• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

DATE=6/12/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDIA / SRI LANKA (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-263402
BYLINE=JIM TEEPLE
DATELINE=NEW DELHI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  India's Foreign Minister says his country will 
not mediate in Sri Lanka's civil war, but is offering 
its South Asian neighbor 100-million dollars' worth of 
humanitarian assistance.  Returning home late Monday 
from two days of talks in Colombo, the Indian Foreign 
Minister said a proposal to grant autonomy to Tamil 
areas of Sri Lanka offers that strife-torn country its 
best chance for peace.  V-O-A's Jim Teeple reports 
from New Delhi.
TEXT:  India's Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh says 
Indian military involvement in Sri Lanka is not an 
option, and it is up to the Sri Lankans themselves to 
solve their 17-year civil war.  In any case, he says, 
Sri Lanka has  not  asked for any military assistance.
Mr. Singh says his two days of talks in Colombo 
focused on a plan backed by Sri Lanka's President 
Chandrika Kumaratunga to rewrite Sri Lanka's 
constitution -- giving greater autonomy to provincial 
areas, including Tamil majority areas.
Tamil Tiger rebels who are fighting for a separate 
homeland oppose the plan, and until recently, so did 
the main opposition Sinhalese political party in Sri 
Lanka.  But Mr. Singh says he believes more and more 
Sri Lankans now accept the idea of granting autonomy 
-- or devolution, as he puts it, for Tamil areas -- as 
the best way to achieve peace in Sri Lanka.
                  /// SINGH ACT ///
      I do think going back to peace in country as 
      war-ravaged as Sri Lanka is not something you 
      achieve overnight.  It is not as if one 
      transforming moment you will switch from that to 
      the other mode.  But the process of political 
      devolution without a doubt will contribute to a 
      lasting peace, and that remains something the 
      government of India and I personally will 
      continue to work for.
                   /// END ACT ///
Mr. Singh says India is offering 100-million dollars 
in credits to the cash-strapped Sri Lankan treasury, 
but he says the credits are strictly for humanitarian 
purposes.
In the past month Sri Lanka has spent huge sums on 
weapons reportedly purchased from Israel and the Czech 
Republic -- to halt a Tamil Tiger advance on the city 
of Jaffna, in the far northern part of the country.   
(Signed)
NEB/JLT/WTW
12-Jun-2000 15:30 PM EDT (12-Jun-2000 1930 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.