ANGUNAKOLAPELASSA, Sri Lanka, Jan 16, Reuter: Three months after leftwing guerrillas left a trail of destruction in this southern Sri Lankan town, people are back on the streets and shops are in business.
Farmers work in rain swept rice fields, students dash to the playground after classes. Peace has Returned to Angunakolapelassa, a Stronghold of the leftwing People’s Liberation Front (JVP).
But fear still grips the residents of the Agricultural outpost, 230 km (140 miles) south of Colombo.
Strangers are viewed with suspicion. “Who is he? What is he doing here,” a man asks a resident who spoke to me earlier.
The Government says things have returned to normal in the south since Ranasinghe Premadasa won last month’s presidential election as the ruling party’s candidate.
Premadasa promised to restore the peace shattered by Tamil and Sinhalese guerrillas on the Indian Ocean Island and to ensure smooth parliamentary elections on February 15.
A new era of peace has begun,” a government official said.
On Wednesday, Premadasa ended a state of emergency in force for more than five years to contain a campaign by minority Tamils for a separate state and more recently to answer the JVP threat. The Defense Ministry said security had improved.
Half an hour after the emergency ended at midnight, JVP gunmen struck. Two soldiers and a civilian driver were killed and four soldiers wounded in an ambush at Hungama, a short distance away.
On Friday at least seven people, many of whom had worked during the election, were killed in the south. Four more died on Saturday. The Front, blamed for the murders of more than 800 government supporters in the past year, had threatened to kill voters. A security official at Matara to the West said the JVP was likely to regroup and prelaunch its campaign of terror and destruction because security had been relaxed.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 20, 1989
