Word: jaffna
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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...
...after the signing 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...
Gandhi tried to persuade the Tigers to sign the pact, but to no avail. An Indian air force helicopter picked up Tiger Chief Prabakaran in Jaffna two weeks ago and brought him to India. During three days of discussions in New Delhi, including a meeting with Gandhi, the Tiger leader 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...
...fighting stops and the rebels are disarmed, Jayewardene could regain some support. But as 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...
Undeterred, Gandhi ordered five of the Indian air force's Soviet-built An- 32 transports, escorted by four French-built Mirage-2000 fighter jets, into Sri Lankan airspace to drop 25 tons of "humanitarian relief supplies" onto Jaffna. Colombo immediately charged that the airlift was a "naked violation of Sri Lanka's sovereignty and independence." India insisted that the move was needed to meet the "continuing deterioration" of Sri Lanka's Tamils, a condition Colombo denies...