The World - News from Sept. 30, 1987

The Sri Lankan government named an interim council to govern the nation’s Tamil regions and gave a majority on the council to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the army’s fiercest enemy for the last four years. The announcement in Colombo by President Junius R. Jayewardene’s government also said the Tigers agreed to support an Indian-backed peace plan to end Sri Lanka’s Tamil insurgency. India had blamed the Tigers for stalling the peace plan signed by Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on July 29. The Tigers and other rebels fought to turn Sri Lanka’s northern and northeastern provinces into a separate nation for the Tamil minority.