Tigers shot captives, says military

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 10

Tigers shot captives, says military

NZPA-Reuter Colombo Tamil militants shot dead eight captured Sri Lankan soldiers hours after 12 Tamils committed suicide in Government custody, a military spokesman said yesterday. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.) killed the soldiers on Monday night in Jaffna, their northern stronghold. They had been held prisoner for seven months. The soldiers were captured by the Tigers during an attack on an Army establishment in Jaffna in March. After shooting the soldiers, the militants brought their bodies to a bus stand and handed them to the Indian peacekeeping force, the spokesman said.

A Government official said the killings and the suicides were bound to put further strains on the implementation of a peace pact between Sri Lanka and India to end four years of ethnic violence on the island. Seventeen Tigers swallowed cyanide capsules at Palaly Airport in the Jaffna peninsula on Monday just before they were to be flown to Colombo, official sources said. They were rushed to a military hospital in Jaffna where the 12, including two L.T.T.E. leaders, died. The others were still in a critical condition, the sources said. Soon after the suicide, the Tigers attacked two military camps in the

Jaffna peninsula in violation of a ceasefire that came into force with the July pact, the sources said. Four soldiers in the camps at Point Pedro and Thondamanaru were wounded before the attackers were repulsed. The 17 men were taken into custody on Saturday by the Sri Lankan Navy when they were trying to smuggle arms by boat from the north to the tense eastern district of Trincomalee. Government officials say the Tigers, who have fought for an independent State in Sri Lanka’s north and east, were behind clashes between Sinhalese and Tamils in Trincomalee in which at least 21 people died in the last seven days.

“Smuggling of arms is against the peace accord and we wanted to bring the men to Colombo for questioning when they swallowed the cyanide,” the Government official said. The L.T.T.E. denied the men were carrying arms. A statement issued in Madras, southern India, on Monday said they were travelling unarmed in a boat when taken into custody by the Sri Lankan Navy. The Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, sent a message to President Junius Jayewardene on Monday assuring him that New Delhi would co-operate with Colombo to implement the agreement which they signed on July 29 aimed at ending the four-year Tamil rebellion on the island.