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- WORLD, Page 55World NotesSRI LANKACurious Death Of a Rebel
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- About one matter there was no dispute: three terrorist
- leaders were shot dead last week in the suburbs of Sri Lanka's
- capital, Colombo. Government security forces killed Rohana
- Wijeweera, 46, fugitive founder of the terrorist Sinhalese
- People's Liberation Front (J.V.P.), as well as two other J.V.P.
- officials.
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- Much more uncertain were the circumstances surrounding the
- deaths. The government said that shortly after Wijeweera had
- been captured and had led security forces to the group's
- headquarters, a J.V.P. official tried to gun down his leader.
- Government forces then supposedly started shooting, and both
- Wijeweera and his would-be assassin died in the fire fight. The
- third J.V.P. leader was shot in a separate incident. Skeptics
- suspected that the security forces simply murdered the rebel
- leaders, who had led a two-year terror campaign against the
- government's decision to admit Indian military forces in a bid
- to settle another insurgency.
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