Sri Lanka Blood on the Ballot Box

By Michael S. Serrill

Ominous sounds woke Chandralatha, 28, last week in the remote jungle hamlet of Mahakongaskanda. Sensing danger, "I told my husband to hide under the bed," she later recounted from a hospital bed where she was recovering from bullet wounds. "He kept his body against the door and tried to hold it closed. They shot through the door, killing him." Chandralatha's one-year-old baby was also killed, and two of her other children were wounded. Altogether, 44 residents of Mahakongaskanda, including 18 children, were shot or hacked to death with machetes in the bloody attack on the Sinhalese village.

The massacre bore all the hallmarks of the guerrilla group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and came almost exactly one year after Indian troops launched their offensive to disarm the Tigers. Indian soldiers had arrived in Sri Lanka in July 1987 to help implement an Indo-Sri Lankan agreement that gives the minority Tamils a greater measure of autonomy. But militants on opposite sides of the bloody Sri Lankan conflict united in rejecting the agreement.

Although the pact would grant the Tamils some self-rule by combining Sri Lanka's northern and eastern provinces, where they are in the majority, the Tigers insist that it does not go far enough. Sinhalese extremists led by the People's Liberation Front (J.V.P.) object that the accord gives away too much. . The two chief candidates campaigning to replace retiring President Junius Jayewardene, 82, in a December vote are opponents of the agreement, and have vowed to send the 70,000 Indian troops home.

Last week's violence came on the day before nominations closed for Nov. 19 elections to form a provincial council in the new northeastern Tamil province. The Tigers say the council will have too little power, and have labeled those who support the election as traitors "who will not be forgiven." The point was ruthlessly driven home last week when three members of Tamil organizations taking part in the voting were shot dead.

But the Tigers reserve most of their wrath for the Indian soldiers sent to enforce the agreement. Once considered protectors of Tamil autonomy, they are now the chief target of the insurgency. In the past year guerrillas have killed more than 600 Indian military men.

President Jayewardene had his hands full in the south, meanwhile, as radicals among the Sinhalese majority continued their own agitation against the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement. Even schoolchildren took part in last week's protests, resulting in three student deaths before the government closed down all schools indefinitely. On Monday the J.V.P. called for a "day of resistance" against the provincial election. More in fear than in sympathy -- the J.V.P. has in the past year murdered some 450 supporters of the accord -- most of the Sinhalese population cooperated. The strike marked the second time in a month that Sinhalese rebels have paralyzed Sri Lanka, reinforcing the impression that Jayewardene is losing control of a nation many fear is on the brink of anarchy.

With reporting by Qadri Ismail/Colombo and Anita Padri/New Delhi