COLOMBO, Sept. 27,Reuter: Indian troops fired at stone throwing Tamils in Eastern Sri Lank on Sunday, wounding two people in renewed violence after the hunger strike death of a young Tamil guerrilla, police said,

They said scattered violence continued in Batticaloa district after the death on Saturday of Tamil Tigers militant Amirthalingam Thileepan on the 12th day of his fast in the northern city of Jaffna,

Thileepan was backing five deanands made by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to the Indian and Sri Lankan governments, which signed an accord on July 29 to end the Island’s Tamil insurgency.

It was the second time in five days that Indian troops of an 8,000 strong force sent to enforce the pact have shot Tamil protestors.

Last Wednesday the troops killed a youth in the northern town of manner when Tamil demonstrators supporting Thileepan stoned them and tried to break into their camp. Sri Lankan officials said the crowd was shouting “Indians Go Home”.

‘Thileepan’s fast at a Jaffna Hindu Temple aroused widespread emotion among Tamils in the north and eat and demonstrators burned two buses in Jaffna and ‘one in Batticaloa after news of his death spread on Saturday.

Batticaloa police superintendent Ronnie Gunasinghe said Sunday’s violence erupted when protestors again set fire to a bus and tried to torch others at a nearby village, and Indian troops arrested one man.

A crowd then stoned the Indians and Sri Lankan police accompanying them, injuring a policeman before the troops opened fire, Gunasinghe said.

Black flags hung from houses with shops across the north and cast which the Tamils regard as their historic homeland after the Tigers called for three days of public mourning for Thileepan.

Two more militants began “Death Fasts” in Jaffna on Saturday to continue Thileepan’s campign. Nineteenyearold “Basker” ‘and“Muralli”,23, are staging their protest on the same makeshift stage at a Hindu temple where he died watched by hundreds of sympathisers.

Other Tigers militants have begun fasting in the towns of Batticaloa, Trincomalee, and Mullaitivu and sympathizers are fasting in other areas.

‘The Tigers demands include the release of all Tamil detainees held by Sri Lanka, Control of a provisional joint administration to be set up in the North and East and disarming of Sinhalese home guards,

Indian High Commissioner (Ambassador) Jyotindra Nath Dixithad two rounds of crisis talks with Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran during Thileepan’s fast but there has been no word of agreement yet.

Prabhakaran twice turned down Dixit’s pleas to call off Thileepan’s protest.

Dixit has said he expects an agreement soon and Sri Lankan President Junius Jayewardene has said he will consider the demands if the Tigers agree to support the July 29 pact they have so far refused to endorse.

Prabhakaran says the “Death Fast” will continue until his group’s demands are granted.

 

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 2, 1987