Word: separatist
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...battle raging around Jaffna underscores Sri Lanka's difficulty in containing a separatist insurgency that has raged for 17 years and claimed some 55,000 lives. The government remains committed to a two-pronged strategy of seeking to militarily defeat the guerrillas while offering greater political autonomy to the Tamil minority from which they're drawn. But Prime Minister Kumaratunga has struggled to secure domestic political support for the autonomy plan, let alone engender Tamil enthusiasm. And a military defeat of the Tigers looks more and more like wishful thinking. Israel is reported to have recently helped out the government...
...Philippines government says the tourist hostages held on one of its southern islands are safe, but the ill-starred travelers could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Islamic separatist group holding the hostages vowed to decapitate two of the tourists - seized a week ago at an exclusive diving resort off Malaysia - unless the Philippines army withdraws troops surrounding the area where they're being held. But the Philippines government says retreat is out of the question. Besides having to cope with being held hostage by a fanatical organization fighting to stave off extinction...
...brief Author's Note, Ondaatje explains the historical background for his fictional events: "From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, Sri Lanka was in a crisis that involved three essential groups: the government, the antigovernment insurgents in the south and the separatist guerrillas in the north. Both the insurgents and the separatists had declared war on the government. Eventually, in response, legal and illegal government squads were known to have been sent out to hunt down the separatists and the insurgents...
...elements whose agenda definitely doesn't include showing visitors a good time. Some 10 tourists from various countries are among the 21 hostages who were forced onto two boats on the remote island of Sipadan overnight Sunday by gunmen suspected of being members of a Philippines-based Islamic separatist movement. A spokesman for the Abu Ayyaf organization, a dwindling radical Islamic group with links to superterrorist Osama bin Laden, on Tuesday first claimed responsibility for the attack, and later (sort of) withdrew the statement, saying: "I'm not saying we are the ones; I'm also not saying...
...Kisone people are "more mentally peaceful than physically peaceful," says Fowler. However, they do follow U.S. laws, at least most of the time. The Republic has yet to achieve diplomatic recognition with major nations, but it is internationally known. It has been contacted by a separatist group in Norway, along with another group in Iowa...