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| India-Pakistan | |
| Sri Lankans fear resumption of war as peace talks crack | |
| 2003-05-05 | |
Not quite India but close enough. Feel free to move this, Fred.
That usually happens when the boys go home and pick up their guns. The rebels said they suspended the peace talks because the government was not doing enough to normalize the area, particularly removing the military from city centers and the airport. The military is hesitant because it would have to fight its way back in if the talks fail and war resumes, as has happened twice before. Fool me once, ... When the British left Sri Lanka in 1948, Jaffna was a vibrant city with graceful colonial buildings, elegant Christian churches, Hindu temples and an enterprising Tamil minority. But ethnic tensions were already simmering, with the Tamils alleging discrimination by Sri Lanka's dominant Sinhalese. After a massacre of Tamils in 1983, a Tamil uprising began in the north. The Tamils demanded equal rights and a separate homeland. From 1990 to 1995, the rebels, who are formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, ran a virtually independent state in the Jaffna area until the military pushed them into the jungles farther south. Since then, Jaffna has been under government control, while parts of the surrounding 1,000-square-mile peninsula have been ruled by the Tigers. The rebels have their own police, civil administration, jails, customs, courts and navy. There are 40,000 to 50,000 government troops on the peninsula and an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 Tamil Tigers, which holds regular exercises to display their weapons and parade their "Black Tiger" suicide bombers. Nasty bastards; these boomers usually get who they're going after. In the latest peace talks, the rebels said they would give up their demand for independence and settle for autonomy under a federal system. Doubts remain about the Tigers' sincerity because of their history of breaking truces and their traditional opposition to democracy. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Must be the Chillies. Tamils eat really hot food, may be it fried their brains. Seriously though, in the beginning the LTTE was supported by India, in fact it was a creation of RAW (Indian Intellifence Agency). There is a still of a lot of support for LTTE amongst the Tamil population in India. India sent peacekeepers during the last ceasefire but when the LTTE broke the truce a few thousand Indian troops were killed. As you can imagine, they don't get on too well since then. A few years later one of their black tigers (she was one ugly bitch) assasinated Rajiv Gandhi a former PM of India. They really know how to piss of people. Link |
| Posted by: rg117 2003-05-05 20:55:04 |
| #2 Aren't tamils tigers hinduists who used(?)to receive support from China & Pakistan (funny, considering their fondness of suicide bombers), while others tamils factions (marxists) AND regular army (loyal to the buddhist gvt) were supported by India. could someone knowledgable, rg117 or other, please shed some light on this weird order of alliances? |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-05-05 15:02:29 |
| #1 ah c'mon it's still south asia. pak, ind, sri, bhutan, bangla, and nepal. I figure just clump it together, -DS |
| Posted by: DeviantSaint 2003-05-05 11:31:18 |