios, radio tape reco been looted. Yet anothe the village. In this gro named Saheed of Adda well known to the people had a chenai close to the back. He had been recog of witnesses. One old ma for him pleaded with him
Unions
OVER 5,000 delegates f union centres and sect who met at a special Sugathadasa Indoor S on March 25, unanin launch a united can against government against the working cla liberties.
The delegates belo trades, regions, eth political orientations. from both public at enterprises. Although r other seven provinces turnout from the north despite the military o two provinces and the of transport facilities. T were also well represel The convention ele consisting of L.W. Panc Alavi Moulana, Vasuc and R. Liyanage.
Four unions that had to take part - name G.C.S.U., the C.W.C., a did not send delegates but a other importa trade union n Representatives of the were also present.

MAY 1986
JDUMBANKULAM FARMERS MASSACRE
R FUNERAL PYRES
tractor had come of paddy. ng floor about 10 tu were threshing. to Nagamany ttu. er of men from reaping their addy stacks were mber of men and gathering stalks of hering the sheaves
sses, groups of ere went around rking in the fields. to by two and they vel road adjoining vere also brought le to sit in the Sun,
rs came to various were working. ts, one of these men. A woman d been raped. The regardless of age; them whether they s' were. While this roup went around aluables and cash. all valuables such rders and cash had r group went into up was a person laichenai. He was of the village as he village a few years nised by a number in who had worked
to save his son.
T
Rally Against Government Policies
rom 25 major trade ional trade unions, convention at the Stadium, Colombo hously decided to paign of protest
policies directed ass and democratic
inged to different nic groups, and Delegates came hd private sector nosticamefrom the , there was a fair and east as well, perations in these major breakdown he plantation areas hted. icted a Presidium itha, J.A.K. Perera, leva Nanayakkara,
also been invited ly, the C.F.L., the and the G.W.T.U.F. to the convention, nt sections of the novement did. nurses on strike,
National
This group looted all the boutiques taking away cigarettes, eatables, like biscuits, plantains etc. and cash and later assaulted the owners. They forced the inmates to climb their coconut trees and pluck young coconuts for them. In one house an orange tree was laden with fruits. They plucked and removed the fruits, about 150 to 200 in all. By forenoon, all the groups had reassembled at the place where the people were kept earlier.
In the meanwhile, according to eye Witnesses the men Who were held on the gravel road were beaten up, kicked with boots and many cut with the reaping knives that the workers had carried with them. All the while asking them if they knew where the '''Kotiyas” were. A number of them fell senseless from their bleeding injuries.
Late noon the men were loaded into tractors and the women chased away. The tractors were drawn up to a point where the paddy stacked had already been partly threshed. The men were shot and their bodies were heaped up on the partly threshed stack and covered with straw and sheaves of paddy. A hut closeby was dismantled and the timber and cadjan heaped on the pile and set on fire.
According to witnesses those members of the Forces dressed in camouflage uniform, mostly spoke in Sinhala and the witnesses referred to them as Commandos. There were others in blue uniform. A large number of witnesses say that their faces were disguised and they appeared to be Muslim Home Guards. Saheed of Addalaichenai was one of them. After this massacre the tractors loaded with over 150 bags of paddy drove away with the drivers in the seat.
The convention decided to organise a Day of Protest against
government policies such as the wage freeze, privatisation, attacks Of democratic and trade union rights, the use of emergency powers and undemocratic laws to suppress trade unions and trade union actions, resort to military operations rather than political negotiations over the ethnic problem, arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as its failure to reinstate all employees who had been dismissed for taking part in the July 1980 General Strike.
A special resolution was unanimously passed condemning the government's repressive policies against the nurses who had gone om strike for higherpay.
It called for the withdrawal of emergency orders proscribing the union and freezing its funds, as well as orders served on nurses dismissing them and ordering them to quit the quarters they occupy. It called on the government to enter into negotiations with the nurses' union for a settlement of their demands.
A special committee, in which all unions that participated in the convention are represented, was appointed to conduct the campaign and decide on the appropriate forms that the united protest should take.
Ο

Page 9
MAY 1986
AMI TRAVAILS IN
SACRED HINDU TEMPLETURNED IN
"The stench of rotting corpses
pervades the environs of the historic Selvasannithy Temple at Thondamannar, which has been partly damaged by shelling and strafing' by the Sri Lankan security forces, according to a front page report in the 'Saturday Review' of 19 April 1986.
"No one dares to get near enough to remove the corpses - unless they want to end up as corpses themselves, gunned down by the Army sentries in the Camp opposite. Some of the corpses have been attacked by dogs, according to news reports. The corpses are those of devotees shot by security forces', the Saturday Review report added.
The Selvasannithy Hindu Temple is one of the most sacred shrines of the Tamils of Sri Lanka and it is situated in
anywhere as th about and help agonised moani was shot and continued to cr after about t devotee died ins 'On 22nd
sentatives of the met the Gover and brought t notice. After ( Authorities the assured the dele carry on the
hindrance. But the temple and commence poo firing in the dire, 22nd also two d
skilled and it was
the northern Jaffna district. For Over
six weeks now there have been poojas or ceremonies. This has never happened in the 400 year history of the temple.
in a desperate appeal sent to President Jayawardene, the Valvettiturai Citizens' Committee States:
is sited just across the Holy river alongside the famous Selvasannithy Temple. Since the siting of the camp the devotees of Lord Muruga had the humiliation of performing their prayers with modern destructive weapons pointing at them and within
close range of these weapons. On 21st
March, according to eye witnesses, without any apparent provocation the soldiers started shooting at the devotees who were inside the open courtyard of the temple. The shooting continued for over three hours and the
s
devotees had to take shelter in the
main hall area unable to move
ふぞ 'The army camp at Thondamannar,
the dead bodies
'No one has the temple and held. This is the years that daily held in this ten sacred temple o the Kathirkamal of the coun thousands of d the Tamil areas callous manner feelings of the something tha, forget or forgive
in spite of President, the
subjected to se
security forcess
sent to the Mini
Mr. C. Rajadurai the Valvettitural Mr. K.C. Adiapi follows:
'One of our jt
The text of a letter sent by the
President of the Pt. Pedro Citizen's Committee, Prof. V. Ganeshalingam, to President Jayavardene: (Pt. Pedro is a coastal town in the Jaffna district in north Sri Lanka)
have been directed by my Committee to place before Your Excellency some incidents that took place recently in this area.
Sometime back - about two weeks ago - a woman had been the victim of gunshots from the Army Camp at Point-Pedro. She is thought to be one Nagammah of Tharnbachetty, Point Pedro, a mental patient. She has been in the habit of worshipping at the Alady Pillayar Temple even as a mental patient. She has been missing for a fortnight and all efforts to trace her
Alady Pillayar same length of 1 to remove the b is guaranteed.
On March 2, Sahayathasan o Jaffna had co Church, Point Pe to assist Parish the Services C following day. H and somebody a him to take the Pedro. But at instead of f eastwards, he northward direc the Beach road taken the east realize too late t to the Army Cam
failed. A woman's body was lying near his hands in su

TAMILTMES9
HE TROUBLED PARADISE
O CEMETERY
e bullets were flying lessly listening to the ng ofone devotee who
wounded and Who y till he died bleeding
wo hours. Another tantaneously. March, four repre
2 priests of the temple nment Agent, Jaffna, hese matters to his consulting the Army
Government Agent gation that they could poojas without any when they returned to rang the temple bell to as the soldiers started ction of the temple. On evotees were shot and not possible to remove
for two days.
ゞ
been able to approach
rituals are not being first time in over 400
poojas are not being ple. This is a famous if the Tamil people like n temple in the South try which attracts evotees fronn all over of the country and the in which the religious Tamils are hurt is t the Tamils cannot
夕*
the appeal to the temple has been everal attacks by the ubsequently. In a letter ister for Hindu Affairs, , the Joint Secretary of i Citizens' Committee, athan, pointed out as
pint Secretaries, Mr. S.
Kumarasanny, met you on Monday, 31st March, regarding the temple, when you promised to discuss the problem with both the President and the Minister of National Security and ensure the restoration of the daily poojas and the safety and security of the pious devotees of the temple.
'Since then, the situation has further deteriorated whereby the Sacred Bell and the Bell Tower (the tallest in Sri Lanka) have been completely damaged, estimated to cost over Rupees Five Lakhs, by the Security forces of the Thondamannar Army Camp, adding insult to injury. We do not know what next to do in the matter.
'It is tragic that the destruction and desecration of Hindu Temples are being done by the Security forces of the Government, of which you are a Minister. The Tamils Will find it unacceptable for a Tamil to continue as a Minister any further and be a party to the continued destruction of Hindu Temples.'
On 20 April, the state-controlled TV, Rupavahini, announced that devotees could freely worship at the Selvasannithy temple. However, on the following morning, 21 April, the holy chariot belonging to the temple was set on fire by the security forces and the temple area was turned into a battle-ground. A shootout between a group of Tamil militants and security personnel resulted in deaths on both
sides. The civilians killed in reprisal by
the security forces included a Hindu priest of the temple.
in the evening, a bomber-plane dropped 14 bombs on the temple complex and helicopters strafed the houses surrounding the temple.
The 40-foot chariot, worth Rs.4.5 million, had been burnt to ashes. The 2/2 ton temple bell, worth Rs. 1.5 million, was in Smithereens. The temple complex looks like a bomb-site.
emple for about the ime but no one dared ody since no one's life
7, 1986, Rev. Fr. A. f the Bishop's House, me to St. Thomas >edro on a Motor Cycle Priest of this Church in n Good Friday the le was new to the area tNelliady had directed straight road to Point Malisanthy junction, ollowing the road had gone on the tion and ended up at from where he had ward course only to hat he had Come close np. However, he raised rrender with the Holy
Cross in hand and his Robes well exposed but this did not deter the Army from firing at him. He could not withstand the shots and he ran in fear and was saved by the villagers. Only Providence had saved him with two injuries - one on the hand and another on his leg-perhaps because he was on a solemn mission to assist in the Services at the Church on Easter Friday. Soon after the Army Campfired Mortar Shells causing unnecessary
panic to an otherwise peaceful area.
On Good Friday, 28th, one V. Ganesapillai, a 70 year old Pensioner, an absolutely harmless man, went to his house to light an oil lamp as it was Friday, holy to the Hindus. As he was drawing water from the well to wash his hands and feet before lighting the lamp, he was shot at by the Army who Continued on page 15

Page 10
10 TAMILTIMES
Pleas From The Weeping
- FROM THE NORTH -
I AM a widow of fifty-two, with five sons and one daughter. In May, unbelievable tragedy struck our family. Now when I think over the events of those two terrible weeks, I am gripped by a sense of unreality.
We had just sat down to lunch that day when five army officers knocked on the front door and said that they wanted to talk to my youngest son. My son was not at home, so they told me to send him to the army camp at the Jaffna Stadium as soon as he came home. I was worried, but tried not to show it when I told my son this. He reassured me and said he would go straightaway since he had nothing to hide. We decided that he should go to the nearest police station since they were the civil authorities concerned. Later, I heard that the police had sent him over to the army camp at the stadium, which was close by.
My son did not return home that night, and I was sleepless with worry. In the morning, I went to the camp to inquire about my son, but they refused to let me see him. That evening, I heard a rumour that he had been taken to hospital. When I rushed to the hospital, I heard that he had been moved against medical advice. No one could tell me where he was. At home everybody tried to comfort me. But how could I stop worrying until I saw my son again?
After two days of tension, in desperation, I went to meet an influential government official and told him about my son. He was sympathetic and promised to help me, perhaps because he too had a son. Finally, I discovered that my son had been taken to the General Hospital in Colombo. When I heard this, my first instinct was to go down to Colombo immediately, but everybody advised me against it.
It was exactly two weeks later that a policeman arrived at our house. At last, I thought hopefully, he would be able to tell me about my son . . . He did. He told me abruptly that my son was dead and that I must go to Colombo for the postmortem. I could only stare at him unbelievingly. He did not even tell me how my son had died, and I could not think to ask him any questions.
On the next day I went to Colombo with this policeman. At the hospital, they took me straight to the mortuary. My son's body was wrapped in a cloth and only his face was visible. He had
already been dead for ten days and his face was swollen and
discoloured. They asked me to identify him. They would not uncover the rest of his body, and a hundred anguished questions flooded my mind. How did my son die? Why didn't they show me his body? Were they afraid to show me how my son had died?
I was told that the postmortem was already over and that an inquest would be held. The inquest began almost immediately. However, soon after I had begun giving evidence, the authorities decided to postpone it for a week. They advised me to go back to Jaffna.
When Ireached home the next day, the police informed me that the inquest was to be resumed immediately and that my presence was essential. I could not understand this but I went back to Colombo. At the mortuary, I found my son's body already in a coffin. The officer in charge had my son's face uncovered and wanted me to identify him again. They would not open the rest of the coffin, and even though I had brought with me his favourite suit of clothes, they would not let me dress the body. They carried the coffin into a vehicle and I was allowed to accompany them to the cemetery. There, he was cremated. were no last rites.
The inquest was never resumed. I still do not know why he was killed, nor who killed him. Perhaps those who killed him were no older than he was.
Why must our sons kill each other like this? It is said that your sons kill our sons because our sons kill ours. Yet, this is not a problem that can be resolved by your sons and ours killing each other. This is a problem that was created by politicians and it is they who must resolve it. Let us stand together as mothers and ask for an end to this killing.
These translations of authentic personal statements are published by WOMEN FOR PEACE, SRI LANKA.

Page 11
_______________-_-__།──────།-----------།──--───- ΜΑΥ 1986
Mothers of Sri Lanka
- FROM THE SOUTH
ODAY, everyone is talking of the war in our country. They ollect money, they donate blood, they honour members of the orces, they perform bodhi-poojas, all to ensure victory in this var. Yet I am a mother of a son who was sacrificed in this war. lease listen to my story.
I have four sons. My husband served as a police constable for wenty six years and retired last year. He never stooped to inderhand ways to secure promotions, nor did he take bribes and et innocent persons into trouble. He had a difficult life on his neagre salary. Since my husband who was a P.C. was frequently ransferred our children's education suffered. My eldest son was orced to leave school after the O-level exams because of financial lifficulties and tried to find a job.
After months of running behind important people, sending in ob applications and going for interviews, he was still unable to ind anything. Finally, though his father was very much against the dea, he applied to the police. His first appointment was in Dolombo, where he served for five years. He tried desperately to et a transfer closer home, especially since he was planning to get married soon. But when the transfer came, it was for compulsory ervice in the North. V
He tried all he could to have this transfer changed. My husband poke to every influential official he knew, but it was to no avail. I ven told my son to leave his job and stay at home rather than erve in the North. But he thought about his impending marriage ind the long, frustrating months he had spent job-hunting, and eluctantly made up his mind.
On the day before he left home, we all went to the village emple. There, we made a vow to the Kataragama Deviyo to protect him. Myson saw the tears on my cheeks and said jokingly, Amma, you're crying as if it was my funeral. He put his arm round my shoulders and assured me he would come home safely. From that day, we waited eagerly for letters from him. With what apprehension we read the newspapers and listened to the adio announcing happenings in the North. How we longed for he day my son would be safely home.
One day, returning home from the market I saw a police jeep parked outside our house. I hurried home excitedly thinking my on must have come home unexpectedly. It was so long since I saw his face.
When I went inside, there were some police officers I could not ecognise. Nobody said anything. Everyone stared into space. At once I knew something was terribly wrong. I looked at my husband's face and realised something terrible had happened to my son. He took me aside, muttered something about an accident. My legs were shaking. I sat on the bed. I heard voices aying that the jeep was blown sky-high.
Three days later, they brought his remains home. The lid of the coffin was nailed shut. On the lid was a thick square of glass hrough which thesemblance of a human face could be made out. Was that my son? How unfortunate I am that I could not see my ion's face for the last time. At the funeral I heard someone say, “These people are lucky. Other families have not been so ortunate. Sometimes, there's nobody to send, only little pieces.' Why do our children have to die like this? I know my son was ent to the North to catch those who are called "terrorists', or to (ill them. And so our children end up killing each other, and it is we, mothers, who have to live with this unbearable sorrow.
At the funeral a monk made a speech saying, "How fortunate ou are to be the mother who gave this son to defend our country, our nation and our religion.' But should I be proud to have sent my son to die in this meaningless war? Whose war is this?
Later, a group of police officers came to our house with a heque and certificate of promotion. I could only think how could money and certificates bring my dead son back to life? Why don't hese politicians who talk so loudly about saving the country, nation and religion go themselves and fight in this war? For the ake of the nation, their children live abroad comfortably but our children must die.ΜΑΥ 1986
SRI LANKA
Repression in
the Guise Of Stability
OLOMBO, Sri Lanka — U.S. policymakers who sometimes spend sleepless nights counting Third World dominoes should spare an hour for the State Department's latest human rights report. It says that “those who try to justify subordinating political and civil rights on the ground of concentrating on their economic aspirations invariably deliver on neither.'
This is a guarded elaboration of a Benigno Aquino dictum. “The trade-off,” he said, "no longer works. The Philippine opposition leader was reflecting on the persistent failure of regimes that don authoritarian clothing in the name of development. The result, he noted, was
political repression and economic depression.'
While the ability to deliver falls
increasingly short of promise and popular expectation, 'stability', and the International Monetary Fund's companion term, 'stabilization, become sanitized code-words for repressive rule. In the case of countries friendly to the United States, Washington sometimes must consider a “benign intervention” before hardship and corruption lead to violence and revolt harmful to U.S. interests. 32 Washington's luck may not always hold as miraculously as it did in Manila. A closer look at the growing trend - the popular rejection of repression dressed as 'stability' - may prove enlightening, and Sri Lanka provides a striking case.
While Corazon Aquino was awaiting her final moment of triumph, the widow of another assassinated Asian leader was addressing a packed stadium in Colombo. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, a former prime minister, demanded that President Junius Jayawardene (whose regime extended its parliamentary term until 1989 after a disputed referendum), hold a "free and fair election' this year.
In Bangladesh, the daughter and widow of two assassinated presidents are threatening to launch a civil disobedience campaign if proposed polls turn out to be a fraud. In Pakistan, unrest fomented by the widow and daughter of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged by the martial law regime, finally forced General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq to give his military administration а parliamentary facade. And now Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, has returned home to lead the struggle for real democracy.
These events celebrate more than women's liberation in tradition-bound Asia. They are signals of powerful popular
3; so stirrings — as Sou
decade's end.
There are oth Latin America, the admirals are languishing in jai deliver.
As far back as Jayawardene’s Third World argued, require executive which, fancies of Par unpopular but decisions while stability.
He got his op rightist United N percent of the majority in Bandaranaike’s S got just eight sea vote. The Tamil won all 14 seats in Prime Minist became Presiden new constitution. unparaleled con the presidency. termed the nev Gaullist' or a itarianism', its a that he was "mo Parakramabahu t Under Junius J. “nonalignmento a accent, provokin Gandhi next doo enthusiastic abo Peace Zone pro Minister Sirimavc Israel, the U.S Asia Foundation Bandaranaike, ha an "interests sectic The Voice of An powerful transmi Navy has recre Lankan ports. suspicious of U.S. Indian Ocean por height of the rece diplomats regard position from Sub The Jayaward special constitu foreign investme economic strateg World Bank aus Lanka's tradition social welfare po pinned its faith ( growth-oriented" dependent on aid
In 1980 a commission four guilty of "abuse hitherto unknow) stripped of her civ and expelled fro Lankan scholar an anthropology commented that part of a process c political violenc

Page 12

h Korea may confirm by
er examples of this in where the generals and back in the barracks or . Their 'stability' did not
1966, stability was Mr. f. main prescription for ls. Development, he a strong centralized free from the whims and ,
could make economic preserving political
iament,”
necessary
portunity in 1977. His ational Party, polling 52 '
ote, won a five-sixths Parliament. Mrs.
ri Lanka Freedom Party ts for 30 percent of the
Jnited Liberation Front
the Tamil north. er Jayawardene soon t Jayawardene under a Its main feature was an centration of power in While foreign scholars y system “Bonapartist“benevolent authorchitect rejoiced, saying re powerful than King he Great.' ayawardene, Sri Lanka’s cquired a pro-American g the anger of Indira r. Colombo became less ut the Indian Ocean posed by former Prime » Bandaranaike.
. Peace Corps and the
, all expelled by Mrs. lve returned - Israel has on of the U.S. Embassy.
herica will soon install a
tter here, and the U.S. ation facilities at Sri Mrs. Gandhi was designs on the strategic t of Trincomalee. At the it Philippine crisis, some 2d it as a useful fallback ic Bay. ene government gave tional protection to nts, to support a new y adopted under IMFpices. Abandoning Sri lal, broadly bipartisan licies, the ruling party In market forces, on a open economy' heavily loans and investment.
special presidential d Mrs. Bandaranaike of power,’ offenses to the law. She was ic rights for seven years n Parliament. The Sri Gananath Obeysekera, professor at Princeton, uch arbitrary acts were
f"institutionalization of
9
2. Victims, included
TAMITMES 11
Junius Jayawardene
opposition parties and leaders, trade unions, student bodies, academics, clergymen and judges. In hindsight, the most notable victim was the Tamil community, the target of periodic outbursts of racial violence.
The ruling party's 1977 manifesto summed up the Tamil problem with exceptional candor. Longstanding grievances - language, land distribution, economic and educational opportunitieshas led the Tamils, it conceded, to 'support even the movement for a separate state.'
If serious attention had been paid to those grievances, bourgeois Tamil political leaders would surely have settled for regional autonomy.
The constitution did give the Tamil language a special status. But district development councils, the crucial corrective exercise in devolution, were a hopeless failure. They had no real power and lacked funds. Their first elections provoked Tamil allegations of fraud and violence by 'storm troopers' from the ruling party.
"For the young militant, this was the turning point,' said opposition leader Appapillai Amirthalingam, now in exile in Madras, the operational base in southern India of separatists and armed youth groups. Terrorism and an incipient insurgency drew nourishment from the wounded self-esteem of the Tamil people. The process of centralizing power and de-legitimizing the moderate democratic 'middle, both Sinhalese and Tamil, was soon completed.
Mr. Jayawardene won a second term in October 1982. Yet Mrs. Bandaranaike's party, minus her, did remarkably well, polling 2.6 million votes to his 3.5 million. The results troubled the ruling party. Projections showed that in the next elections it could lose the vital two-thirds majority, the basis of presidential power. A referendum was held instead, in December 1982 under a state of emergency. In the process, a vibrant democracy became a closed system.
Instead of the promised elections, July 1983 brought a racial explosion. More than 100,000 Tamils took refuge in India. An amendment to the constitution required all members of Parliament to
Continued on page 15
columni2.12TAMILTIMES
Non-ethnic causes of S tensions in Sri Lanka
by Dr. Mervyn D. De Silva,
1. INTRODUCTION:
The temptation to abandon a truthful and objective analysis of the deepseated causes of the current racial tensions and the reasons for the unleashing of such fires of hatred comes on the realisation that truth appears to have been banished from the minds of men. But what is worst is that truth has been replaced by its deadly scion half-truth which when clothed in subtle language makes it abstract and confusing. The intellectually dishonest tactics now in use for deviating from the truth is a skill that has reached perfection in Sri Lanka.
It is in a background of widespread conspiracy against the truth, coupled with dishonesty and rampant hypocrisy that the following analysis is written. The presentation attempts to touch on the many non-ethnic causes of the fury shown in the past and current day violence missed out by many observers, unwillingly or deliberately. The wave of violence in Sri Lanka by any reasoning cannot be attributed to just one single cause - that is an undeniable fact. It is the climax of a complete set of factors both inter-related and inter-acting. The prolonged racial tension is the immediate cause that kindled the July 1983 outburst. But, parallel to it runs a chain of related events that insidiously dismantled all concepts of right and wrong, law and order in the country.
Let us focus attention on some of these causes and look at the fundamental economic cause first.
2. ECONOMICSCENARIO:
(i) Policy and Devaluation:
The economic situation prevailing since 1978 had all the pre-conditions conducive to a display of fury in any matter of national discord. There was the complete and unquestioned turn-around in the main economic stance in July 1977 followed by the devaluation of the rupee under IMF command. The latter was adopted at a point of time when imports were mounting and exports slackening, with no immediate prospect of the latter improving, and the promised benefits of devaluation never saw the light of day. The seeds of discontent and frustration were sown on a fertile soil.
(ii) Galloping inflation:
Instead of improving the living conditions of the majority of the people, some of the policies caused inflation to gallop to heights as if in sympathy with those high rise buildings that appeared with the frenzied pace of the building industry. The urban areas were beautified as a matter of priority, while half the population groans living below the
poverty line of Rs. 350/- designated in 1979. The principles applied with th flooded the count unprecedented range of drugs far beyond the reac and implanted decadent : are uprooting noble relig
(iii) Dependence:
The outward looking p armies of foreign ex collaborators, voluntary and Foundations, know activity, while seasoned l professionals were relega A variety of cosmetic objectively analysed to benefits flowed to the pec were embarked on. Wha long as the benefits tr pockets of the microscopi and favoured foreig companies?
(iv) Foreign debt and cost
The drastic devaluatic indiscipline, the absence pragmatic planning and c the extravagant spending foreign debt of Rs. 4.5 b Rs. 53 bilion in 1985.
It launched the cost of space. If the latter made to those households with of Rs. 1,000 per month, powers of imagination rei the plight of the 50% of living below the poverty l
(v) Pulse unfelt
Notwithstanding the
crushing blows brought a dictates and domestic inflation, politicians co their platitudinous speech of the Government's ec the absence of queues, an of luxury goods. And, th delivered from the number of platforms co "outbreaks of extravagal the 'epidemics' of S. imagined indicators of intellectual vibrance.
(vi) Widening income gap: A cardinal folly any de can make is to permit the rich and the poor to wi very sharply. However, w place the booming industry, known for its greeds, is hammering th media the availability c clothing, and electronic the super rich can affor hand, the non beneficia

Page 13

SOcial
per householdas open economy le zeal of fanatics ry with an goods, food and h of the majority social values that ious values.
policy brought in
perts, business l organisations, wn for political ocal experts and ited to the attics.
projects never ensure that the bple and country
t did it matter as .
ickled into the
c elite, new rich,
in and local
of living on, the financial of sensible and oordination, and sprees raised the billion in 1979 to
living index into life a nightmare a family income
are exceptional
quired to picture
f the population.
ine?
devastating and bout by the IMF cally generated ntinue to make hes on the virtues onomic policies, d the availability ese speeches are ever increasing Insequent to the nt Tamashas and eminars - the
prosperity and
veloping country gulf between the den and deepen hile this is taking
advertisement skill in creating rough the mass of luxury foods, equipment only d. On the other
ries of the new .
MAY 1986
economic policies are without even their basic needs. The simmering fires of discontent and frustration become raging flames at the moment.
(vii) Ostentatious living:
Then, to make matters worse there is the ostentatious, almost vulgar, display of opulence by the small parvenu elite the plutocracy of millionaires enriched by reckless infra structure development, expansion/modernisation projects which the country could ill afford. Hand in hand, goes the open licence for corruption, dishonesty, exploitation, and smuggling, while Tourist Hotels cater for and satisfy even the most depraved desires of the affluent from all corners of the world. As the gap between the rich and poor polarises very sharply, the ruling party, afflicted with what may be called the Marie Antoinette syndrome see no reasons for holding elections suppressed in 1982.
(viii) The real challenge:
The real challenge on the economic front was how to use our limited resources more efficiently and equitably. There was a need to understand clearly the role of the State, its relationship to the Private Sector, and its responsibility in encouraging efficiency in both the Public and Private sectors through legislative and fiscal measures, good public management, and correct policy making. But, instead the whole planning and Plan Implementation machinery built and developed over the years was dismantled, and resources of both men and material squandered on unproductive prestige ventures, since there is no clear cut national plan, with carefully tailored sectoral priorities.
(i) Obsessions with growth rate:
The rate of economic growth as an indicator of economic development became an article of faith, despite its widely admitted deficiencies. There was no concern for a more equitable distribution of income, or for the nonmonetary dimensions such as welfare, education, health, food, and nutrition. Nor was there concern for the formulation of projects with a sensitivity to the complexities of development activities. Economic development was equated to economic growth rate. More correctly, economic development should be the measure of the progress towards reducing the incidence of poverty, unemployment, and income inequalities. Poverty is here defined as a lack of good nutrition, health, educational opportunities, and similar dimensions of welfare. The consequences of chaotic political, economic, and social situations were flashed eloquently on the minds of the people in July 1983. At that time, 60% of the population was undernourished and 40% of the children suffering from malnutrition. The growth rate indicated that the economy was doing well, but the majority of the people were faring very badly indeed. The marauding mob of the deprived were given an
TΤΜΑΥ 1986
opportunity to capitalise particularly when they saw other vested hirelings and private armies embroiled in the holocaust, but for a different set of reasons.
3. THE COLLAPSE OF LAW AND ORDER : (i) Private armies:
Today there is an attitude of scant regard for law and order in the country. This was apparently an off-shoot of the laissez faire economic policies that dominated public thinking. Political power blocs controlledallavenues leading to easy money and financial fortunes. Thus, the temptation to recruit and maintain squads of hirelings and trade unionists to protect those sources of power was a strong one. These squads of private armies as they have been aptly described, are at the disposal of political authorities to gain, maintain, or regain their power. They were a law unto themselves as their attack on the Supreme Court Judges did show.
(ii) Why private armies?
The rise in the foreign debt from Rs. 4.6 to Rs. 53 billion in 1985 brought about by the unprecedented spending spree, explains how it was possible and why it was necessary to have these unholy alliances. The fact that extravagance, dishonesty, and corruption is universal, and that almost overnight many politically influential persons have been able to amass enormous amounts of wealth in cash and property, quite out of proportion to their known assets and earning capacities, gives the clue as to how the shared-interest system operates.
In the new alignment of social groupings, the politician, the business men and their foreign collaborators, and the latter group's hirelings from the underworld become a close group totally independent. Perhaps, they correctly recognised that it is only in their unity that they could stand without crumbling when confronted with forces that espouse the cause of angry and deprived people.
The breakdown of law and order structures however, did not take place over night - since the night of July 23rd. No, it was a gradual operation with dismantling taking place brick by brick very methodically.
4. LIQUIDATION OF THE OPPOSITION (i) Fair elections of 1977:
When the present government swept into power in July 1977, the 5/6th majority it obtained was a vote with a vengeance for a change. An important point that -emerges from this massive majority that has not been commented on is the fact that it left absolutely no doubts as to the fairness with which the general elections were conducted. This must be regarded as a fine tribute to the previous regime because the elections - DDC, byelections, presidential, and the referendum held in the post 1977 years have raised many serious doubts in the minds of the majority of the people. A loss
of faith in the m is worked poiso itself, and bring repercussions. (ii) Insincerity in In 1977 the pe faith in the ne Since the m embarrassed the lamented the opposition esse functioning of Sooner than 1 destroy the opp Napoleonic style maps took over faith in the demo question was h hopes of resolvi first priority wa opposition, and t (iii) The treatmen Prime Minister:
The first sharp came in the Presidential Con others, the leade the opposition in charge describec this end, specia. and the special c bring on trial the this country. addresses by cou some tinged with all three langua broadcasting syst Mrs. Bandarar civic rights for a to 1987, while th were scheduled t was no one left gauntlet and chal 1983. (iv) Reaction ofth Although, the former Prime Mi placing her behi practised in Soutl Indonesia and Sir democracy, the maintained a stu news worthy democracies on the country with loans as if to el vindictive Gover (v) Reaction of Co What was the 1 own people? F assassination of t alternate governi claim of the rulin, of the Just and FI right had they no have faith in the they themselves v The deadly sil was observed a testimony to the the governmei undemocratic acti The flood of dazzling tinsels s

Page 14

nner in which the system is the faith in the system about a host of attendant
alk: V
bple placed their implicit
tly elected government. andate given almost government, it publicly absence of a strong ntial for the efficient he democratic system. ter, the obsession to sition completely in the of rolling up the electoral , adding to the sagging cratic system. The Tamil gh on the agenda and ng were bright, but the the liquidation of any hey went with full steam
meted out to the former
attack on the opposition form of the special mission to try out among of the Sinhala Section of Parliament on the vague as "abuse of power'. To legislation was passed, ourt set up proceeded to former Prime Minister of All proceedings and Insel for the prosecution, sadism, were beamed in ges on all waves of the e. laike was deprived of her period of seven years up e next General elections o be held in 1983. There to pick up the political lenge the ruling power in
e West: action taken against the hister was tantamount to hd bars as is commonly Korea, the Philippines, gapore, the guardians of western news media, died silence on such a issue. The Western he other hand, flooded outright grants, aid, and dorse the actions of a ment.
untrymen: eaction of the country's ow did the political he Sinhala leader of an nent reconcile with the party to be the Fathers ee Society? What moral to exhort the people to emocratic system when ere sabotaging it? nce of the people that ross the nation bore r total disapproval of tsʼ vindictive and
D.
imported foods and mewhat detracted, but
TAMILTIMES13
deep down in the recesses of their hearts questioning was going on. Was it a betrayal of their trust in the government to improve their living conditions rather than arrogate functions best left with the gods?
(vi) Adverse effects on the Establishment:
When a former Prime Minister is said to be guilty of an offence vaguely termed abuse of power, all the service personnel and public servants who dutifully executed policies that flowed from decisions now declared as an abuse of power, are also bound to search their own hearts. Did they ever realise that all those orders and directions they obeyed so faithfully would one day be declared illegal at the source? Should they in future determine the legality of all orders and directions before executing? Would a future Presidential Commission find the orders and directions being executed at the moment as stemming from decisions that are a total abuse of power?
The whole drama struck deep at the very foundation of the democratic system and its Institutions. It has further undermined, demoralised, and created a wave of uncertainty in the minds of all those who were devoted to duty. (vii) Public hypocrisy:
To cover up its diabolical actions and demonstrate its sincerity the government meticulously selected an insignificant member from its own ranks and hauled him before the Presidential Commission on a relatively insignificant offence, while the gallery of awfully corrupt men remained untouched and flourished.
Then, as if to keep the flames of the righteousness of the Government burning before the eyes of the masses, the case was dragged on for months without end. But, neither was public corruption stopped, nor did it serve as a lesson to those actively engaged in the game. Neither, did it reduce the backlash from the action taken against the former Prime Minister, nor did it improve the credibility and sincerity of the government. (viii) Duplicity in Justice:
Meanwhile the leaders of the 1971 uprising who were on oath to destroy the
present day rulers were in the great spirit of forgiveness released from prison. It was
the former Prime Minister who successfully quelled this uprising with foreign military assistance keeping to the
very letter of her commitment to nonalignment, but was put on trial. It was she
who saved the lives of many of the present day leaders without creating any fear of foreign troops marching in as in Korea, Vietnam or Grenada.
Double standards in dispensing justice have serious effects on the thinking and attitudes of the people because it could bring about a loss of faith in justice itself. Ironically, today years later, the same government that punished the Prime Minister who contained the insurrection but freed the rebel terrorists, has been compelled to declare the latter as the most “wanted’ men in Sri Lanka.
(Courtesy of Lanka Guardian 15 February 1986)14TAMLTMES
What will New Delh
Colombo's Genocic
LANKAN envoy to New Delhi Bernard Tilakaratne appears to have told Foreign Secretary Romesh Bhandari that his Government is still anxious to seek a political solution to the Tamil ethnic problem. Lankan Minister for National Security Lalith Athulathmudali has said that his Government still expects India to take a fresh initiative for resuming the suspended dialogue among the concerned parties. These two statements have come in response to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's blunt poser to Colombo on whether or not it wants India to continue its efforts for a peaceful, political settlement. The Prime Minister minced no words in conveying his annoyance at Colombo pursuing a different path even while swearing by the process of a negotiated settlement.
From the two statements made by Lanka's spokesmen it would appear on the surface that President Jayawardene is nothing but a bundle of sweet reasonableness. We should, however, think that the stage for India to go by the noises made by Lankan representatives no longer exists. It will be highly foolish and naive for New Delhi to take Colombo at its words. Instead of calling for 'statements of earnest' from the Colombo Government for deciding its next move, New Delhi should judge all things by itself on the basis of what has actually happened.
DoubleTalk
Where double-think and double-talk have become the essence of statecraft, as is the case with President Jayawardene’s UNP Government, it is no use for New Delhi to call for or await new statements of intent. New Delhi has enough material in its shelves to conclude without further hesitation that when President Jayawardene talks of political solutions, he means only a military-political solution. If the best of intentions on his part were to be assumed, it can only be said that while he goes through the motions of dialogue with the Tamil groups, he is simultaneously bent on liquidating the ethnic minority in the island by foul means. Delhi should make it clear that any political solution has got to be totally exclusive of military solution and the condition precedent for that is the withdrawal of the army from the northern and eastern provinces of the State. President Jayawardene should be told that he can't have the cake and eat it too.
It is surprising that New Delhi is still harbouring illusions about Colombo's intentions. It does not have to read between the lines to understand Colombo better. They are as clear as pikestaff.
In several of his interviews Jayawardene has gone on record stating that his Government's top priority is one of liquidating the so-called Tamil militants before the end of the current year. He does not talk of liquidating extremism but only wiping out the 'extremists'. The war on the 'extremists' has provided him with a convenient cover to unleash troop violence on Tamil population, on land, from the air and sea. The Tamil areas have been virtually cut off from the rest of the country and encircled in order to starve the population of food and other essential supplies.
According to even Western media reports, more Tamils have been killed by the troops in the last two years than during the earlier three decades at a stretch of ethnic tensions. Whenever there is some mild protest against, or
expression of annoyan casualties, Jayawardene m and says these excesses ca the best will in the world. reaction, the President is injury he has chosen to in Tamils with a hawkish pol buttressed enormously b receives from the U.S., I possibly South Africa. Wh makes little sense for New assurances from Sri Lanka account what is actually ha Previously the complain Colombo Government had some kind ofan 'approach | a dialogue with the Tami were pursuing a negative rejecting the Colombo's off known to all that no propc group would ever be Jayawardene Government Delhi's sensitiveness, ti Liberation Front mad proposals for a settlement. the TULF package is the ac political unity, subject to Tamils to be recognised as to autonomous self-govern spheres, as in India. Colon on this specific TULF repeated reminders from I with a 57-page answer, ol TULF package.
The Colombo document the TULF demand for prest contiguity of the north and which have been the tradi This alone would provi intention. It wants to divic on communal lines and kee as its own forward area fo the Tamils, herded into the In this, Jayawardene soug help of President Zia-uldictator visited Colombo Muslims to work with t defeating the so-called atte Lanka by "extra-territorial
Scorched Earth Poli New Delhi can't afford t when Colombo carries on a aerial and artillery fire acqu which are not exactly frien their professions to the con to turn a blind eye to th cordons thrown around all air installations in the because these have rei population vulnerable to name of the Governn extremists. It can't affo enormous input of fire pov military machine by Pakis the least, the United State gloss over the American extremism at both the ent government as well as an groups also.
The so-called Americar peace initiative does not option of encouraging its c Colombo to pursue the pa in the north and the east.
New Delhi especially ca the latest threat being face

Page 15

NWAY Y 1986
i's response beto la MVarOn Tamils
ce at, mounting erely nods his head n't be averted with By his very casual adding insult to the fict on defenceless icy which is further y the support he srael, Pakistan and en this is the case, it Delhi to seek fresh without taking into opening and why. t was that while the come forward with aper as the basis of groups, the latter policy of merely ers. Although it was sal from any Tamil acceptable to the t, in deference to he Tami United e comprehensive The main thrust of ceptance of Lanka's the rights of the a national minority ance in the allotted abo dragged its feet package and after Delhi came forward nly to negative the
specifically rejected erving the territorial the eastern regions tional Tamil areas. e Colombo's real le the Tamil groups p the eastern region r a future attack on : northern province. ht and secured the Haq. The Pakistan and exhorted the he Government in impts at dividing Sri loyalists'.
су o look upon silently war on Tamils with lired from countries dly to India despite trary. It can't afford e so-called security military, naval and northern province hdered the Tamil liquidation in the nent fighting the rd to ignore the ver into the Lankan tan, Israel and, not is. It can't afford to strategy of fanning is, in the Colombo nong some militant
support to India's preclude its own lient Government in th of Scorched earth
un't afford to forget 'd by estate workers
of Indian origin in the central highlands. ''fhe UNP Government has set upon the nearly 1.8 million Tamils of India origin, outside Jaffna and eastern regions, chauvinist forces which are helped by troops which follow no rules and obey no command. There have been reports of Lankan army having already become a state unto itself. On a longer range, this may pose a serious threat to democracy in the island, but with shortsightedness, characteristic of all dictators, President Jayawardene is bent on encouraging the troops in their spree of loot and kill.
Politics By Other Means :
In the face of this reality, New Delhi should judge for itself what it should do without waiting for signals from Colombo. These signals, at best and worst, could only be misleading because they are tailored to the strategy of liquidating the Tamils population so that there is no Tamil question in the future, in a political sense. If it comes to that, President Jayawardene will not hesitate to borrow a leaf or two from other dictators to argue that war is also "politics by other means' and, therefore, it also leads to a form of political solution.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has said that India is anxious to ensure the return to Lanka of more than one lakh Tamil refugees here in conditions of “safety and self-respect". Here too, Colombo has been adopting a dubious policy. It has so far given no word of taking back the refugees. In Colombo's view, "some persons may have left Lanka's shores and it is for them to return, if they wish”. India has a good case to start the process of direct dialogue with the Colombo Government by making a demand for the return of the refugees to their hearths and homes since they pose an impossible burden on her.
About playing the role of an honest broker between the two parties to the ethnic strife, it should be realised that there, indeed, is no such role, in fact or fiction. The Colombo Government's ploy is to make India responsible for the resistance it has to encounter in its genocidal war on Tamils as a whole.
Unfortunately, New Delhi is mentally unprepared to assume such a responsibility which would be morally and ethnically justified. Late Indira Gandhi was almost convinced that India might have to play the role played by China during the Korean war. The successorGovernment seems very anxious to keep off the troubles by just imagining that they don't exist, and if they do, don't cross into India's shores. The danger here is the possibility of New Delhi becoming a privy to the unholy war of Colombo on a large and proud ethnic minority. This is bound to have wide-ranging repercussions on India which has to contend with the presence of an overwhelming majority of the world Tamils within its policy.
New Delhi should stop burning its candles at both ends. It should play a more positive role to impress on Colombo that it can't be taken for a ride any more. After Colombo's rejection of the TULF package, there is absolutely no chance of success for any future dialogue. Such a dialogue, if initiated again by India, will be used by Colombo only to a more aggressive pursuit of the military solution. The gulf between the two sides to the Tamil ethnic issue leading to the demand for a separate Eelam Continued on page 18ΜΑΥ 1986
President's Letter continued
had been waiting in some abandoned house close by. His feet were smashed and he sustained injuries in the abdomen, and legs also.
On Saturday 29th March, 1986, some people had come to Point Pedro in a car and lorry from Jaffna to buy a boat and transport same to Jaffna from Point Pedro. Naturally some people had collected at the Beach Over this transaction. The Army Camp sentry must have thought that something untoward was taking place. Within minutes, a helicopter came and opened fire and the whole town was transformed into an area of panic. The car was damaged and one man was injured.
The market place was deserted and people ran in all directions for shelter and the town came to a standstill. A little While later mortar shells were fired from the Camp into residential areas. One such shell fired fell on the roof of the house of One Mrs. Thaiyalnayaki Satchithananthan, a 60 year old widow of Main Street, Point Pedro, causing damage to the extent of RS. 5,000/-.
Your Excellency will agree that all these could have been avoided if only the Security Forces were mindful of the innocent civilians in the area. Besides these events, the area was peaceful. We have constantly and consistently maintained that densely populated Point Pedro town is not the place for an Army Camp and have even suggested that this Camp be closed and the personnel be housed at Palaly, if so advised. We still earnestly request that the Point Pedro Army Camp be closed and the innocent people be allowed to live in peace - the barest minimum Your Excellency could guarantee, especially when the ban on fishing, destruction of crops, impediments to transport of food items by lorry and stoppage of rail services have already hit hard the economic life of the people. We are also human beings with the right to live and with dignity.
Repression in Stability - con
disavow separatis robbing Parliam Tamil eyes.
The death to including 200 Sin The U.S. Sta both the army a extensive human International di "disappearances. the clergy and til condemned the Prevention of T opponents, incl youths accused terrorists.
The economy strain. Tourism investment is d spending has tret servicing may abs income next yea prices (tea, rubb main crops) have the population (worth $20 mon steadilly, economi may introduce Sinhalese south. independence' is bleak prediction.
Western donc harrowing confli human rights pict for a negotiate government, kno and fearing a back make an offer a moderate Tamil
CONSCISUS Cal compromise.
Mrs. Bandarar consensus. But si Sinhalese oppo restoration of del Tamils demand devolution. Both "centralization of opened new vista
(By courtesy of Intern April 1986. Ti
The Joint Front of Teachers“ Trade Unions has, in a press statement,
condemned the Government for arresting Trade Union leaders and activists.
The Joint Front's press release on the recent arrests states 'This Government is continuously suppressing the civil and democratic rights of this country using the Prevention of Terrorism Act and Emergency regulations brought into effect on the on-going ethnic problem. . . The Government is now using all these
powers to Suppress political opposition on the pretext of eradicating "terrorism'. The recent
arrests are a clear indication of this. It is now clear that the Government is using
i ÅW
Teachers Protest Against A
these powers to undemocratic w
1374, Trade Unions ag rs measures of thi
heaps heavy bur Trade Union activ arrested recently. The Governme repression by arr ' of Sri Lanka Jathi
'Mr. G. Dahanaya
Having arrested h now detained at 1 Staion, it is report While veheme arrest of Trade activists, the Join the immediate r arrested.

Page 16

T
the Guise of tinued
m. The 14 Tamils left it, ent of all credibility in
多、专 s: a
l in 1985 was 1,200, halese servicemen. e Department accuses nd the Tamil rebels of rights abuses. Amnesty cuments torture and The opposition parties, ne bar association have use of the draconian errorism Act to detain ding leftist Sinhalese of links with Tamil
is under the severest as been badly hurt and rying up, while arms led in two years. Debtorb 25 percent of export r just when commodity er and coconut are the slumped. With a third of living on food stamps thly) and prices rising c and trade union unrest instability into the "The worst year since the finance minister's
prs, distressed by the ct and the darkening ure, support India’s call settlement. But the wing the people's mood lash in the south, cannot acceptable even to the s. Only a Sinhalese
sustain a viable
laike is the key to that he wants elections. The sition demands the mocracy as firmly as the decentralization and are the antithesis of the power' that was to have s for Sri Lanka.
ational Herald Tribune, 22 & 23
he author is the Editor of "Lanka Guardian')
rrests
suppress in very rys the protests of ainst the economic S Government that dens On the masses. ists are among those
nt has extended its esting the President ka Guru Sangamaya ke on 8th January. im at his school heis he Kollupitiya Police ed''
ntly protesting this Union leaders and Front has called for elease of all those
TAMILITMES 15
M. JULIUS MELCHIOR 8 0C0.
SOLICITORS
86 Willesden Lane, London NW67TA
Tel 01-624.503
Mr. M.J. Melchior LL.B., B.Phil. (formerly Barrister-at-Law)
has resumed his legal practice full time and will concentrate on Litigation & Immigration Problems.
Conveyancing by Sri Shanmuganathan, Solicitor, and his team.
JAFFNA SHELLED
Shelling from the army camp situated within the Jaffna Fort in northern Sri Lanka on the morning of 6 April 1986 left two people dead and more than ten injured.
Some buildings in the city were also damaged. The dead persons were Manuel Anthonipillai (30), father of four children, and Xavier Shayanathan (26), father of a child, both of Gurunagar, Jaffna.
The areas most affected by the shelling were Gurunagar, Pannai, Grand Bazaar, First Cross Street and Athiadi.
The retaliatory attacks by Tamil militants left two army personnel injured, according to government sources.
The four hour shelling by the security forces also damaged the Chelvanayakam Memorial Pillar situated opposite the Fort.
ARMY FORCES PEOPLE OWTO STREETS
More than 60 families in Nilaveli in the eastern Trincomalee district have been rendered homeless and are literally living on the Streets.
These families, whose homes were situated close to the Army Camp, were given orders by the army to quit their homes. Besides ordering them out of their own homes, the army also had given orders that the displaced families should not be admitted to the refugee camps in the area. As a result these families have no other place to go except to live on the streets of Trincomalee.16TAMILTIMES
Why Tamils Should Not Be
The international human rights organisation, Amnes refoulement of members of the Sri Lankan Tamil Commu returned, Tamil civilians not involved in combat would
: The following are extracts from an appeal dated 11 April 1986 made by Amnesty International to all governments of countries in which Tamils have sought asylum:
In recent years Amnesty International has called on governments of those countries in which members of Sri Lanka's Tamil community have sought asylum not to return them to Sri Lanka against their will. Amnesty International urgently renews its appeal to such governments not to order the refoulement of members of the Tamil community, at least for a further period, in view of renewed reports of widespread human rights violations by security forces personnel which have reached Amnesty International since its earlier appeals.
There has been, notably since the autumn of 1985, a further escalation of violence both on the part of government forces and of armed Tamil groups seeking the establishment of a separate state, accompanied by reprots of widespread human rights violations from all parts of Sri Lanka.
Amnesty International reaffirms its opposition to refoulement of members of the Tamil community because it fears that, if returned, Tamil civilians not involved in combat would be at grave irisk of being victims of human rights violations. These include: t- Arbitrary killings by members of the security forces, often in reprisal for the killing of their own men or of members of the Sinhalese community. - "Disappearances' of people allegedly by security forces personnel. - Arbitrary arrest and detention, often long-term and incommunicado. . . . . - Ill-treatment and torture after arrest.
The most recent reports of extrajudicial killings are described in: SRI LANKA: Some Recent Reports of Extrajudicial Killings, September 1985 to March 1986 (ASA 37/03/86), April 1986. This describes a number of incidents involving such killings by security forces personnel, who in recent months have also resorted to aerial bombings causing the deaths of mainly non-combatant Tamil civilians. The victims include men, women and children. Such reports have been received by Amnesty International with increasing frequency in recent months.
“Disappearances' were first reported in 1983, and particularly since 1984, Amnesty International has received an increasing number of reports that families of people reported to have been arrested by the security forces are unable to establish the detainees' whereabouts. In many cases, officials deny knowledge of their arrest or detention; in other cases officials stated they had been released. There are fears that some of the "disappeared' may have been killed, their bodies having been disposed of by security forces personnel. Such reports have recently sharply increased: in its latest report of 24 January 1986, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances stated that it had transmitted to the Sri Lankan Government 194 cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances, and Amnesty International has received dozens more reports of such "disappearances' during 1986.
Amnesty International continues to receive reports of torture similar to those described in its October 1985 "File on Torture', which detailed allegations that detainees arrested under the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) were subjected to prolonged beatings while hanging upside down, had their heads tied in bags with burning chillies and had pins inserted under nails and in heels. It has also received several reports in recent years that detainees have died under torture and that dozens of detainees, especially in recent months, have been shot in custody “while trying to escape'; inquests into such deaths, if held, are not known to have been published in the press.
Whereas hundreds of arrests under the PTA of Tamil men, especially in the age group of 17 to 35 years old continue to be reported from the north and east of Sri Lanka, many of them

Page 17

INWAY ̇`1986 Returned to Sri Lanka?
ty International, has reaffirmed its opposition to nity presently living abroad because it feared that, if eat risk of being victims of human rights violations.
being held incommunicado for many months, reports of arrest ind detention under the PTA of people on suspicion of having terrorist links' have in recent months also affected members of both the Sinhalese and Tamil communities in other parts of the :ountry, including the centre, the south and the capital Colombo tself. Below we give some examples of such arrests. -
On 28 November 1985 the Minister of National Security Innounced that "several people, mainly Sinhalese, suspected of having separatist terrorist links have been arrested by security uthorities'. The Minister named two left-wing groups, the Samajawadi Janatha Viyaparaya (Socialist People's MovementJV) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Nava Pravanathayaya JVP-NP), as having alleged links with one of the main armed Tamil groups, the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Selam (PLOTE). In the Daily News, Colombo, 29 November 985, the Minister of National Security stated the strategy of these groups to be the establishment of armed guerilla groups "to create rouble in various parts of the country so that the forces would be :ompelled to withdraw from the north to maintain security in other areas'. At least one hundred persons were reported to have been arrested in this connection in December 1985, although ome recent reports put the number at 200.
Other recent reports of arrests cover both the centre of the :ountry and the capital Colombo in the south. For example, ollowing reports of violence in the central hill country where members of the Tamil community employed in tea plantations ive, according to a report in the Sun, Colombo, of 24 February (986, "police teams yesterday began arresting persons allegedly esponsible for the recent violence in the hill country plantation reas'. There have also been recent reports that dozens of persons have been arrested in Colombo allegedly suspected of “terrorist activities': on 20 February 1986 the government announced it had "uncovered a terrorist attempt to cause unrest n the city of Colombo' (Island, Colombo, 22 February 1986), after which 38 persons were reportedly arrested. The Minister of National Security, according to this press report, linked the illeged "plot by terrorists' with the Tamil Eelam Army. Further uch arrests were reported in March: according to the Daily News, Oolombo, 6 March 1986, 23 young men were taken into custody rom a lodging house in Colombo because police suspected that ome of them were involved in terrorist activities. The same eports stated that the previous week the Maradana police had aided another lodging house in the Maradana police area, Oolombo, and taken into custody 40 youths, who were “also emanded pending investigations'.
Amnesty International has also received several reports that Tamils seeking political refuge abroad who have been sent back to Sri Lanka against their will have been arrested and detained without charge or trial, although in some cases they appear to have been detained only for short periods. Amnesty International loes not know what has happened to the people refouled in all cases. For example, four Tamils, three of whom had lived in Sweden, and who, according to the Island of 27 August 1985, had 'clandestinely helped the terrorists', were arrested by the Colombo police on 25 August 1985 after having been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka, under police escort from Sweden. They were reportedly released after a week's detention. Earlier, the Sun, 31 July 1985, reported that two Tamils, sent back from France against their will, had been arrested by police on arrival at he Katunayake International Airport. They were handed over to police from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), but Amnesty International has not been able to establish what happened to them after arrest. There have been complaints about he conditions in which such detainees have been held at the ourth floor Colombo office of the CID: one man subjected to efoulement from France on 27 April 1984 stated that, on return, he was arrested, interrogated and not given food or drink during a ive-day detention period.ክWAY `1986
WHAT THE OTHERS
Rethink Policy on
Sri Lanka le
INDIA MUST "rigorously rethink' her policy and options in relation to the Sri Lankan ethnic problem, says the influential and independent daily, The Hindu.
In a strongly-worded, lengthy editorial last week, the daily said, "Unfortunately, India's Sri Lanka policy during much of the Rajiv Gandhi administration has been characterised by superficiality in approach to the issues and a tendency to give the island government the benefit of the doubt for too long."
The “lack of coherence' in the policy has been fed by well-intentioned efforts to find a quick solution by forcing the diplomatic pace and by an inadequate knowledge of the gravity of the situation on the ground.
The Indian Foreign Secretary Romesh Bhandari's shuttle diplomacy, resting on the "rather vague good neighbourliness policy that has received a good chit from outsiders and achieved nothing else, represents a route that has taken India nowhere,' it says.
As a neighbouring power many times the size of Sri Lanka, India is bound to have a large influence on the island's psychology and thinking, an influence marked by self-restraint so far, but India’s Locos Standi in this matter must be asserted even while favouring a moderate but fair and workable solution within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, the Madras-based paper said.
While seeking to influence Sri Lanka, the
most important Sri Lankan Ta through an unp says the paper, serious geo-polit the Sri Lankan g military response external element The Prime M Parliament and right condemna genocide' unlea civilians by the reflect deepenin, intensification of By exploiting immaturity, and and bolstered b inputs "procure reactionary allies an increasingly problem, it said.
But this profe two years unde Security Ministe itself chiefly in th toll of militant an Tamil civilian live
The eminently for the island's Ta basis of self-adm work of a united, nearer attainmen late 1983. The sensitive stage se India's role in the the editorial conc
Bloodshed in Par
۔۔۔۔ by Thomas P. Fenton
Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka suffer violent opposition at hands of Sinhalese majority
"UNDOUBTEDLY the finest island of its size in all the world.' Marco Polo's 13th century description of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) is as current as today's travel brochures about the "tourist wonderland' off the south-eastern tip of India. Not so, however, his later observation that "the inhabitants of Ceylon are not fighting men,' for the Indian Ocean paradise is being torn by a racial war against the Tamil people.
War contradicts both the postcard beauty of Sri Lanka and the fact that the 16 million citizens of the democratic nation are deeply religious and highly educated. Why, then, this bloodshed in paradise?
Battle lines in the 30-year war are drawn between the majority Sinhalese (72 percent of the population) and the minority Tamils (21 percent). The Sinhalese are mostly Buddhists and are firmly in charge of the parliamentary government of 80-year-old President J.R. Jayawardene. Tamils, Hindus and Christians, for the most part, are concentrated in northern and eastern provinces of the pear-shaped island. The Sinhalese have rewritten history either to eliminate the Tamils altogether or to cast them
in the role of “inv government's own dates the history o Buddhism in 247 flourish,' the gu Indo-Ayran cultu It omits all refer mention "frequen
Recent studies predated the com years. In any ca peoples have live on the West Virg centuries.
Although the T independence fro regret their politi Sinhalese began Tamils.
O The Ceylo franchised a m descendants of thc the 19th century b rubber and coffee are still without Sr
O The “Sinhala
humiliated Tamils classical language barred Tamil-spea positions.

Page 18

TAMILTIMES 17
SAY...
:lement is solidarity with the mils who have been living ecedented time of troubles, adding that there must be a cal reckoning of the impact of overnment's bringing into its , "undesirable and dangerous
of various types." inister's recent remarks in he Foreign Minister's forthtion of the "elements of shed against innocent Tamil Sri Lankan security forces g national concern over the the crisis.
the weaknesses, political divisions among the militants y various types of military d from an assortment of ", Sri Lanka has come up with hard-hitting response to the
ssionalism has, over the last r inspiration from Internal Athulathmudali, expressed e 'heroism' of taking a small d a very large toll of innocent S. moderate objective of gaining mils a secure and honourable inistration within the frameSri Lanka, does not seem any t in early 1986 than it was in reading in Colombo at this ems to be that the "limits' of situation have been exposed,
luded.
Courtesy: The Hindu
adise
aders' from South India. The tourist booklet, for instance, f the nation from the coming of B.C. 'Civilisation began to ide states "and the island's re reached dazzling heights.' 2nce to the Tamils except to 'invasions from South India. give evidence that the Tamils ing of Buddhism by over 300 se, the Sinhalese and Tamil l together in relative harmony inia-sized island for over 20
imil people initially welcomed n Britain in 1948, they came to cal naiveté when the ruling to trample on the rights of
Citizenship Act disenillion Tamils who were se brought over from India in y the British to work the tea, plantations. Of these, 90,000
Lankan citizenship.
only' language act in 1956 who speak the only ancient till in use today and effectively
ting citizens from civil service
Vairamuthu v Palanivale and Associates
DENTAL SURGEONS
127 Greengate Street, London E13 OBG
Te: 01-4729429
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NEARESTUNDERGROUND STATION: PLASTOW
O The abolition of a merit system for admission to higher education and the establishment of an informal quota system discriminated against qualified Tamils in favour of the Sinhalese.
O Article 6 of the 1972 constitution made Buddhism the state religion.
Representatives of all the Tamil groups on the island responded with a convention of their own in May 1976 and declared that the Tamils are a national distinct and apart from the Sinhalese.
This declaration of independence and increasing terrorist acts by some Tamils have incurred the wrath of the Jayawardene government and militant Buddhist clergy. Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists detailed the abuse of human rights and state, "The army and police regularly tortured political suspects and carried out political killings in June 1981."
In a letter to President Jayawardene in November 1982, the Senate of Priests of the Diocese of Jaffna wrote: "We wish to express our great concern at the gross violations of human rights that have taken place recently in the North under the cover of emergency and anti-terrorist laws. We wish to place on record our deep sense of horror and distress on the violation of fundamental rights of persons concerned and the harassment and inhuman treatment meted out to some of our brother priests and others who have been taken into custody.' Tom Fenton is director of Third World Resources, a documentation and information centre about developing countries, 464-19th Street, Oakland, CA 94612. By courtesy of MARY KNOLL Messenger (March 1986)18TAMILTIMES
BOOK REVIEW
By S.D. Muni
Instead of realising the essential factors that have contributed to the recent ethnic problem, the Jayawardene regime continues to bank on a coercive approach and military solution to an essentially human and social issue.
HE ethnic situation in the third world is
worsening and becoming one of the major sources of strife and instability. In our part of the world, no South Asian country is completely free of this; the worse case in this respect being Sri Lanka.
Atheoretical question which arises in the analysis of any ethnic situation is why and how an ethnically diverse society yields to conflict and violence on ethnic lines. Diversity per se may contain within it the roots of incompatibility. But it is the process of socio-economic and political development which instead of turning this incompatibility into harmony, precipitates an intense conflict and insecurity. Sociological theory does not seem to have addressed itself fully to the transformation from ethnic incompatibility to ethnic conflict. : Dr. Vadik's latest study on Sri Lanka raises this question and, in fact, addresses its attempt to analysing why it has happened in the once-peaceful island. There have been instances of eruption of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka even before independence. But what Sri Lanka is undergoing at present is totally unprecedented. In the '50s the Tamil leaders had made a demand for a 50-50 representation of the Sinhalese majority on the one hand and the other minorities including the Tamils on the other. Accordingly, they were seeking a 40 to 45 per cent share in the national cake and in decision-making. From that demand, the Tamil position has shrunk to asking for autonomy in the areas dominated by them which is less than one-fourth of the island, in terms of area and population.
The factors that have been responsible
for the deterioration in the ethnic situation
New Delhi's Response continued from page 14 State has become unbridgeable, essentially because of the politics of trickery of President Jayawardene.
New Delhi also can't afford to forget the geopolitical aspects of American strategy in the region. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President of Maldives Abdul Gayoom have called for the implementation of the U.N. resolution for holding a conference on keeping Indian Ocean a Zone of peace. In terms of the resolution, it is Colombo's responsibility to hold the conference. The Jayawardene Government is not inclined to hold it because it has already converted the island into a floating base for the American strategic purposes.
The American interest lies in keeping Lanka to its committed stance of looking up to Washington for everything. This presupposes the continuance of constant tension between Lanka and its northern neighbour. The Tamil ethnic issue has to be kept alive to ensure the constancy and aggravation of tension between the two countries. In the ultimate analysis, the Tamil ethnic issue is part of the larger battle for keeping South Asia free of imperialist
intrusions.
(Courtesy of "News Today", 13 February, 1986)
Ethnic Crisis
by V. P. Vadik
in Sri Lanka can be grot categories — political, international. Dr. Vadik ta through the complexities and meticulously analyses have been gradually pushe of asking for a separate stat
In the political dynamics Tamils have been used as intra-Sinhalese competitio power. Both the SLFP and promises to the Tamils an them.
Economically, the questi employment, enrolment education and land color has inflicted growing ha Tamils. In analysing the p statistics on these econom Vadik's study gives the lie material put in circul Jayawardene regime whi there is no discriminatic Tamils.
Dr. Vadik is absolutely demand for a separate Tan remained a non-issue until '60s, despite the efforts of it C. Suntheralingam, bec. political issue largely b discriminatory policies dominated Sri Lanka. leadership had to res discriminatory policies b complete mismanagement process and economic devi island.
It is unfortunate that inst these essential factor contributed to the pres problem, the Jayawa continues to bank on a co and military solution to human and social issue.
Dr. Vadik has very conv the much-paraded argume scholars and politician extremism can be comp extremism. The basic diffe
THE TAMILs OF
MWalter Schwarz Minority Rights Grou
Ε1.80
A recently updated and by the educational chari Rights Group, entitled Th Lanka provides an exellent anyone wishing to understanding of the trag situation on the 'paradise
The 15-page report, wril Walter Schwarz, gives a balanced account of the since the arrival of the Port century. The european inv quite separate and and Tamils in the north and , south, a situation W throughout Portugese anc the advent of the British the 19th century. The rep roots of the present con constitution established by

Page 19

MAY 1986
in Sri Lanka. India's Options: (National Publishing House, 1986, Rs 140)
ped into three economic and kes his reader of these factors how the Tamils into a situation
e. of Sri Lanka, the a pawn in the and rivalry for the UNP made | backed out on
on of language, in higher isation policies 'dships on the lethora of hard c indicators, Dr. to propaganda ation by the ch claims that on against the
right that the ni! Eelam which | the end of the 's one advocate ame a major ecause of the of SinhaleseThe Sinhalese Kort to these ecause of the of the political elopment of the
tead of realising s that have ent-day ethnic rdene regime ercive approach
an essentially
incingły refuted ent of Sinhalese s that Tamil ared with Sikh rences between
the two situations have been ably brought out in the study.
it has also been persuasively argued that though Tamil Nadu and its internal politics exercise an influence on Indian thinking and our approach towards Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis, this influence is by no means decisive. That in spite of this influence, the Indian government has restrained itself from identifying with the Tamil cause completely and even gone to the extent of deporting some of the key Tamil leaders exposes the hollowness of the allegation against indian policy.
The study suggests that there is an important nexus between the Jayawardene government's tilt towards the West both in strategic terms as well as in the realm of domestic economic liberalisation and what is taking place on the ethnic front. Sri Lanka's acceptance of western proposals like the Voice of America deal, oil tank farms, close connection with British and Israeli intelligence agencies and import of arms from Pakistan, China and western countries are all important manifestations of Sri Lanka's strategic tilt.
Economically the Jayawardene regime has opened up the island according to World Bank and IMF prescriptions and Japanese, Korean and Singaporean economic interests. This has brought about a growing disparity in income distribution and complicated the social situation along with the ethnic factor.
The Indian policy of restraint and peace initiative has been very carefully analysed in the study. At the same time the author does not rule out the prospect of a drastic change in India's approach if the situation in Sri Lanka were to deteriorate.
The usefulness of Dr. Vadik's study has been enhanced by the addition of valuable appendices wherein the texts of his interviews with prominent Sri Lankan leaders of all shades and opinions have been included. No serious scholar of South Asian affairs can afford to ignore this study.
By courtesy of The Times of India (March 16)
SRI LANKA
re-issued report y, The Minority le Tamils of Sri starting point for gain a basic fic and complex sland''. ten by journalist n objective and island's history ugese in the 16th aders found two ient kingdoms, Sinhalese in the hich persisted Dutch rule until Idministration in prt points to the lict in a flawed the British at the
time of independence in 1948, which allowed the deep-seated myths of separate cultures and religions, established over centuries, and the advantages gained by the Tamil community under colonial rule to produce a political arena fraught by separatist movements and racial tension.
The report shows how increasing friction has led to the coming together, both physically and politically, of two previously distinct Tamil communities and looks at the grievances felt by present-day Tamils, particularly in education and employment. The writer describes the developments in Tamil politics that have led to the formation of militant groups training for guerilla warfare and the call by many Tamils for the creation of a separate Tamil nation. He also provides background to the repeated outbreaks of violence since the holocaust of 1958, and outlines the negotiations for a settlement carried out under the supervision of the Indian Government, Finally, the report assesses the prospects for any future Tamil nation and recent developments in the struggle to find a solution.
Richard DunstanΜΑΥ 1986
LETTERS
b. The Next international Tamil
Conference
When and M/here?
TWENTY years ago, in 1966, the First International Tamil Conference was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with Fr. Xavier Thaninayagam as its chief organizer. Its general purpose was to set a stage for research and intellectual discussion on the various aspects of past and present status of Tamil language in the world and its influence on world civilization. It was the dream of the organizers that Conferences of that sort would promote international understanding of Tamil culture. Since then, four more International Tamil Conferences had been held at irregular intervals in Madras, India (1968), in Paris, France (1970), in Jaffna, Sri Lanka (1974) and in Madurai, India (1981).
Five years had elapsed since the Madurai Tamil Conference. But does anyone know about any details on the next Tamil Conference? As one who participated at the Madurai Conference in 1981, I still reminisce on the pomp and grandeur of the Closing Ceremony in which the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the guest of honour. The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu MGR and his colleagues presented a grand show of their organising talent. However, that occasion was also a proof of our old Tamil adage: "Like a fool who forgot to tie the holy knot in the hustle and bustle of wedding ceremony". There was no delegate or participant from any country on the dais, to invite the Tamil scholars and enthusiasts to assemble at a future date. And that was the agony
It was to the credit of Fr.Thaninayagam that he organized and staged the first four International Tamil Conferences, surmounting many of the obstacles which were stacked against his ideals. The 1981 Madurai Conference, though a success on its own merit, was poorer by the absence of Fr.Thaninayagam. And, we are feeling its effects now.
If we have to see the survival and revival of Tamil language and literature in this computer age, we need some reformists and organizers (of the calibre of Arumuga Navalar, C.N. Annadurai and Fr. Thaninayagam) who are blessed with a devoted passion to Tamil culture, versatility, international reputation among the academics, organizing skills and a
strong will to be independent against political
pressures. Even if we cannot work out plans on a grand scale, due to lack of any governmental support and financial resources, let us organize the next International Tamil Conference on a smaller scale. Let it be, at least devoted to academic discussion in the style of the 1970 Paris Conference. Let us not extinguish the dreams and ideals put forward by Fr.Thaninayagam and Annadurai. I would like to welcome any input on this by other knowledgeable readers of Tamil Times.
s
Bunkyo-ku Hakusan 1-27-3, Pegasus Mansion, No. 107,
Tokyo 113, Japan Sri Kantha
sikhs
SOME people seei problem in India a Lanka are similar : point an accusing fi To begin with, fully-fledged federa like Bengal for the the Marathis, Guja Nadu for Tamils et leader of the Akal Punjab, is its Ch ministers are also Hindus minorities Their language Pun, of the state. V
Though the Sikh the population, the percent of the Ind Army, Navy, Air F nel. Giani Zail S leader, has been ele ing as President Minister Rajiv Gan fer Chandigarh pre Punjab and Hariya ship shortly. Also th include all Punjabiyana into Punjab { want?
Just compare all Tamils of Sri Lank semblance of auton tage do they hold in Is there a single Tan occupation forces in President of Sri Lan Tamil ever have a c future? What is t language when all let are sent in Sinhala or understood here?
The outside world lem in its correct
« barrage of propaga
Marxism. That is the for Equality and Jus wise why should all refuse to supply arn Lanka to fight the so course racist States and Pakistan only?
GENOCIDE
THE PRIME MIN stated that the ethi cannot be solved m: President Jayawa cannot be any politi forced to say that as militarymen. How th be stopped? Genoci If apartheid would w why not genocide?
There is an effe Lanka to its senses economy is depende tea and its greatest c would resort to cana it by subsidising it economy of Sri Lan may be said that workers in the plant be affected. That m that happens, Sri hastening its ecor Government of Indi these lines.
 

Page 20

NDTAMILs
to think that the Punjab i the Tamil problem in Sri nd India cannot therefore ger at us. he Sikhs have Punjab, a state in the Indian Union, Bengalis, Maharastra for at for the Gujaratis, Tamil . Mr. Surjit Singh Barnala Dal, the largest party in ef Minister. His cabinet Sikhs, except for a few hrown in here and there. abi, is the official languagė
form only two percent of constitute nearly twenty an armed forces, i.e. the orce and Security personingh, a prominent Sikh cted and is today functionyf India. Besides Prime ihi has promised to transsently the joint capital of ha, to full Punjabi ownere map will be re-drawn to peaking areas from Harioon. What else do they
these to the plight of the a. Do the Tamils have a omy here? What percenSri Lanka's armed forces? nil soldier serving with the the North and East'? Is the ka a Tamil now? Or will a hance to be elected in the he status of the Tamil tters to the North and East nly - a language that is not
has understood our probperspective, despite the nda about terrorism and Tamil people are fighting stice and no more. Otherthe respectable countries ns and ammunition to Sri -called terrorists except of like South Africa, Israel R. L. Thevathasan Chunnakam
- IN SRI LANKA
ISTER has categorically ic problem in Sri Lanka litarily.
rdene was saying there cal solution to it. He was e was a prisoner of his own en is this genocide going to le is worse than apartheid. arrant economic sanction,
tive way of bringing Sri It is well known that its nt mostly on its export of mpetitor is India. If India sing its tea export and sell t Rs. 10 a kilogram, the ka would be shattered. It y resorting to this, our tions in Sri Lanka would ly not be true, because if Lanka would only be omic ruin. So let the think about a solution on T.B. Bharathi
Madras (By courtesy of "The Hindu').
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I WISH to draw attention to the protest statement
addressed to the External Affairs Minister of
India Mr. B. R. Bhagat by Mr. Harsha Abeywardene of the United National party, the ruling party in Sri Lanka. He has urged that: India would serve the cause of peace in Sri Lanka if she desisted from assisting and harbouring Tamil extremists groups. On the contrary, India has been categorically denying this act. However, even if one concedes that India is involved in harbouring the extremists
this could have been only after the July 1983. Holocaust of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. But, was . peace there in Sri Lanka before July 1983?
Certainly NOT. The Tamil people have been suffering from communal riots starting as far back as 1958. This has gradually escalated over the years as we have seen in 1961, 1974, 1977,
1981 and 1983. This is much to the 'credit' of the present government ruled by the U.N. P. in: which Mr. Abeywardene is the chairman of the party. Therefore, there is no justification for his accusation of India harbouring the extremists.
K. Sivalingam, M.D.20TAMITMES -
wys-M***xwahavsman" :* یہ ,:ہ ع;... ,0ید۔
Protest Against Persecun Of Political Opponent,
HE GENERAL SECRETARIES of the SLFP, SLMP, LSSP and CP, President of the Bar Association, Mr. Nimal Senanayake PC, a representative section of the Buddhistand Christian clergy, members of Parliament and leading academics, artists and intellectuals have signed a statemen, protesting against the current wave of arrests in the South and asking it 'to
desist' from the use of the Prevention of
Terrorism Act and emergency laws 'to persecute political opponents'.
The statement says: Through this repressive course, the State is seeking to resolve the mounting problems created by its political and economic policies.
Where the government is free to arrest and detain persons without the obligation which exists under the normal law to produce them before a court, there is a great danger that these powers can be used against members of opposition parties and other organisations which are viewed with disfavour by the authorities so as to stamp out legitimate democratic rights of dissent and criticism.
We call upon progressive and democratic organisations, political parties and trade unions, students and intellectuals to exert pressure on the government to compel it to desist from the use of these laws to persecute their political opponents and, in connection with these arrests, to act in conformity with the normal process of law.
In the meantime, we call upon the government to make public the names of
forces of its principal library in 1981.
standard facilities in London.
the Tamils of Sri Lanka.
is where you can help us.
The Tamil Times has an essential role to play in the struggle which is escalating with potentially dangerous consequences for -
All this requires funds as well as a major subscriber drive. This
all those arrested, to gi families and lawyers to are held in humane cof from harassment, ph torture and death. We inquiries and investiga ditiously conducted an either released or proa judiciary, under the norn
CONVENORS
Amara siri Dodangoda - MP, Gunasena Mahanama, Dr. K Premasiri Kemadasa, S.C. Punc Vijaya Kumaratunge, Ven Wellaw Ven. Batapola Anomadassi, D, Fernando, Dr. Newton Gunasing Mutthetuwegama — MP, Sunil Gunaratne, Dr. Wittie Senanayak Dharmasena Pathiraja, Jayarat Osmund Jayaratne, Reggie Siriv Vivienne Goonawardene, Sevaka
Clergy
Ven. Amipitiye Dhammakithth Ven. H. Chandrasiri, Ven. Kavisig Maduluawe Sobhitha, Ven. Nava Ven, R, Ratanapala, Rev. Shelt Vatarapola Nandarathne, Ven. A Vangisara, Ven. Iththepana Kenneth Fernando, Ven, Mandav N. Rose, Rev. S.K. Perera, Wen, T. ( Ariyadeva, Ven. Bandagiriye Haathigammana Urarananda Gunananda, Ven. Ko Ananda, Ananda, Ven. P. Dhammakiththi, Thelwatte Nagitha, Ven. P. Sir Caspersz.
Political Organisations
A.M. Karunaratne (SFLP), I (SLFP), K.P. Silva (SLFP). Maith P.M. Podiappuhamy (Desa Dassanayake (SLFF), Thilaka Anurudha Ratwatte (SLFP), K.A Lakshman Jayakody MP (SLFP)
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The Tamil Times was created out of the Tamil nation's sense of catastrophic loss following the burning by the Sri Lankan security w
The paper Owes its Survival as much to its loyal subscribers c scattered around the world as to a handful of dedicated workers L operating from inadequate rented accommodation with sub
We must counter effectively the false propaganda of the Sri Lankan Government: We must alert world opinion to the true facts regarding the Government's Anti-Tamil activities.
This is our principal and urgent role. Please help us to play it.
To function effectively we must establish better sources of information and improve the quality of our presentation. But most of all, we must reach a wider audience, not only of expatriate Tamils but also the many others who, whilst not personally involved, have felt a sense of outrage when they have been made aware of the gross violations of human rights which have become commonplace in Sri Lanka.
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Page 21

MAY 1986
ዜi; (CCP), Raja Kolure (SLCP), Sunil Perumpulachchi
WO) ూ (SLFP), Dr. Wickremabahu Karuna ratne (NSSP), Ariya
Bullegoda (SLFP), K. Thiranagama (NICP), M. Haleem
shak MP (SLFP), Bernard Soysa (LSSP), Richard
S Pathirana (SLFP), T. N. Perera (RMP), W. Disanayake
(Janatha Sangamaya), Wimal Rodrigo (LSSP).
氨
ve due access to Trade Unionists
ensure that they Alavi Moulana, : B: : Francis Perera i Chandrasena
ditions and free Anamadu, G.H. Priyantha Silva, L.B. Wamigasekera, M.C. AO Piyadasa, P. Amaradivakara, Raja Premaratna, Ronnie
ysical COerCition, • Perera, S. Sathiyapala, W.L.D. Anton Marcus, Ariyadasa also urge that Jaya sekera, C.G. Punchiheva, D.S. Mallawarachchi,
tions are expe- J.A.K. Perera, L.W. Panditha, M. Vidanage, P.G.
A. Chandrasena, Ranjith Hettiarachchi, S.D. Karunaratne, d the detainees Padmini Paliyaguru, K. Ilangakoon, B.A. Arthur, C. uced before the Malawarachchi, G.D. Dahanayake, K. Batuwantudawe, alaw. - Leslie Devendra, Nimal G. Punchiheva, R. Abeywickrema, Robert Perera, S. Kalansooriya, V.. Perera, Wimalasiri de Me.
Charles Abeysekera, x 3
umari Jayawardene, 3 Others : : r hiheva, Sunil Bastian, A.M. Navaratna Bandara, D.N. Nadunge, Dilip latte Gnanabhiwamsa, Rohana, Gamini Amerasekera, Gamini Yapa, H.A. ayan Jayatilleke, H.Ni. Perera, G.B. Keerawella, Jayanath Panditharathne, L.B. e, Redley Silva, Sarath Wanigasekera, akshman Gurnasekera, M.G. a Abeysekera, Vijitha Karunadasa, Dr. Nanda Jayasinghe, P. Devaraj, P. e, Prof. Carlo Fonseka, Kulasekera, Dr. P.D. Kannangara, R.S. Canagarajah, Raja na Maliyagoda, Prof. Wijetunge, Ronald F.J. Abeysekera, Sepali Kottegoda, vardene, Nanayakkara, Tara Coomarasvamy, Vasantha Wittachchi, T.C. Nima
Yohan (Devananda. Senanayake, Anita Fernando, Chitra Fernando, Jeffrey Abeysekera, Kuliyapitiya Prananda, Nelum Gunasekera,
Padmini Weerasooriya, Sriyani Perera, Vasantha
, Ven. - D. Saramanda, Somaratna, Anne Abeysekera, Daya Nissanka, Douglas jarmuva Rewatha, Ven. Siriwardene, Gamini Haththetuwegama, Granville gamuwe Dhammaloka, : Rodrigo, H.A.I. Goonetileke, Janaka, Wimalaratne, con A. de Silva, Wen. - Jayaweera Ameratunge, Karuna Perera, Leena lrene, Grnamaratana, Wen. D. ? Haputhanthri, Manel Tampoe, Neelan Thiruchelvam, P. Dhamaian kara, Rev. i Sothinathan, Prins Raja sooriya, Jayatieke vela Pannawansa, Rev. Kammalaweera, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Hector Gunasiri, Ven. Villegoda Abeywardiana, S. Pathmanathar, Serena Tennakoon, W.
Medananda, Wen. Nandakumar, Prof. W.A. Wisva Warnapala, Audrey p Wien. Karambe : -- Rebera, E.M. Bandara Manike, Prof. K. Sivatharmby, Wen. Muretinthetuwe KumudiniSamuel, Nimaika Fernando, Patrick Fernando, Rev. S.L.C. Knight, Ven. Sunanda Deshapriya, Vincent Wijenayake, Dr. B. i Sangara, Rev. Paul ' ! Gajameragedara, Desmond Malikarachchi, Edwin
Kothalawala, Garmini Samarangala, Dr. Frank Jayasinghe, H.S. Bandara, Jani Silva, K. Ananthanathan, |al Perera, M. Sinnathamby, Dr. Nalin de Silva, Newton
ndrapala Abeyweera Perera, N. Velmuruga, Nelson Ediriweera, Prof. R.A.L.H. ripala Sirisena (SLFP), o . Gunawardene, Raja Uswetikelawa, Rohana . Piyadasa, Vimukthi), Somasara S. Thillainathan, T.S. Piyadasa, V.L. Wirasinha, Y. Ranjith Pinnaduwage (MEP), Arnerasinghe, B.M. Piyasena, E. W. Appuhamy, Kamla v. Wimalapala (NCP), Ranatunge, N.M.X. Sornabala, Nandana Marasinghe, , N. Shanmugathasan · Sarath Fernando, S. Baiakrishnan, Nimata Balaratnam.
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MAY 1986
DANIEL, K. Well known Tamil short-story
S writer and novelist. Died in Madras, March ─ , 28.
Yol ŞANMUGAM. Sinnethamby (Şam, Ο R D а, formerly of Walker Sons & Co. Ltd and ar C H8. LU 680 f official Ceylon Turf Club, father of
9th March, 33 ore 3 & 145 Park
URUSAMY O.M.I. al, 21st March.
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Annalakshmy Wignarajah (Guam) and Krishna kumari Thiruchittampalam (Canada) died 28th March. Funeral Canada, 6th April. 4290, Blenheim St, Vancouver, British Columbia V6L2Z4, Canada.
MANORANJITHA, wife of S. Sellathurai,
jini, brother of Dr. Leeli Vanam, Urumpirai, mother of (Canada), Grace Athisayam and Thabeethai (Canada), (Canada), Anton . Anandan (Germany), mother-in-law of
arch 11.
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Hunt, Chandran (Canada), died 31st March. Funeral in Canada, 2nd April. 58, Trotts Square, Scarborough, Ontario M18 1 V8, Canada.
RAJAN SELVANAYAGAM, former Second M.P. for Batticaloa, died on 28th March at the age of 50. He was elected as an Independent candidate but later joined the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and was appointed the Political Authority for the Batticaloa District. He leaves behind his wife, Indranee, a son and a daughter who are pursuing their studies in the U.K.
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A Spillway, intake and valve tower.
Well maintained married accommodation with good amenities will be provided at site free of charge. Part of the salary could be paid directly overseas.
Please send your application to: "Engineers"
c/o Tamil Times, P.O. Box304, London W1390N.
Only candidates short-listed for interview in London during 3rd/4th week of June will be contacted.
 
 

Page 24

T
TAMITMES23
Ing property en estimate
you with the
Civil rieS CaSeS Tenant ssa
Sing
ties terview L5
on NW108SX
l, London SW115TB
van, 4A Castletown
plin: Dr. Lakshni Jayan,
versary Thanksgiving
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Telephone: 01-449 2018 24 Hour Answerer
GEORGE S. MARIATHASAN
B.A. (Hons), Dip.B.S., M.B.I.M. FINANCIAL CONSULTANT
Dinner, 110 BULWERROAD,
urajan 01 - 7435294 NEW BARNET,
3iving at Acton Town Hall HERTS EN55EY
-
These are JUST GO FRESHဒ်မျိုးပြိANိAN SOME of the Sri NEWS FRUTS & VEGETABLES, Lankan specialities for the customers of
FOR FLEETFOODS8. WINES, available at available from the first Friday FLEET FOODS: SR after the 15th of each month:
ANKANS Par boiledrice Chow Chow Preserve REDRCE. Samba rice VISIT THE Red Onions Red rice flour PROFESSIONALS Banana Flowers Maldive Fish Chips Rampa INSTANT STRING SRANKANSPECIALSS Sera - Green Jack (KOS) HOPPERS EEFOOOS Gotuko! Thora dried fish WNES Murunga Katta driedfish |"ို"h" Cookery books Woodapple Cream London NW Coconutscrapers Gingelly oil TELEPHONEO-253304 Hopper pans KITHULHONEY Ask for Deen or Vanessa String hopper moulds WSOA. Old Arrack MALORDER SERVICE (wooden) Mendis Special We {|ို String hopper mats Passion fruit Cordia Drop in and look around (plastic and rattan) Lime Pickle • We have many more items instock Winnows Woodapple Jam Grindingstones Ginger Preserve, tr. - Kokis Achchu
This is justa selection of our Wast Range of Sri Lankan goods. We have many morel
芋正 음
as sa From
FLEETFOODS WINES
OPEN7DAYS AWEEK. MONDAY TO FRIDAY, 10am-10pm. SATURDAY 9.00am-10.30pm. SUNDAY 12noon-2.00pm and 7.00pm-10.00pm24 TAMILTMES
ExPLosoN WREcks TE
NNNNNNNNNNNNNSNADNNNNDNINÑSÑN city, Cohombo, on the morning of 7 May 1986 which left people killed and over 100 injured. The explosion wrecke
the building.
None of the Tamil militant groups has claimed responsibility for the bomb blast, and some have positively denied responsibility. Despite this denial, the Sri Lankan Ministry of National Security attributed the explosion to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LT TE) as it did in the case : of the bomb explosion which destroyed the Air Lanka plane that occurred three days earlier. The LT TE had denied both accusations.
The bomb explosior the bottom two floors less than 500 yards t residence of the count was powerful enough at exactly 9.23am in th . Unconfirmed repori Colombo speculate th group Which was spec by the governmen repressive measures it and which is mainly
| AIR LANIKA PLANE BILAS
А TEAST 14 persons died and 40 people injured in an expl Sri Lankan airliner at Colombo's Katunayake Internation,
May 1986.
The bomb blast ripped the tail section off the aircraft which was on the ground and passengers were boarding at the time of the explosion, 9.10 am. Soon after the explosion, all international flights from and to the airport were suspended.
WHY7
Were the passengers of the Air Lanka plane which was blown up asked by stewards not to occupy five rows of seats at the rear, and persuaded to occupy the front seats? if so, why was
this done?
ls it not true that the passengers who survived the blast were taken to a hotel and kept for eight hours and that none of them was questioned or permitted to be interviewed? If the authorities were keen to establish the facts relating to the blast, why were the surviving passengers not interviewed?
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, although the government of Sri Lanka put the blame on Tamil
'Separatists'. First t Ministry of Defence c Tamil Militant grou responsible. Howeve the Ministry of Na claimed that the Libe Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pla The LTTE prompt responsibility and den act of pure terrorism innocent civilians w outright condemnati
INDIAN DELEGATION IN COLOMBO
continued from page 1
The visit by the Indian team followed a document taken by hand to New Delhi by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mr. A.C.S. Hameed. The earlier Sri :: ` s anka categorically rejecting the TULF proposals was regarded by Delhi as totally negative and India's annoyance was reflected in the sudden cancellation of Romesh Bhandari's previous visit.
It is learnt that the document delivered by Mr. Hameed and other assurances given by Colombo were regarded by India as providing an opportunity for further movement in the direction of greater powers being
response' :
granted to Tamil areas east of Sri Lanka.
The leader of the Amirthalingam, is rep said that it "opens th advance on the earlier pl government last Augu. know the details of the ( that they show more fle most sensitive iss settlement, law and composition of the c and armed services. Ho not provide for the northern and eastern p the Tamils regard as no Mr. Amirthalingam
,, . not optimistic about t
the talks between the li the Sri Lankan gover
*gese»
 

Page 25

LEGRAPHIC OFFICE
MAY 1986
NNNN NNNNNNNNNN אאאי
at least eleven two floors of
ripped through of the building om the official y's President. It o stop all clocks a building. * s circulating in at a certain left ifically targeted
for the recent past
composed of
severe.
and
Sinhalese community might Ha been responsible for their explosion. |
The whole of the ground floor was a heap of rubble after the explosion and
windows along the front of the
building were shattered and timber and masonry from the building were hurled up to one hundred yards away. Many of those killed and injured were trapped in the rubble and were rushed off to hospital in private cars and buses as and when they were recovered. Panic gripped the city as ambulance
fire engines, their sirens screaming, raced towards the devastated building.
* “ - ** हैं
ED
yi ,
osion aboard at
al Airport on 3
he Sri Lankan laimed that the O, EROS, was , subsequently tional ration Tigers of inted the bomb. ly disclaimed
ounced it as "an
aimed to kill rhich deserves
of the north and
TULF, Mr. A. orted to have e door for an roposals by the it.' Those who ocument claim xibilty over the es of land order and the untry's public wever, they do inkage of the ovinces, which n-negotiable.
was, however,
|e outcome of dian team and ment because
Security
on'. - All other
Tamil militant groups also have disclaimed responsibility for the explosion.
The Lockheed Tristar had left Gatwick airportin London on the night of May 2 stopping on its way at Zurich and Dubai before landing at Colombo airport on the morning of 3 May. It was scheduled to fly on to Male in the Maldive islands (800 kms from Sri Lanka) carrying mainly French, British and Japanese tourists. . . . . . .
The bomb, reportedly concealed in packages of raw meat which are regularly airlifted from Colombo to hotels in the Maldives, exploded as the ground crew were closing the aircraft's hold after loading the cargo.
'the Sri Lanka Tamils had been let down so many times with the government going back repeatedly on the proposals it itself had made". Nevertheless, he did not want to prejudge the outcome. it would appear that the
TULF is pinning all its hopes on India's
efforts. ۰ بر ゞ
While in Colombo, the Indian team had discussions with not only the government leaders, but also with Mrs. S. Bandaranaike, the SLFP leader, Mr. S. Thondaman, the CWC leader and Mr. Neelan Tiruchelvam.
It cannot be doubted that the clash between the Tamil militant groups,
LTTE and TELO, that occurred during
their stay in Colombo would have embarrassed the members of the Indian delegation.