COLOMBO - Sri Lanka admitted yesterday nearly 17,000 people disappeared without a trace during a brutal government crackdown on left-wing supporters eight years ago. This was the first official estimate of the number of people who died or vanished during a 1989-'90 crackdown against the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front), a Marxist group that waged a terrorist campaign to overthrow the elected government. -(AP)