Word: lanka
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...Tamils, mainly in Colombo, were killed in several days of violence at the end of July. Human-rights groups and other researchers say that Tamil homes and businesses were systematically targeted by organized mobs. The 1983 violence, known as Black July, marked the beginning of Sri Lanka's civil war and the rise of Prabhakaran from radical nationalist to feared terrorist. "The '83 July holocaust has united all sections of the Tamil masses," Prabhakaran said in a 1984 interview with an Indian magazine. Sri Lankans came to fear the month of July, which the LTTE commemorated with bombings and assassinations...
...brutal tactics of modern guerrilla warfare: child recruitment and suicide bombing. Children as young as 10 were used to kill women and children in remote rural villages, according to a 1996 U.N. report. In combat in the 1990s, between 40% and 60% of the dead Tiger fighters in Sri Lanka were children under the age of 18, according to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report. In 1987, the LTTE established the Black Tigers - suicide cadres, many of them young women, who would be honored with a private meal in the company of Prabhakaran before being sent out on their missions...
...group's attacks continued to grow more audacious, culminating in a 2001 suicide mission at the international airport in Colombo. By the time of the 2002 cease-fire, the LTTE was essentially governing Sri Lanka's northern and eastern provinces and had the trappings of a state military complete with a rudimentary air force and navy. Prabhakaran appeared with fanfare to sign an agreement with the Sri Lankan government that year, but during four years of negotiations that followed, neither side could agree to a political compromise on autonomy for Tamil-majority areas. Confrontations between the Tigers and the government...
...solution. In a conventional war against an army many times its size, the LTTE was sure to be outmatched, and eventually it was. Prabhakaran never again appeared before the press after 2002, but he continued to release photos and speeches every year. "With its greed for land, Sinhalam [Sri Lanka] has entered a militaristic path of destruction," he said in his last speech in November 2008. "It has sought to build the support of the world to confront...
...clear when they will be allowed to go home. The U.N. estimates that 40,000 to 60,000 people are en route to the camps from the war zone. Another 2 million Tamils live in Colombo, under increased monitoring by the state. Nearly all of Sri Lanka's moderate Tamil politicians have been eliminated by the LTTE, which insisted that it was the only legitimate political voice for the Tamil minority. With the end of the LTTE, the Tamil National Alliance may play a greater role in negotiations for Tamil rights. There is still some hope of a political settlement...