Word: sri
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...rebels, dominated by the 3,500-man Tigers, demand a unified, independent state of "Eelam" (homeland) for Tamils in the island's northern and eastern provinces. Outnumbered by the Sri Lankan military and poorly armed, the insurgents would not have gone far without assistance from India. Just 22 miles across the Palk Strait from northern Sri Lanka lies India's Tamil Nadu state, where the rebels maintain training camps. Despite this support, New Delhi did not endorse the Tigers' demand for independence, insisting instead that Colombo grant the Tamil regions local rule...
...heart of the agreement is Colombo's promise to create a single, locally ruled Tamil province in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. By the end of the year, residents of the new region would elect a governor, chief minister and a cabinet. Since Tamils make up 92% of the northern area's residents but only 40% in the eastern region, easterners would decide by referendum next year whether to remain in the unified province. That provision is unacceptable to the Tamils, who fear that the easterners will pull...
While the ceremony took place, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa was busy giving alms of yellow rice, curd, fruit and cake to Buddhist monks. "I asked them not to sign this, even yesterday," he told the monks. "There is terrorism in Sri Lanka only because India is backing it." Since many of Jayewardene's ruling United National Party members feel no different, the agreement stands a slim chance of winning ratification in Parliament. Mere identification with the document appeared to be dangerous: late in the week a U.N.P. deputy who had attended the signing ceremony was assassinated by a group...
...India's 3,000 troops arrived in the Jaffna area last week, J.N. Dixit, the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, heightened Sinhalese fears that India might be aiming at more than a temporary stay. When the troop deployment was announced, Colombo promised that the units would be under Sri Lankan command. Sounding a bit like a proconsul, Dixit told a Colombo news conference that the troops would answer to him. The next day Dixit retreated, saying the Indian troops were ultimately under Jayewardene's authority...
...slight injury that Rajiv Gandhi suffered when he was attacked by a Sri Lankan honor guardsman last week is not the only insult the Indian Prime Minister has endured lately. Just two years ago Gandhi, 42, was hailed as the most promising of leaders, an enlightened Prime Minister whose reputation for probity won him the nickname "Mr. Clean." Today, battered by corruption scandals, local-election defeats, the defection of ministers and worsening communal violence, Gandhi, 42, is widely regarded as pathetically inept. As the newsmagazine India Today put it, "Rajiv Gandhi is not just in crisis. He is the crisis...