By Tim Thompson

Staff Writer

U.S. military action in Afghanistan is not the only source of turmoil in Southern Asia. Ethnic tensions in the island nation of Sri Lanka erupted again on Tuesday when boats piloted by members of the separatist Tamil Tigers rammed into an oil tanker set to dock in the northern Sri Lankan port of Jaffna.

The tanker, the MV Silk Pride, was carrying about 650 tons of diesel and kerosene fuel when attacked.

The Sri Lankan government, according to a BBC report, stated that major catastrophe has been averted. Further damage to the wrecked ship was contained to an internal fire, and there are no reports of cargo spillage.

The crash triggered an explosion that ignited some of the fuel, but a military official cited by the BBC assured that ``the fire was put out and the wrecked tanker has been towed to port.''

According to government sources, three sailors on board the tanker were killed in the attack, while 25 other crew members were rescued by the Sri Lankan navy. Sri Lankan Defense Ministry sources cited by the Associated Press, however, stated that the blast resulted in the sinking of the ship.

The BBC cites statements made on Tamil radio reporting the deaths of four Tamil Tiger members who spearheaded the attack, which involved five Tamil boats. The incident is the latest in a long, bloody history of conflict between minority, mostly Hindu, Tamil separatists, who are fighting for an independent homeland in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and the ruling, mostly Buddhist, Sinhalese majority, which has dominated the country's government since Sri Lanka's independence from Britain in 1947. Of Sri Lanka's 18.6 million inhabitants, 3.2 million are Tamils and 14 million are Sinhalese.

According to the Tamil national leader, Hon. Velupillai Pirapaharan, the Tamil war for independence is the result of ``the systematic oppression of our people by the Sri Lankan state.... It is the Sri Lanka government which has failed to learn the lessons from the emergence of the struggles for self determination in several parts of the globe and the innovative structural changes that have taken place.'' Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka's president and head of state since 1994, made overtures of friendship toward the Tamils early on in her administration, but within six months of her election, peace talks were effectively abandoned. Kumaratunga, who was herself the target of a suicide bombing that killed 20 people last December, has redirected the government's approach to the Tamil Tigers, focusing on military defeat of the group followed by a constitutional resolution that would offer ethnic Tamils greater autonomy.

Civil war broke out in earnest between the Tamil Tigers and the Sinhalese-controlled government with a decisive series of riots in 1983. Since then, many Tamils have fled the island, some emigrating to southern India, some to Europe or the United States. Since 1983, more than 64,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Suicide bombing tactics, the BBC reports, were first used by the Tamil Tigers in 1987 when they attacked a military base in the same northern region of Jaffna, killing 39 soldiers.