ssm@cmu-ri-leg.ARPA (Sesh Murthy) (02/27/85)
EDITOR'S NOTE - The plight of the Vietnamese boat people shocked the
world several years ago. Now new boat people are streaming out to sea
from another Asian nation - the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Here is a report
on this phenomenon from the turbulent Indian subcontinent.
---
BY STEPHEN R. WILSON
Associated Press Writer
RAMESWARAM, India (AP) - As dawn breaks over the Palk Strait, the
small boats wind their way toward this fishing island on the southern
tip of India.
Guided by the 125-foot tower of a 12th-century Hindu temple on
shore, the motorboats quietly land on Rameswaram's palm-fringed
beach.
Dozens of wet, weary and seasick families step ashore, gather up
their belongings on their heads and walk down the sandy beach toward
what they hope is a safer life.
The scene has been repeated daily since early February by the
world's newest boat people - minority Tamils fleeing the violence in
northern Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon. Nearly 7,000 Tamil refugees have
made the five-hour boat journey to Rameswaram so far this month.
Although they have not faced the treacherous waters and plundering
pirates encountered by Vietnamese boat people since 1975, the Tamils
relate horror stories of indiscriminate killing and torture by Sri
Lanka's Sinhalese soldiers.
''We came to escape death,'' said Lakshmi Subramaniam, 34, holding
her three children at a makeshift refugee center here. ''What will I
do with my children if they shoot my husband? We will not go back
until a solution is found. If the Indian government wants to throw us
out, we will die at sea.''
The refugees are the latest chapter in Sri Lanka's long-running
conflict between the mostly Hindu Tamils, who form about 18 percent
of the island's 15 million population, and the Buddhist Sinhalese
majority. About 40,000 refugees previously fled to southern India
after the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983.
Tamil extremists, claiming persecution by the Sinhalese, are waging
a guerrilla campaign for an independent state in Sri Lanka's north
and east. According to official count, more than 500 people have died
since late November in clashes involving rebels, army troops, police
and civilians.
Dozens of refugees interviewed here and at a government relief camp
in nearby Mandapam said the Sinhalese-dominated army has let loose a
reign of terror against all Tamils in an attempt to wipe out the
guerrillas, known as ''Tigers.''
Some of their accounts have been corroborated by citizens' groups,
clergymen, journalists and government sources in Sri Lanka.
Western diplomats have described Sri Lanka's young, 11,000-man army
as one of the world's most undisciplined military forces. Sri Lankan
President Junius R. Jayewardene was quoted as conceding in an
interview published last month by Newsweek that the troops had
committed ''excesses.''
Nearly all the refugees are fishermen from the northwest Mannar
district, especially Thalaimannar Island and Pesalai Town. While most
are Hindus, some are Christians. It was in Mannar that more than 100
people were shot dead in early December when army troops went on a
rampage after their jeep hit a rebel-planted land mine.
Thalaimannar is an easy departure point for the refugees. It is only
about 20 miles from Rameswaram and the waters are too shallow for Sri
Lankan naval boats to patrol. The refugees said they paid from 100 to
500 rupees ($4 to $20) per family to local boat operators for the
trip. They told of leaving late at night to avoid detection but said
the armed forces did not try to stop them and seemed happy to see
them leave.
Some refugees bear scars and wounds they said were inflicted by the
army.
Sunder Subramaniam, a 28-year-old farmhand who said he was shot
during the Dec. 4 Mannar rampage, wears a scarf covering his jaw,
which was virtually blown off by a bullet, leaving only a few upper
teeth.
''About five jeeps came and the soldiers just got off and started
shooting,'' he said. ''They then set fire to a whole row of shops.
They took away some of the bodies to be burned.''
Subramaniam said he was running away when a bullet pierced his left
shoulder and crashed through his jaw.
The main target of the troops, the refugees said, are men and boys
between the ages of 15 and 30. They are regularly rounded up on
suspicion of being guerrillas and tortured or killed, the refugees
said.
Karupiah Xavier, a grizzled 70-year-old fisherman, said his
27-year-old son was gunned down earlier in February at Chettikulam in
Vavuniya district.
''He went to the lake at dawn and spread his net to fish,'' Xavier
said. ''The army men came in jeeps, surrounded the pond and opened
fire. Three boys died, including my son. The next day, houses and
shops were set on fire. Ten people from one family died.''
Lakshmi Subramaniam said troops raided her town in Mannar district
in January, sending people fleeing into the forests.
''Some older men who stayed behind thinking they were not in danger
were dragged out of their houses and asked to line up on the road,''
she said. ''They were told to put their hands up and run down the
paddy fields screaming 'Kotia' (the Sinhalese word for tiger). The
army men then opened fire. I think seven men died. They had nothing
to do with the Tigers, and each had four or five children.''
The refugees said the army was sparing Tamil Moslems, who wield
influence in the government.
Francis, a 28-year-old philosophy student from Pesalai who would not
give his surname, said more than 1,000 people have been killed in
Mannar district in the past five months and most of the bodies
cremated on burning automobile tires.
He gave details on earlier published reports from Sri Lanka that a
Roman Catholic priest, identified as the Rev. Mary Bastian, was
killed by troops in Mannar on Jan. 6. According to his account, about
200 soldiers surrounded the church complex and opened fire, killing
12 people, including an 85-year-old woman, in a schoolhouse.
The troops then entered the church and knocked on the priest's door.
He put on his cassock and opened the door. ''He raised his hands and
said, 'Don't kill me,' '' Francis said. ''They shot him on the spot,
then pulled him by the legs and dragged him around the courtyard.
They took him to Thallady camp and ordered a sweeper to burn his
body.''
Francis, who said he is studying to join the priesthood, estimated
that about 500 young men in the area have been arrested and taken to
camps in southern Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan and Indian Tamil leaders have called for Indian military
intervention to ''liberate'' the Tamil areas. Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi called instead for a negotiated political solution that grants
''credible autonomy'' to the Tamils and paves the way for the return
of the refugees.
But talks between the government and the Tamil's main political
party, the Tamil United Liberation Front, collapsed in December with
no sign they will be resumed soon.
BC-PAKBOMB-RESEARCH
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistan has consistently maintained that it has
no intention of developing a nuclear bomb and that all its nuclear
work has gone into research and development of technology for
peaceful purposes.
Nevertheless, a great deal of attention has been given here to
assertions over the last few years that Pakistan is on the verge of
making a bomb.
Pakistani officials, including President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq,
repeatedly deny the assertions. In the last year or so, however,
officials have acknowledged that the government has successfully
developed the technology to make enriched uranium that could
theoretically be used for a bomb.
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist who is head of a government
laboratory doing nuclear research, said in October that for any
country that has ''mastered'' this technology, ''it is theoretically,
and I repeat theoretically, possible not only to manufacture atomic
bombs but also hydrogen bombs, for which only an enriched uranium
bomb is used as a trigger.''
But he added, ''Our enrichment program is purely for peaceful
purposes and is meant to meet our energy requirements in the coming
years.''
Generally Pakistani officials charge that reports of its development
of a bomb are circulated by Israel, India and other nations
considered hostile.
Differences over Pakistan's nuclear program have strained its
relations with the West for many years.
The first Pakistani nuclear reactor was completed in 1971 with
supplies and assistance from Canada, but Canada abrogated its
agreement in 1976, saying Pakistan was not living up to safety
agreements. In 1976 Pakistan signed a deal with France for nuclear
reprocessing equipment.
But France withdrew in 1978 under U.S. pressure. The next year, the
United States stopped its entire aid program to Pakistan on the
ground that its nuclear plants were not safeguarded. After the Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan at the end of 1979, however, the military
and economic aid was restored at a higher level.
There have been repeated efforts in Congress to cut off this aid,
and such efforts receive extensive publicity here. Pakistani
newspapers also gave widespread publicity to charges last year that
China was helping Pakistan in developing a bomb. This report was
vehemently denied by officials.
Zia has said Pakistan has no choice but to develop nuclear power and
technology because of the history of Western countries' abrogating
their agreements. Besides its plant in Karachi, Pakistan has started
construction on another plant at Chashma and has plans for four more
plants in the next two decades.
The most sensitive facility is one run by the Pakistan Institute of
Nuclear Science and Technology at Kahuta, near Islamabad, the
capital. Officials have acknowledged that this is the plant aimed at
developing the technology for enriched nuclear fuel, which could be
used for weapons.
The Kahuta facility was the focus of a furor last year when U.S.
newspapers, quoting intelligence sources, reported that India had a
plan to bomb it.
India denied the reports, but Pakistan called for India to renounce
them more vigorously.
Pakistan is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which has inspected its plant at Karachi, but it will not sign the
treaty to curb the spread of nuclear weapons, by which signers
without nuclear weapons agree not to develop a bomb.
Pakistan has declared that it will sign when India does, and it has
called on India to agree to joint inspection of nuclear facilities
and a nuclear-free zone in South Asia.
Besides the newly disclosed American export case involving Nazir
Ahmed Vaid, there have been other reports over the years of Pakistani
officials' being involved in smuggling technology to develop a bomb,
but Pakistan denies them.
Qadeer Khan, who runs the laboratory at Kahuta, was convicted in
1983 in Amsterdam of trying to smuggle equipment and information out
of the Netherlands in the 1970s.
But the scientist said that he was tried in absentia, that he did
not even know about the trial until after it was over, and that the
equipment he was alleged to have smuggled was available on the open
market and could be used for many purposes.
A similar smuggling charge was lodged in Montreal in 1983 against
three naturalized Canadians of Pakistani origin. The charges were
dropped, according to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
nyt-02-24-85 2148est
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a037 0253 26 Feb 85
PM-Afghan,0440
Hundreds of Civilians Reportedly Killed by Soviets in Afghanistan
BY STEPHEN R. WILSON
Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Soviet troops in Afghanistan killed hundreds
of Afghan civilians this month in attacks on villages and rural
locations, Western diplomatic sources reported today.
The sources, who briefed reporters on condition they not be
identified by name or nationality, also said the pro-Soviet Afghan
army has begun taking young men from prison to fill its ranks,
depleted in the fight against Moslem rebels.
According to one unconfirmed report, 480 civilians were massacred
this month at Chahardara in the province of Kunduz, which borders the
Soviet Union.
The killings may have been in retaliation for attacks on
high-ranking Soviet soldiers by the anti-Marxist Mujahedeen
guerrillas, one diplomatic report said.
Another report said ''several hundred'' civilians were killed in
Chahardara on Feb. 2 or Feb. 3.
The diplomats quoted ''one good Afghan source'' as reporting that
several hundred civilians were killed by bombs and artillery during a
Soviet sweep over the past 10 days in Pagman, a popular summer resort
just west of the capital, Kabul.
Civilian casualties were also reported during a Soviet raid in the
past two weeks near Lalandar village west of Kabul, a frequent
staging ground for rebel rocket attacks on Soviet and Afghan
positions.
''While there are elements of exaggeration in the accounts, there
are too many separate sources and the reports are too consistent to
be discounted,'' one diplomat said.
''They indicate a continuation if not an escalation of the decision
by Soviet army commanders to carry the war to the countryside and the
civilian population,'' the diplomat said.
Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in December 1979, ousted one
Communist government and installed another headed by President Babrak
Karmal. Since then, anti-Marxist Moslem rebels have been fighting
Afghan troops and a Soviet force estimated to number anywhere from
75,000 to 140,000.
The diplomats said within the past week to 10 days, the guerrillas
have brought down four Soviet and two Afghan helicopters. On Feb. 22,
the guerrillas attacked Kabul airport in their biggest assault in the
capital this year, the sources reported.
The sources said the rebels hit Soviet positions for one hour with
rockets and mortars, lighting the sky with tracers and flares. Soviet
troops responded with artillery and tank fire. There were no reports
of damage to the runway or aircraft.
The diplomats said that, according to reports from Kabul, young men
from the Pul-e-Sharki prison are being drafted to fill the ranks of
the conscript army.
The prisoners are being sent to fight in Kandahar, Afghanistan's
besieged second-largest city, the diplomats said.
AP-NY-02-26-85 0554EST
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