Colombo, July 06: Nearly 5,000 supporters of the Tamil Tiger rebels have rallied in northern Sri Lanka to honour hundreds of suicide bombers killed in years of separatist war, news reports said today. The insurgents widely used suicide bombers, which they named ‘Black Tigers’, as part of their campaign to create an independent homeland for the nation's Tamil minority.
The rally yesterday in the northern Jaffna Peninsula was to mark the 15th anniversary of the first suicide attack, in which rebels drove a truckload of explosives into an army camp killing 40 soldiers in the town of Neliadi, 300 kilometers north of Colombo, the independent Tamil language newspaper, Uthayan, reported. The guerrillas carried out at least 67 bombings several with multiple suicide bombers. Numerous politicians were killed, including Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. In all, 241 suicide soldiers, including 64 women, were killed.
More than 64,500 people have been killed in fighting since 1983. In February, the rebels and the government signed a cease-fire treaty and further peace talks are expected to be held in Thailand in August.


Bureau Report