Word: sri
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...fight for existence in the 1940s, have seen violence against civilians: think Ireland or Kenya. Such outrages cannot be a reason for never talking to those responsible for them, for, inconveniently, those individuals may also be--as Arafat is--the authentic leaders of their people. That is why the Sri Lankan government is about to begin peace talks with the Tamil Tigers, a group whose long use of indiscriminate terror, child soldiers, suicide bombs and assassination makes Palestinian radicals look tame. In 1995 it was the pressing American national interest to end the war in Bosnia that threatened to sunder...
What will it take to bring peace to tiny, tortured Sri Lanka, now in the 19th year of a conflict that has taken 65,000 lives? More than anything, the cooperation of one man, Velupillai Prabhakaran, supremo of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the most enduring and deadly rebel groups in the world. Prabhakaran emerged from the jungles of northern Sri Lanka last week to hold his first press conference in 12 years and talk some very uncharacteristic talk: of peace. If the right deal is offered, he announced, he will call off the rebellion, collect...
...truces since 1987. The Tigers have a well-oiled gunrunning network, which uses a fleet of 16 ships and is centered mainly in Cambodia and Thailand. In late February in Thailand's Ranong province, police seized a cache of explosives including tnt and C4 they believe was destined for Sri Lanka. "Acquisitions are still continuing," says one diplomat referring to intelligence reports. Adds Rohan Gunaratna of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland: "Looking at their procurement picture, by monitoring their shipping and banking networks and their buying officers...
...branded the LTTE a terrorist organization in 1997, and President George W. Bush would have ample justification to expand his war on terror to Sri Lanka, or at least threaten to. The Tigers have well-documented links to terror groups in the Middle East?many veterans were trained by Yasser Arafat's p.l.o.?and they operate an armament delivery service for other militants around the world. According to Indian intelligence, who deeply resent Prabhakaran and the Tigers for the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, a Tiger vessel has been used to transport weapons from al-Qaeda to the Abu Sayyaf...
...Britain, Australia and Canada. Bank accounts have been frozen. But the pressure may be overstated. According to Gunaratna, the LTTE continue to raise funds from the Tamil diaspora around the world, although any explicit coercion has been replaced by implicit threats. The majority of the 500,000-strong Sri Lankan Tamil community abroad backs peace. But some?among them generous donors?oppose it, fearing a settlement would threaten their ability to win permission to settle abroad as embattled refugees from a war-torn land. "There are many who arrived in recent years and their applications for citizenship are still pending...