New Delhi, India — At least six people were killed in the last two days in northern and eastern Sri Lanka despite the extension of a ceasefire between the government and Tamil separatist guerrillas, the United News of India reported Monday.
Reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, the news agency said the victims included two police informants whose bullet riddled bodies were found in the eastern coastal town of Batticaloa Monday. It said the two were killed by Tamil militants.
Security forces raided three guerrilla hideouts in the northern Vavuniya district during the weekend and seized material used for making land mines, it quoted a government statement as saying.
Army soldiers were patrolling three districts in the country’s northeastern and eastern regions, where Tamil guerrillas want to create an independent homeland for the minority community.
Tamils, who are Hindus of Indian origin, account for 18 percent of Sri Lanka’s 15 million population. They claim discrimination by the majority Buddhist Sinhalese.
Tamil separatists last week signed an Indian mediated agreement, agreeing to extend the ceasefire in Sri Lanka, torn by ethnic urgent which has claimed over 1,000 lives in the past two years.
The ceasefire, which went into effect June 18, expired in September and the Sri Lankan government last month announced it had unilaterally extended it. The guerrillas had earlier refused to observe the truce after its expiration, charging government troops with violations of the agreement.
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Oslo, Norway — The following are the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for the last 10 years:
1975 — Andrei Sakharov, Soviet dissident physicist and father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb.
1976 — reserved.
1977 — The prize for 1976: Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, Northern Ireland, founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement.
1977 — Amnesty International, Londonbased human rights organization.
1978 — Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, prime
minister of Israel, for signing the Camp David Israeli Egyptian peace accords.
1979 — Mother Teresa, Calcutta, India, for missionary work among impoverished people.
1980 — Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentine architect and human rights leader.
1981 — Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva.
1982 — Alva Myrdal, Swedish former disarmament minister, and Alfonso Garcia Robles, Mexican diplomat, campaigners for disarmament.
1983 — Lech Walesa,
Polish labor leader and founder of Solidarity.
1984 — Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa, a leader of the antiapartheid movement.
1985 — International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Boston.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 18, 1985
