Word: nationalism
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...confined in a prison five time zones east of Moscow, is testament to what happens to oligarchs who don't play by the rules. The former head of Yukos was on the verge of forming a partnership with Exxon-Mobil, and had called for a more open and democratic nation - both big no-nos in Putin's Russia - before he was arrested...
...barrel-chested rugby fan, Rajapaksa, 63, will need that common touch to bring Sri Lanka to a true and lasting peace between the island nation's Sinhalese majority (which is mostly Buddhist) and Tamil minority (mostly Hindu). The civil war began in earnest in July 1983, after nearly 3,000 Tamils were killed in several days of systematic anti-Tamil violence. It was the low point of what Sri Lanka's Tamils felt had been decades of official discrimination and military repression in Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. The LTTE took up arms in the name...
...livelihoods some 300,000 Tamils in the north, a major chunk of the population of that region, who fled the 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...
...Lankans lived in fear of random attacks on buses and markets, and relentless political assassinations. Four Presidents before Rajapaksa had tried a combination of military action and negotiation against the Tigers; within a year of his presidency, he abandoned talks and bet everything on force. He appealed to Sinhalese nationalism to recruit soldiers, promising them good salaries, pensions and respect. The cost was high. At least 6,200 troops were killed in the last three years of the war - more than the total U.S. military deaths so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet Rajapaksa's popularity remains undiminished...
...When asked about the future of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa says all the right things: that Sri Lanka is one 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...