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Sri Lanka police detain suspects after suicide bombing |
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June 9, 2000
COLOMBO, JUNE 8 (AP) - Police detained 15 men Thursday as suspects in a suicide bombing that killed a Cabinet minister and 20 others in a suburb of the capital. Sri Lanka's president urged people to refrain from retaliatory attacks on the Tamil minority.
The government blamed Wednesday's bombing on separatist rebels fighting for a homeland for the Tamil minority, and mobs in the neighborhood threw stones at Tamil-owned shops in revenge.
The 15 suspects were taken at dawn from apartments and houses near the site of the bombing and were being interrogated, said a police official at the local station, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Their anxious relatives hovered outside the station in the Ratmalana industrial area.
A nighttime curfew was imposed after mobs attacked Tamil shops in the district, 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the center of Colombo.
There were no reports of injuries. A suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body killed Industrial Development Minister Clement V. Gooneratne on Wednesday along with 20 others during a street drive to raise funds for soldiers fighting Tamil rebels in the northern Jaffna peninsula. The government had declared Wednesday its first-ever War Heroes Day.
A Claymore mine explosion set off by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed three members of a civilian security patrol and wounded four Thursday outside the northern town of Vavuniya, a local police officer said.
He said the remote-controlled mine exploded while a group of home guards - civilians trained in handling weapons - were on a routine patrol outside Vavuniya, 210 kilometers (130 miles) north of the capital. It us the last government-held area before Jaffna, the peninsula where the rebels are fighting to create a homeland for the minority Tamils.
About half of the 60 people wounded in Wednesday's bombing were still being treated Thursday, said Dr. W.G. Gunawardena, the director of Kalubowila Hospital. The slain Cabinet minister's widow, Shyama, remained in critical condition with internal injuries, he said.
The police official at the local station said the bomber was a man, although in the past women have cut their hair and posed as men in suicide bombings. The government banned public officials from providing information to the press in February.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga appealed for calm Thursday, saying the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were trying to "inflame communal passions by provoking the people."
"I appeal to all Sri Lankans to consider this earnestly and act with patience to maintain peace at this hour," Kumaratunga said.
The Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting since 1983 to establish a homeland in the north and east of the island nation for the country's 3.2 million Tamils, accusing the Sinhalese majority of discrimination in education and jobs.
Since early April, fighting has intensified in the northern Jaffna Peninsula, where the rebels reached the edge of Jaffna city.
But an infusion of foreign-bought weapons has helped the 40,000 government troops halt the rebel advance and there has been a comparative lull in fighting during the past two weeks.
The Tamil Tigers are outlawed in the United States, India and Sri Lanka but have fundraising and public relations offices in London and Paris.
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain said the government condemns terrorism but added that 17 "years of conflict have made it abundantly clear that the war is unwinnable." He said the European Union called on both sides to stop fighting and begin negotiations immediately on changes in the constitution "to respect the rights and aspirations of all communities."
In Washington, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said, "Such terrorism should not and cannot detract from efforts to reach a negotiated solution to the current conflict in Sri Lanka."
The United States and India have supported efforts by Norway to mediate between the rebels and the Sri Lankan government, but Kumaratunga said this week that the Tamil Tigers could not be trusted in negotiations. The Norwegian effort, begun just before the Tiger offensive in April, has languished.
Kumaratunga survived a suicide bombing in December but lost the sight in her right eye. Gooneratne was the first member of her Cabinet to be assassinated.
Although there was no claim of responsibility for the bombing, the Tamil Tigers have been blamed for most such attacks because they use similar methods of assassination. The rebels have a unit of male and female suicide bombers called the Black Tigers, known for assassinating politicians and government officials.
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