Word: sri
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...danger has been building ever since Sri Lanka won independence from Britain 37 years ago. As the Tamils see it, discrimination by the Sinhalese majority has gradually eroded their political rights...
...Tamils," says a U.S. official, "have been on the losing end of Sri Lankan democracy for decades." Simmering unrest finally came to a boil in July 1983. After the Tigers killed 13 soldiers in an ambush, Sinhalese mobs ran wild through Colombo, killing at least 412 Tamils and leaving 100,000 others homeless...
Since then, despite a government-imposed shoot-on-sight nightly curfew in the north, the Tigers have steadily increased the pressure, assaulting government strongholds, ambushing army convoys and derailing trains. By now the insurgents, grouped in six separate organizations, claim to have 1,000 guerrillas deployed in Sri Lanka and an additional 7,000 at the ready in India. They are assisted by 200 advisers from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine...
...government, which has received advice on antiguerrilla operations from Israeli intelligence experts, claims not to be intimidated by the Tigers' growing strength. "These terrorists say that their ultimate goal is to take on the Sri Lankan army, face to face, in conventional infantry warfare," says Athulathmudali. "How I wish they would. I am ready. The army is ready." That sentiment is not echoed by all Sri Lankan officers. "We do not have enough troops," says Brigadier Hamilton Wanasinghe, the military commander for the Jaffna peninsula. "We are building our strength, but it will take time...
...military's excesses have not only radicalized Tamils, they have also alarmed Sri Lanka's friends. The U.S., mindful of the island's strategic location, continues to back Jayawardene's pro-Western government but is not holding out the prospect of U.S. military aid. India, home to almost 50 million Tamils of its own, insists that it does not favor the creation of a separate Eelam but turns a blind eye to at least 20 training camps in India run by the Tigers...