Riots staged against peace agreement

Press, 29 July 1987, Page 10

Riots staged against peace agreement

NZPA-Reuter Colombo

At least eight people were killed and 40 injured when police fired at demonstrators rampaging through Sri Lanka’s capital yesterday in protest against a peace accord aimed at ending the island’s ethnic conflict, witnesses said.

They said more than 5004 demonstrators, including Buddhist monks, set fire to several buses and attacked shops as they fled the police in central Colombo and other parts of the city. Demonstrators shouted “Down with JJU.” — a reference to their president, Junius Jayewardene, who is to sign the agreement in Colombo tomorrow with the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi.

police vehicles

and a section of “Lake House,” the State-owned establishment which publishes four daily newspapers, were also aflame.

“Our building has been set on fire and we are being attacked by the mob with stones and other missiles. We are marooned inside the building,” said a journalist at Lake House.

In other parts of the city several buses abandoned by their drivers or attacked by the demonstrators were blocking the roads. Business houses and shops put up shutters and workers were fleeing to bus and railway stations to go home.

In some parts of the city, workers were trapped in their offices unable to get out because mobs were roamira the

streets. The troubles started when the police used tear gas and batons to disperse protesters demonstrating in central Colombo against the accord to end a four-year-old rebellion by the island’s Tamil minority.

' Witnesses said the main opposition party leader, Sirima Bandaranaike, her son Anura, the Leader of the Opposition, and other politicians opposing the accord were among the demonstrators at Pettah. Tamils arrested Thai police have said they had arrested eight Sri Lankan Tamils who tried to flee from the racial war in their homeland to Norway by using false visas. The police said the men were arrested in Bangkok.