Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Minority Muslims stage strike in Sri Lanka
Agence France-Presse Colombo, August 3
Minority Muslims in Sri Lanka's embattled eastern region Tuesday staged a work stoppage to mark the 14th anniversary of the killing of more than 100 Muslims by Tamil Tiger rebels, an official said.
The towns of Muttur and Kinniya were paralysed with transport halted and sch ools and offices shut as Muslims commemorated the deaths of 103 Muslims gunned down in a mosque in 1990.
"Everything is at a standstill in the predominantly Muslim towns," a local official in the nearby district capital of Trincomalee said by telephone.
The mosque killings were blamed on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at the height of their campaign for independence in the island's northern and eastern regions.
Seventeen Muslim farmers were killed two days later on August 5, 1990 and six days later another 116 Muslims were gunned down at two more mosques in the town of Eravur.
Muslims are regarded a distinct ethnic community in Sri Lanka and are the island's second largest minority after the Tamils who constitute 12.5 per cent of the country's 19 million population.
There are simmering tensions between the Tamils and Muslims, who account for 7.5 per cent of the country's population.
Meanwhile, at least five people, including a policeman, were injured in a grenade attack on a Tamil political office in the island's east on Tuesday, police said.
They said an unidentified attacker lobbed a grenade at the office of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), which is bitterly opposed to Tamil Tiger guerrillas.
Tiger rebels have been blamed for a spate of attacks, including the killing of a top military informant here at the weekend.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.