Word: ltte
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Dates: during 1999-1999
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...doubt that many people had heard of Neelan or the LTTE before the suicide-bombing. I'm the American-born daughter of two Sri Lankan Tamils. I seek out Sri Lankan news. And although my parents have told me about the LTTE my whole life, I had never, until his death, heard of Neelan Tiruchelvam. How is this possible...
...Tamils spent the 1950s and 1960s protesting peacefully, following the satyagraha method of peace pioneered by Mahatma Gandhi. The police spent the 1950s and 1960s beating them up. During the 1970s, the LTTE formed. In 1983, open fighting began. My parents grew up in a perpetual state of emergency--random police checkpoints, people disappearing, arrests and imprisonment without cause, questioning without reasonable suspicion...
Some say that Neelan was a great leader, a great pacifist, a brilliant mind, and that his death shows that the LTTE is ruthless, responsible for the loss of countless lives and cannot compromise--that they will kill anyone, Sinhalese, civilian or Tamil, who stands in their...
Some say the media, so quick to lay the blame at the LTTE's feet, are unfair. It cannot be denied they disagreed with Neelan's reconciliatory politics, just as it cannot be denied that the violent methods they employ have contributed to the country's chaos. But the LTTE, who are generally blamed for the murder, usually claim responsibility for those they have killed. In this case, they have...
...there are some who say Neelan got caught up in the power of politics and forgot the common man. When Neelan's original constitutional changes--which the LTTE would have found less objectionable--were drastically rewritten, Neelan said nothing. There are those who told me that the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the media made Neelan--who was appointed, not elected--a mouthpiece for the Tamil people. There are those who told me Neelan was a convenient, moderate leader for the West and those international leaders who ignore the Tamil cause...