held areas in the northern and eastern provinces were sealed off. Police said that evidence was emerging that the gunman and his possible accomplices stayed over at the neighbouring house several days ahead of the assassination. Nearly 1,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed for the search operations. The death of Kadirgamar was a major blow to President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government, which strongly depended on him to bargain peace with Tamil rebels. Kumaratunga vowed to continue with the peace process and declared that Sri Lanka "will not be bowed by such heinous acts of violence and will spare no effort to bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to justice". Condolence messages from world leaders were pouring in for Kadirgamar, who was Sri Lanka's foreign minister for 10 years. He played a key role in promoting Sri Lanka's peace process while maintaining a tough stance that Tamil rebels should renounce violence and terrorism before reaching a final settlement in the conflict. He was an prominent lawyer educated at Oxford University in England, and was known as a tough negotiator. He was responsible for getting the rebels banned as a terrorist organization in countries including the U.S. and Britain.
