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Sri Lankan affairs

As pointed out in the editorial "From Anuradhapura to Anuradhapura" (June 17), it seems the LTTE planned its gruesome attack on bus passengers to mark the anniversary of a similar massacre carried out by it 21 years ago. The Tigers, who earlier used to claim responsibility for their acts, have started disowning them of late. But it is well known that devices such as claymore mines are the favourite of the LTTE alone. That the Tigers are not for a peaceful solution to the Sri Lankan crisis is an open secret.

Tharcius S. Fernando,
Chennai

I am a Sri Lankan Tamil residing in England. After years of strife and sacrifice the Tamil people of Sri Lanka have not achieved anything tangible. Multitudes have died or been maimed, the economy has been shattered, people are dispersed, values brutalised, and dwellings destroyed.

The Indo-Sri Lanka agreement gave us a golden opportunity to realise our legitimate political aspirations and this was scuttled by the LTTE. We are now paying a heavy price for the LTTE's blunder. Only India can bring peace to the north-east. If the LTTE comes in the way, it should be disarmed once and for all.

K. Chandradeva,
Sidcup, Dartford

The editorial ignores the atrocities perpetrated by the Sri Lankan army on Tamils. It also seeks to change the popular notion that the turning point in the Sri Lankan conflict was the `Black July' of 1983 when Tamil prisoners were massacred in the Welikkade prison.

The Anuradhapura massacre of May 1985 was preceded by the Valvettithurai massacre in which the Sri Lankan army herded 75 Tamils into a building and blew it up. Again the bus blast, which prompted the editorial, was preceded by a series of gruesome killing of Tamils. It is one thing to take a policy stand but it is quite another to condemn the killings of civilians of one ethnic group, ignoring the other.

M. Sundaramoorthy,
Brentwood, Tennessee

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