India Army Claims 1st Major Defeat of Tamils : Tiger Stronghold Near Jaffna Reported Taken; Civilian Leader’s Call for Cease-Fire Rejected

The Indian army Friday claimed its first major victory in a six-day campaign against Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the Jaffna Peninsula but has so far rejected a plan by a civilian leader to obtain a cease-fire in the conflict, Indian officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Indian government in Colombo announced the capture of the Tiger stronghold of Urumpirai, about three miles northeast of the center of Jaffna city.

The spokeswoman said the Indian troops blasted into the area near Jaffna University with the cannons on their armored personnel carriers.

“They took no prisoners,” she said.

The spokeswoman said that the Indians killed 110 Tiger guerrillas in the battle while losing no Indian soldiers. She said 14 Indians were wounded.

Meanwhile, a Tamil civilian leader living in Jaffna has attempted unsuccessfully over the past two days to negotiate some kind of cease-fire between the Indian army and the Tigers.

Rebel Letter Reported

Jaffna attorney and Red Cross leader Ramaswami Balasubramanium claimed Friday to have obtained a letter from a senior Tamil Tiger leader, Mahindra Raja, agreeing to an “immediate cease-fire.”

However, the peace initiative has so far been spurned by the Indian military, which is opposed to accepting any cease-fire that does not also include total surrender of weapons by the militants.

After six days of fighting in which more than 80 Indian soldiers from the country’s proudest military units have died, the conflict here has become a war that the Indian army cannot afford to settle by negotiation.

“The credibility of the Indian army is an issue that transcends the problems of Sri Lanka,” said Neelan Tiruchelvam, a moderate Tamil political leader in Colombo. “They (senior Indian army officers) will not allow anything less than a surrender.”

Compromise Rejected

Also, there appeared to be no receptive mood in the Sri Lankan government of President Junius R. Jayewardene to any compromise settlement with the Tigers.

“There should be an unconditional surrender,” Jayewardene said in an interview Friday morning with the London Times.

The capture of Urumpirai, which partially opens up one corridor into the Jaffna city center, could not be verified independently. However, Western military experts say the one-sided casualty counts reported by India are very unlikely in the urban warfare setting of the densely populated Jaffna Peninsula.

Journalists, even in small groups, have been blocked by the Indians from visiting the fighting arena. In part, this reflects a keen Indian government sensitivity to the ironies of their new military role in Sri Lanka. One of the world’s most consistent critics of foreign military intervention, particularly by the United States, now finds itself as a military intervener.

Casualties in the first Indian military campaign on foreign soil since the 1971 Bangladesh war have been high on both sides. Officially, the Indians report that they have lost 80 soldiers, with 17 missing. Sri Lankan government sources say the actual number of Indian dead is at least 109.

500 Tigers Reported Slain

The Indians say that they have killed more than 500 militant Tigers since the fighting began. This somewhat dubious figure, if true, would be one-fourth of all the Tiger guerrillas believed to be in the Jaffna Peninsula.

Amid stories of widespread civilian casualties in the military operations in the Jaffna Peninsula, the Indian government has launched a publicity campaign inside India.

On Friday, two Tamil soldiers with the Indian peacekeeping force went on television in the Tamil-speaking state of Tamil Nadu to say that the Tiger guerrillas were forcing civilians into front areas as a “human shield” for the Tigers against advancing Indian troops.

When the Indians went to the Jaffna Peninsula in the first week of August they were welcomed as heroes. Now they are viewed as enemies by many residents there.

To win over the local population the Indians have dropped thousands of leaflets on the town saying, “Operations conducted by the Indian peacekeeping forces are not directed against civilians but only against militants who do not accept the peace accord”--a July 29 peace plan signed by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Jayewardene.

Tamil civilians who have fled the Jaffna Peninsula describe Jaffna as a terrified, panicky city, running out of food and supplies.

“On the whole,” said Tiruchelvam, the Tamil politician, who has collected reports on Jaffna from refugees, “the situation is so grave as to be a tragedy of epic proportions. People are just wandering the roads with no idea of where to go. It is more than a physical dislocation, it is also a psychological dislocation.”