[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 58 (Thursday, May 11, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  RESOLVING THE CONFLICT IN SRI LANKA

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                        HON. MICHAEL E. CAPUANO

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 11, 2000

  Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the following 
editorial from the Boston Globe on April 29, 2000, for the Record. The 
editorial was brought to my attention by Mr. Shri Srithilliampalam, 
president of the Eelom Tamil Association of America and an activist in 
the Boston area that continues to call for observance of human rights 
in Sri Lanka and a peaceful settlement to the 17-year ethnic conflict. 
We must encourage the parties involved to stop the terror and negotiate 
a peaceful and immediate end to this war.

                [From the Boston Globe, April 29, 2000]

                       Pushing Peace in Sri Lanka

       The long, lethal civil war in Sri Lanka receives little 
     attention here, but for sheer senseless blood-letting it is 
     comparable to the Balkan conflicts. The need for a cease-fire 
     and mediated peace talks became more evident than ever this 
     week when the separatist Tamil Tigers chased 17,000 Sri 
     Lankan army troops from their key strategic position in 
     Elephant Pass, straddling the narrow isthmus that links the 
     south of the country of Jaffna, capital of the Tamil area in 
     the north.
       Both sides in this merciless war have committed atrocities, 
     both have suffered terrible losses, and both have sought 
     revenge for past outrages. When government forces recovered 
     bodies of soldiers killed in the fall of Elephant Pass this 
     week, they discovered to their horror that many of the 
     corpses had been mutilated.
       The Tamil fighters were taking vengeance for the 
     desecration of their cemeteries four years ago and for acts 
     of ethnic cleansing visited upon the civilian population of 
     their northern province.
       The Tigers have often sent terrorist packing suicide bombs 
     into crows of civilians. This past December they wounded 
     Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga in one eye and killed 25 
     people in such an attack. To overcome the army's base in 
     Elephant Pass this week they blew up wells, cutting off the 
     troops' water supply in a dry climate where the heat 
     surpassed 100 degrees. Senior officers dying of dehydration 
     were airlifted out of their trap.
       For their part, government forces have been denounced by 
     Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross for denying 
     medicines to everyone in the north, civilians and fighters 
     alike.
       The United States has had little to do with this war except 
     to sell some weapons to the government and provide some 
     military training. Many of the weapons have fallen into the 
     hands of the Tigers, and the training has done little good. 
     To save the lives that are being squandered on both sides, 
     Washington should now counsel Kumarantunga and her government 
     to accept a cease-fire supervised by international monitors 
     and to pursue to peace talks that Norway has offered to 
     mediate.

     

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