The World - News from July 24, 1986

An all-party political conference ended in Sri Lanka with an appeal that the Tamil minority submit proposals on how to end the ethnic war that has killed more than 4,000 people in three years. The six-day conference, called by President Junius R. Jayewardene, also authorized an opposition party leader to negotiate a cease-fire with the guerrillas, most of them Hindus, who are fighting the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese majority for an independent Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern part of the island. Jayewardene approved plans for negotiations on a possible cease-fire.