19 Die in Riot as Sri Lankans Oppose Accord

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Police opened fire Tuesday on several thousand demonstrators opposed to a peace agreement with minority Tamils after the crowd set fire to buses and government buildings. Nineteen of the demonstrators were reported killed.

Doctors at Colombo General Hospital said more than 100 people were injured, including several police officers and monks.

An indefinite curfew was clamped on Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, on the eve of a visit by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to sign an agreement aimed at ending five years of ethnic conflict between the government and minority Tamils. President Junius R. Jayewardene is to sign for the government of Sri Lanka.

The violence, which erupted in Colombo’s business district, was described by one observer as “five hours of total anarchy.” Virtually every symbol of government, from buses to lottery booths, were attacked by the mob led by extremist Buddhist monks. Hundreds of posters welcoming Gandhi to the city were ripped down.

The violence began with a demonstration by a Buddhist group called the “Movement for the Defense of the Motherland,” which opposes the agreement. Most members of Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority are Buddhists, while Hinduism is predominant among the Tamils, as it is in India.

In the rioting, more than a dozen buses were destroyed by fire, along with the five-story building that housed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Long after nightfall, soldiers continued to patrol the streets of the business district.

Despite the violence, which some observers described as the worst in Sri Lanka since 500 people were killed in anti-Tamil riots in 1983, Indian officials said there was no change in Prime Minister Gandhi’s plans.

“We are going ahead with the visit,” an Indian official said.

India is to act as guarantor of the peace agreement, which is opposed by the opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party as well as leaders of Buddhist extremist groups. They contend that it grants too many concessions to the Tamils.

Also opposed to the agreement is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the strongest Tamil rebel organization. A major newspaper in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where most of the Tamil rebel groups have political offices, quoted Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as saying that the Indian government’s decision to take part in the agreement amounts to a “stab in the back of Tamils.”

The agreement meets several demands of the Tamil rebels. It provides for the creation of a large majority Tamil district in the north and northeast of the island.

It also calls on the Tamil rebels to surrender their arms to Sri Lankan authorities. But in Jaffna, the Tamil stronghold on the northern tip of the island, a spokesman for the Tamil Tigers vowed to continue fighting.

Sri Lankan officials attempted to minimize the extent of Tuesday’s violence. The government evening television news program made no mention of fatalities. It said the police had been “forced to use tear gas” to disperse an unruly crowd.