Word: lankan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa sits at the head of a long banquet table, presiding over what looks like a hotel's lunch buffet. The mood is informal as Cabinet ministers, their clerks and assorted relatives and friends line up patiently to eat in the main dining room of Rajapaksa's official compound. Outside, on the streets of Colombo, he is the all-conquering hero. In May, Rajapaksa's government ended Sri Lanka's 26-year-long civil war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the capital's broad avenues are dominated by enormous banners glorifying...
...fighting only to be detained in overcrowded internment camps. Without that crucial first step toward peace, Sri Lanka's alienated Tamils may never feel truly part of the nation. "If that does not happen, we are in a downward spiral in every way," says Vasudeva Nanayakkara, a Sri Lankan politician who has known Rajapaksa for more than 40 years as a friend and frequent ally in Parliament. "The way in which the state treats the victims of the conflict - that will be the basis on which national unity will be forged...
...nation, which respects all peoples and faiths. Yet the strident Sinhalese nationalism, in Rajapaksa's party and in his more extreme allies, helped mobilize support for the war and influenced the way it was conducted. The U.N. issued several warnings - which Colombo ignored - about civilian casualties as the Sri Lankan army closed in on the Tigers, and estimates Tamil civilian deaths at 7,000. Nearly 300,000 Tamils from the northern war zone - including 45,000 children - have been detained in internment camps beginning in early 2008, without freedom to leave. Even some of his longtime friends in politics...
...make an economic impact. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, principal researcher at the Point Pedro Institute of Development, notes that Rajapaksa has so far failed to explain how he will generate enough growth to sustain Sri Lanka's $2 billion military budget, an amount almost equal to remittances sent home by Sri Lankans working abroad, or pay for the massive infrastructure needs of the north. "It's a lot of talk, but not much is happening," he says. (See pictures of the deadly attack on Sri Lankan cricketers...
...port project at Hambantota - that's a massive new Chinese project. It's a Sri Lankan project. China helped us. It's a commercial loan. Hambantota is my area, and it had been neglected for so many years. It's my duty, my obligation to develop that area. We must develop not only Colombo, but other districts...