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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matti PuuSa" data-source="post: 6147609" data-attributes="member: 254988">By February 1990 the carnage was over and Premadasa had won the war in the south. But Indian troops were still entrenched in the north, bogged down in a fight with Tamil Tigers. Premadasa, however, had secured a ceasefire with the Tigers. According to Presidential adviser Dayan Jayatilaka, Premadasa ordered the Sri Lankan Air Force to evacuate to safety the wife and daughter of the Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran from their jungle hideout. He then ordered the military to deliver heavy arms to the Tigers to use against the Indians and rival Tamil groups. In thirteen months of talks in Colombo, Premadasa offered the guerillas more than any other Sinhalese leader had. The Tigers used the time to regroup, while the Sri Lankan army was confined to barracks. In June 1990, four months after the Indian troops withdrew, the Tigers accused the president of ‘saying one thing and doing another.’ War broke out again, and Premadasa was blamed. ‘Every time one of my Far men gets his leg blown off,’ said an army captain in 1990, ‘I think of our president...’</blockquote>

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