Tamil Leader Flies to India for Peace Talks

A key Tamil rebel leader was flown to India on Friday for talks on a plan to end Sri Lanka’s four-year-old guerrilla war, officials sources said.

An Indian air force helicopter flew Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader Velupillai Prabhakaran from his stronghold in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna region to southern India and later to the Indian capital.

In New Delhi, state-run All-India Radio said the 33-year-old Prabhakaran will meet today with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and other officials who will try to persuade him to accept a plan that would end the conflict that has taken about 6,000 lives.

Autonomy in North, East

The agreement worked out between India and Sri Lanka would grant autonomy to the northern and eastern provinces, home to most of the island’s Tamils, by setting up a single elected council to oversee local affairs. Tamils make up 13% of Sri Lanka’s 16 million people.

A diplomat from the Indian High Commission (embassy) in Colombo flew to Jaffna twice this week to discuss the peace proposals with Prabhakaran.

The Tigers are the most powerful of the five major rebel organizations fighting for an independent Tamil homeland called Eelam. They have rejected past proposals by the Colombo government to end the conflict. But diplomats here said the latest proposals might be acceptable to Prabhakaran.

Reports from India said the other Tamil groups reacted favorably to the plan at a meeting with Indian officials in Madras on Tuesday.

Acted as Mediator

India, which itself is home to 50 million Tamils, has acted as a mediator in the conflict. Gandhi is expected to arrive in Colombo next week to sign an accord on the plan once all “loose ends” are tied up, Indian sources here said.

But Sri Lanka’s main opposition party and an influential segment of the island’s Buddhist monks have condemned the proposals. Some members of the government have also privately expressed dissatisfaction, political sources said.

Under the proposals, a referendum would be held within a year in the eastern province to determine whether the merger of the two provinces would continue.

Official sources said the agreement provides for the rebels to give up their arms and for the security forces to be confined to their camps.