By Our Correspondent NEW DELHI: India is not likely to accept an accord between Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tigers because it was “not consulted about it.”
A senior external affairs source said that the 1987 Indo Sri Lanka agreement stipulated that both the countries consult each other on matters of mutual interest and this Was not done in this case.
The Government and the largest of Tamil rebel groups agreed to an immediate cease fire in a six year war in which 9,000 people are estimated to have been killed, the two sides said on June 28.
The two sides are to resolve Tamil demands for an independent nation and other differences through negotiations, Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Industries Minister, said the agreement with the rebel group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, was reached on Tuesday.
The conference was not attended by any Tamil leader. But a rebel spokesman said the truce did not mean that the rebels had abandoned their campaign for a separate homeland in the northeast.
“The LTTE has clearly told the Government that it is premature to talk about the withdrawal of the demand,” the rebel said.
The ceasefire announcement came as the police reported that Sinhalese extremists detonated a car bomb outside a local government building in Galle, the capital of Southern Province, killing 4 people and wounding 25 others.
The pact with the Tamil group follows a unilateral truce announced by the Tigers on May 4, when they began their peace talks with the Government.
The rebels want a separate nation for the minority Tamils who they say suffer discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese, who are 75 percent of the population. Tamils who make up 18 percent of. Sri Lanka’s 16 million people are mainly Hindu. Most Sinhalese are Buddhist.
Most victims of the strife have been Government soldiers and Sinhalese civilians killed by rebels in the north and east, where most Tamils live.
Confrontations between the rebels and Government troops declined after India mediated a peace accord in July 1987 and sent Indian peacekeeping troops.
The accord says Rebels should surrender their arms in exchange for local political powers for the Tamils. The Tigers initially accepted the accord, as did other smaller Tamil rebel groups. But then the Tigers clashed with Indian soldiers. At least 800 Indian troops and 1,500 Tamils have been killed.
President Ranasinghe Premadesa has asked India to withdraw its 45,000 troops by the second anniversary of the accord, but New Delhi has refused to do it. (WSN June 23).
Article extracted from this publication >> July 7, 1989
