Screen lover asked to talk to Tamils

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 6

Screen lover asked to talk to Tamils

NZPA-Reuter Colombo Sri Lanka’s President, Mr Junius Jayewardene, has asked the country’s biggest film star, whom he once put in jail, to try to negotiate a cease-fire with Tamil separatists. Mr Jayewardene asked the screen lover, Vijaya Kumaratunga, aged 40, who is also an opposition politician, to seek talks

with the rebels to end fighting that has killed more than 4000 people in the last three years. Mr Kumaratunga, voted most popular actor at a national film awards ceremony on Saturday, said he was ready to help. He is married to the youngest daughter of a former Prime Minister, Sirima Bandaranaike, and

set up the Mahajana Party, which he heads, two years ago after breaking away from his mother-in-law’s Freedom Party. He was jailed in November, 1982, when Mr Jayewardene accused him of trying to incite violence shortly after a Presidential election. No charges were brought and he was

released two months later. Mr Kumaratunga, who failed narrowly to get into Parliament in a by-elec-tion in 1983, met Tamil guerrilla leaders last month in India, where they are based. Mr Jayewardene made his request at a conference of eight political parties that met in Colombo to discuss the conflict.

The Tamil guerrillas, seeking independence for the north and east of the country from the Sinhalese majority, did not attend. The conference adopted a resolution urging the guerrillas to put forward their own peace proposals, within the framework of a united Sri Lanka.

Delegates said no solution was workable without the co-operation of the guerrillas, who control some northern and eastern regions. The conference also endorsed a proposal by Mr Jayewardene to devolve certain powers to elected councils to be set up in the island’s nine provinces.