Says Jaywardene

COLOMBO, Oct. 4, Reuter: Sri Lanka accused India on Sunday of not playing a full part in ending ethnic violence on the Island and told Indian peacekeeping troops to put down communal clashes in one area or make way for Sri Lankan security forces. President Junius Jaywardene’s office said he issued his warning at a meeting of Indian and Sri Lankan security officers to review security in the eastern district of Trincomalee. Clashes between Tamils and Sinhalese there have killed at least 18 people in five days, damaged 500 houses and shops and made 5,000 people homeless.

An Indian peacekeeping force of 8,000 soldiers and 1,000 paramilitary police is deployed in the north and east of Sri Lanka under a pact signed between Jayewardene and India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

A statement from the President’s office said Jayewardene told the meeting that “there had been some breakdown in cooperation between the two governments in regard to this (military) part of the agreement and that the Indian government should rectify it”.

The July accord is aimed at ending ethnic violence over militant Tamils’ demands for a separate homeland in Sri Lanka. The conflict has killed 6,000 people in the past four years.

Jayewardene told the Commander of the Indian troops to work in cooperation with General Cyril Ranatunge, Chief of Sri Lanka’s joint operation command, to end the clashes in Trincomalee

immediately, the statement said.

“He further said that if they do not do so he will direct the Indian peace keeping force to withdraw from that area so that the Sri Lankan security services and police could restore law and order”, the statement said.

Jayewardene said the Indian troops were under his command and they should carry out his orders.

General Depinder Singh, Chief of the Southern Command of the Indian army, accepted this and said he would fly to Trincomalee immediately with Sri Lankan officers to see that India’s role was carried out, the statement said.

It added that Jayewardene said “that the Sri Lanka government was Carrying out their part of the agreement in Toto and he felt that the government of India was not doing so with regard to the military assistance to be given on the ground”.

Jayewardene said that while Sri Lankan troops had withdrawn to their camps, following the agreement, the Indian soldiers had also remained in barracks without suppressing the violence.

Commenting on Jaywardene’s statement, official sources in New Delhi said India was committed to its role of keeping the peace in Sri Lanka under the accord.

“Certainly, responsibility for keeping the peace is something we intend to fulfill”, one source said.

“Naturally we are doing what is necessary to bring about an end to tension and cool things”, he said.

Sri Lankan officials said the Tigers, the most powerful Tamil militant group, were attcking Sinhalese and Moslems in Trincomalee to drive them away from the area.

Trincomalee is part of the eastern province which is to be merged with north under pact if agreed in a referendum. Tamils claim that the north and east form their homeland.

The population of the eastern province comprises Tamils, Sinhalese and Moslems in equal proportions while the population in the north is almost entirely Tamil.

The militants fear that the Sinhalese and Moslems in the east might vote against the link with the north in a referendum to be held next year, the officials said.

They said Indian soldiers had been reluctant to take action against the militants because any confrontation could embarrass New Delhi which had earlier accused Sri Lankan troops of massacring Tamils.

The officials said militants had surrendered only some of their weapons under the accord and the Indians had so far not gone out to take away the rest of the arms.

Military sources said the militants attacked the main Sri Lankan army camp and a police office at Trincomalee and another army camp at Kalar in the same district killing one soldier on Saturday.

They said the chief monk at a Budhist temple at China Bay near Trincomalee was shot dead by the militants.

An Indian soldier was killed when a crowd of people opened fire at a truck carrying Indian troops in China Bay on Saturday, an Indian High Commission (Embassy) official said.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 9, 1987