Word: rajapaksa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Lanka's 26-year civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) came to a dramatic end in May with a decisive military victory and the killing of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers' fearsome leader. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is the man who tamed the Tigers. Now his task is to heal a nation still divided by tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. In a rare, wide-ranging interview, Rajapaksa, 63, talked with TIME's Jyoti Thottam at the President's official compound in Colombo on July...
...TIME: Prabhakaran had become practically a mythical figure in Sri Lanka. What went through your mind when you heard he had been killed? Rajapaksa: Thank the Lord. Thank the [Buddhist] Triple Gem. That was a gift. (Read "Prabhakaran: The Life and Death of a Tiger...
...What if an elected government is acting against its own people? Are you going to punish [all the] citizens for that or the man who is responsible? Take me. Say that I violated all these human rights, killed people, right? Do you punish me, Mahinda Rajapaksa, or the innocent people of this country by sanctions, embargoes, travel advisories? There are ways of punishing me if you want. There, now by saying that, I will get punished. [Laughs...
...years, young Tamils have been staging protests calling for international intervention in Sri Lanka's civil war to help establish a permanent cease-fire. Now they're shifting their energies to persuade Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa to provide desperately needed resources to war-torn areas across the nation. Many young Tamils have grown loudly critical of Rajapaksa, who they say does not respect the rights of minority groups in the country. On June 17 in London, a 73-day protest calling for an end to discrimination against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan government ended with a series...
...afraid of walking up to any gallows, having defeated the world's worst terrorists.' MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA, Sri Lankan President, on suggestions that he and his advisers should be investigated for committing war crimes during the country's 26-year conflict...