COLOMBO, Oct. 6, Reuter: Tamil militants executed eight captured soldiers and launched a spate of attacks in a dramatic worsening of Sri Lanka’s crisis following the suicide of 12 Tamils in government custody.

Officials said on Tuesday the killings by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) threatened to wreck a peace agreement signed between Sri Lanka and India aimed at ending four years of ethnic violence on the island.

The group said after Monday’s killings it was no longer obliged to keep the ceasefire brought into force by the July accord.

“If our leaders and cadres are allowed to die, then the LTTE is not bound to observe the ceasefire……”, a Tigers’ spokesman said by telephone from the Indian city of Madras. He said he was quoting an LTTE letter to Indian authorities.

The killings follow word from New Delhi that additional Indian army units are to reinforce the 9,000 strong Indian peacekeeping forces stationed here under the pact kto end strife between Tamils and the majority Sinhalese Community.

The Tigers shot dead the soldiers, all Sinhalese, on Monday night and scattered the bullet riddled bodies at a bus stop in the northern city of Jaffna, a military spokesman said. They had been held prisoner for seven months.

As news of the killings emerged, army camps in the north and east went on alert against Tamil attacks, military sources said.

Tamil militants also shot dead the Sinhalese manager of a State-run cement factory in Jaffna and his deputy and militants killed a policeman and wounded three at Vavuniya in the north in attacks on Tuesday and late on Monday, police said.

The Tamil attacks began only hours after 17 Tigers held by the government swallowed cyanide as they were to be put on a flight from Jaffna to Colombo, twelve died.

The men were to be brought to Colombo for questioning about an attempt to smuggle in arms by boat, a government official said. The LTTE has denied the smuggling charge. Speaking before the soldiers’ executions were reported, a government official said: “The unnecessary suicide bid…. will put further strains on implementation of the agreement which has already been hampered by the Tigers”.

The Tigers, who had been fighting to set up an independent state, only reluctantly accepted the July accord between President Junius Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to end strife that has killed 6,000 people.

Among those who committed suicide was a Tiger Commander in the eastern district of Trincomalee who took part in a bus massacre of: 120 Sinhalese in April, officials said. Another victim a leader in the rebel stronghold of Jaffna.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 9, 1987