The World - News from Aug. 16, 1989

Shops and offices closed in much of Sri Lanka and transportation ground to a virtual halt in a strike called on Indian Independence Day by Sinhalese radicals to protest the presence of Indian troops, officials said. There were no immediate reports of violence. President Ranasinghe Premadasa said a plan proposed by India for a phased pullout of Indian soldiers from the island’s northeast section needs “further revision,” as “no room should be left for the slightest undermining of the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.” India and Sri Lanka have been embroiled in a dispute over the withdrawal of an Indian peacekeeping force that was deployed to enforce a 1987 accord to end a war by separatists of the island’s Tamil minority.