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SRI LANKA

Lack of conclusive agreement over Indian troop withdrawals

The July 29 New Delhi talks with India, arranged hastily [see p. 36812] to avert confrontation over the Sri Lankan demand for immediate withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), ended without agreement on Aug. 4.

India's apparent willingness to pull out 1,500 troops per week was evidenced by the token withdrawal of 600 on July 29 [ibid] and a further 875 on Aug. 6 and 600 on Aug. 8. This rate of withdrawal was such that the last of the 45,000- strong IPKF would not have completed its departure until February 1990–a longer delay than was acceptable to President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka. Premadasa held an emergency Cabinet meeting on Aug. 7, and on the following day Ranjan Wijeratne, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, told parliament that India was rejecting demands for withdrawal by mid-September. Secret bilateral talks between officials in mid-month encouraged speculation of possible compromise over an end-year deadline, but on Aug. 23 Premadasa announced only that he was to send revised proposals for consideration by the Indian side. Notwithstanding the continuing lack of agreement, a further 500 IPKF forces left the island on Aug. 26.

Meanwhile, August had proved to be one of the bloodiest months of the IPKF's two-year presence in the predominantly Tamil north of Sri Lanka, as well as witnessing a further intensification of conflict in the south between the government authorities and the militant Sinhala JVP (itself violently opposed to the Indian troop presence).

Apparently in retaliation for the killing of six Indian soldiers in an ambush by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), IPKF forces reportedly went on the ramn Aug. 2 in Velvettithurai on the north coast. News of the atrocities did not emerge for a week, and the Indian authorities rejected the widely cited reports of a death toll of 50–70 civilians, acknowledging only that 24 had died. Other major incidents included the killing of some 70 people in heavy fighting between LTTE and IPKF units on Aug. 5–6, and an LTTE attack at the Mannar hospital the following day, when 24 IPKF soldiers died. The LTTE claimed that 6,000 Tamil civilians in all had died at the hands of the IPKF, while the IPKF acknowledged the loss of 961 of its soldiers killed since its arrival under the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement of July 29, 1987 [see pp. 35312-13].

In the conflict involving the JVP, the monthly death rate was now widely estimated at around 1,000. Among those assassinated in August were (i) three Buddhist priests, on Aug. 4 in Colombo, on Aug. 6 in Puttalam and on Aug. 30 at Kumburupitiya in Matale district, the third of these victims being a personal friend of Premadasa, Welletota Pagnadassi; (ii) the television news editor Kulasiri Amaratunge, shot dead on Aug. 13 in Colombo as the JVP sought to impose a news broadcast shutdown in protest over alleged unbalanced reporting; and (iii) the families of Sri Lankan armed forces members. The JVP succeeded in closing banks and government offices for a one-day strike on Aug. 15, and in imposing a five-day general strike at the end of the month. The Sri Lankan government for its part, despite a statement by Prime Minister D. B. Wijetunge on Aug. 20 that negotiations would be held with radical groups to end the Sinhalese uprising, apparently intensified its military response, with 2,000 reportedly arrested in security sweeps in the succeeding days. The Aug. 28 death of Kanchana Abeypala, the second prominent human rights lawyer to be killed by unknown gunmen within two months, aroused renewed allegations of government encouragement of “death squad” killings of human rights activists.

The opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike joined with four other opposition groups on Aug. 30 in demanding the creation of a new provisional government to resolve Sri Lanka's crisis.

Taking account of the position of groups not represented in parliament (a reference particularly to the JVP), they said, a provisional government should restore law and order and arrange fresh parliamentary elections, abandoning the 1977- 78 and 1982 constitutional changes brought in by the ruling United National Party which had created the executive presidency [see pp. 28981 and 32076]. Groups endorsing this initiative were the SLFP, the leftist United Socialist Alliance and People's United Front (MEP) parties, the Sri Lanka Moslem Congress, and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), the largest of the Tamil groups to involve itself in the administration of the temporarily merged northern and eastern province, and as such the bitter enemy of the LTTE or Tamil Tigers.

Premadasa on Aug. 31 called on all political groups to join in “a forum for a collective search for ways and means of preventing violence and arriving at a consensus for reconciliation, peace and normalcy”.

REFERENCES. Pressure for India troop withdrawl p. 36735; July events pp.36812-13.