Planes bomb Tamil targets

Press, 28 February 1986, Page 6

Planes bomb Tamil targets

NZPA-Reuter Colombo

Sri Lankan Air Force planes bombed yesterday what the Government said were four hide-outs of Tamil separatist guerrillas in the northern district of Jaffna.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said the hideouts belonged to three guerrilla groups fighting to set up a separate State for the island’s minority Tamils.

The hideouts belonged to the Tamil Eelam Army, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, he said.

The groups are among five of the main organisations waging a hit-and-run war against Government forces.

The spokesman said the T.E.A. camp was an arsenal, from which the guerrillas distributed weapons to their men in different parts of Sri Lanka. Explosives found with a guerrilla when the security forces foiled an attempt to plant a bomb in Colombo two weeks ago had come from the base,

he said. Yesterday’s bombing was the second air attack in the north in a week. Last Thursday Air Force planes and helicopters bombed two locations at Innuvil described by the authorities as guerrilla hide-outs. The guerrillas said that the Air Force had bombed Tamil villages, killing several civilians. India’s External Affairs Minister, Mr B. R. Bhagat, told the Indian Parliament on Wednesday that Sri Lanka was pursuing a military solution to the conflict between the majority Sinhalese and Tamils. He said killings of Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan troops had “elements of genocide.” The Sri Lankan President, Mr Junius Jayewardene, told India on Tuesday that he wanted to find a peaceful solution to the conflict with India’s cooperation. The Indian Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, is mediating between Colombo and Tamil groups in a bid to resolve the conflict