COLOMBO, SRI LANKA August 22, 2002: After touring the heartland of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war Thursday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said what he saw reminded him of the devastation of the Vietnam War. Armitage’s visit was the first to Sri Lanka by a senior U.S. official since the war began in 1983 and reflects Washington’s support for ending one of Asia’s longest running conflicts. “I am here to physically demonstrate the U.S. support for this process toward peace,” Armitage said after a 30-minute meeting with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in the capital, Colombo. The jungle-cloaked Jaffna Peninsula is the center of the 19-year insurgency by Tamil Tiger rebels for a homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. The fighting has killed more than 64,500 people. He said he was in Sri Lanka at the request of President Bush, who had said he “was moved” by a meeting with Wickremesinghe in Washington last month. The rebels claim the island’s 3.2 million Tamils are denied equal opportunity in jobs and education by the Sinhalese, who make up 74 percent of Sri Lanka’s 18.6 million people. Armitage did not meet with officials of the Tamil Tigers, or LTTE, which is outlawed as a terrorist group in the United States. But he met with moderate Tamil, Muslim and opposition representatives on his return to Colombo. “The international community expects the government and LTTE to move forward in the negotiations toward a permanent settlement … and keep the country united,” Armitage said.
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