Word: rebels
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...moment of anger and frustration for Vellupillai Prabakaran, leader of Sri Lanka's separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas. Speaking before some 70,000 members of the country's Tamil minority on the grounds of a Hindu temple in the Jaffna peninsula, the rebel leader promised that his 3,500 followers would hand over their arms to Indian peacekeeping forces that had started streaming into the north and east of the country five days earlier. The vast assembly cheered in approval, barely listening as Prabakaran added bitterly, "We do not accept this accord. But, because India is a powerful country...
...Lanka's 16 million people were divided about the surprise peace agreement signed on July 29 by their President Junius R. Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Despite the rebel rancor, the country's Tamils, 2 million strong, welcomed what they hoped was the end to a civil war that had claimed 6,000 lives since 1983 and threatened to tear Sri Lanka apart along ethnic lines. The 12 million Sinhalese, however, were enraged at the agreement, which grants local rule to two northern and eastern provinces heavily populated by Tamils. After an initial spate of rioting, the Sinhalese...
...ceremony, some 3,000 Indian troops landed on the Tamil-dominated Jaffna peninsula in the north of the island. Their task: to disarm the guerrillas and take up peacekeeping duties. Those efforts promised + to be tricky; the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the largest and most militant of five rebel groups, insisted that they would not consider disarming until New Delhi released their leader, Vellupillai Prabakaran. He had been under house arrest in New Delhi after calling the pact a "stab in the back, but early this week Prabakaran was released and returned to Jaffna after pledging that he would...
...took to the streets even before the agreement was signed. Columns of black smoke rose over the capital as police and soldiers resorted to rifle fire to contain the rioting. By week's end at least 70 people were dead. In the protesters' eyes, Jayewardene had caved in to rebel demands and Indian pressure. Admitted a government official: "Ninety percent of the Sinhalese people are against...
...refused to go along, arguing that his fighters would not be safe without their weapons once Indian forces departed. Watched by paramilitary guards, Prabakaran remained confined to his room at the government-owned Ashok Hotel while the treaty was being initialed in Colombo. The Tiger leadership and several smaller rebel groups declared that they would not even consider laying down their arms until Prabakaran returned safely to Jaffna...