Moslems may leave Puttalam<\/p>\n
COLOMBO (AFP): An ultimatum purporting to come from Tamil
\nrebels has warned Moslems to vacate a northwestern region by Aug.
\n1 or be forcibly evicted, legislators said yesterday.<\/p>\n
Moslem leaders in the northwestern district of Puttalam
\nreceived the ultimatum, which bore the letterhead of the
\nLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to Mohamed
\nHisbullah, a member of parliament from the Sri Lanka Moslem
\nCongress party.<\/p>\n
\"The letters warned Moslems in Puttalam to leave by Aug. 1 or
\nthey will be forced to go. We will be meeting President
\n(Chandrika) Kumaratunga next week to brief her on this
\ndevelopment,\" Hisbullah said.<\/p>\n
He said he could not confirm whether the letters, received
\nearlier this week, actually came from the LTTE, but noted they
\nwere typed and written in fluent Tamil, unlike a similar
\nultimatum that urged Moslems to vacate the eastern town of
\nKathankudy by July 1.<\/p>\n
The LTTE denied sending that ultimatum and accused the
\ngovernment of trying to drive a wedge between Moslems and Tamils,
\nboth minority ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. Large numbers of
\nMoslems, mostly traders, live in Puttalam.<\/p>\n
The earlier ultimatum, also purporting to come from the LTTE,
\nwas \"handwritten and had a lot of grammatical errors,\" Hisbullah
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Following an ultimatum in 1990, some 80,000 Moslems fled
\nnorthern Jaffna and some 200 Moslem worshippers were massacred at
\nmosques in Kathankudy and neighboring Eravur.<\/p>\n
The massacre was blamed on the LTTE, which, however, denied
\nbeing involved.<\/p>\n
Some 70 percent of Sri Lanka's 17 million people are
\nethnically Sinhalese. The island also has about 1.5 million
\nMoslems and some 2.5 million Tamils. The LTTE is fighting for a
\nseparate state in the northeast for the Tamils.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/moslems-may-leave-puttalam-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}