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JR the old fox, cheats life at 90

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Umberto Gui

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Nov 1, 1996, 3:00:00 AM11/1/96

Sri Lanka's J.R. Jayewardene dies
at 90

1/11/96

COLOMBO, Nov 1 (Reuter) - Former Sri Lankan president Junius
Richard
Jayewardene died on Friday at the age of 90, his United National
Party said.
Jayewardene ruled the Indian Ocean island for 11 years from 1977 to
1988 as
prime minister and as its first executive president. "He passed
away," the United
National Party's general secretary Gamini Athukorala told Reuters
without
elaborating. Jayewardene died at a private hospital in Colombo
after a two-week
stay for treatment of cancer, a hospital official said.
Jayawardene's reputation as a
strongman and one of South Asia's shrewdest leaders suffered after
his mid 1980s
efforts to settle Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict failed and Tamil
rebels intensified their
war which still plagues the country. After his retirement in 1989
from 50 years of
political life, Jayewardene became a whipping boy for the island's
economic and
political ills.

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