Word: sri
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...Rajapaksa's political biography was crucial in maintaining support for the final military offensive against the Tigers. The LTTE pioneered suicide bombings, and a generation of Sri 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...
...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...
...Rajapaksa has been similarly noncommittal about Sri Lanka's economy, particularly in the north, which has suffered not just war but two decades of neglect. Aside from an application for an IMF loan, Rajapaksa's only major economic initiatives are a $1 billion port in his hometown in the south and a $26 million loan scheme for small businesses in the north, both of which, critics say, may be politically popular but are unlikely to make an economic impact. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, principal researcher at the Point Pedro Institute of Development, notes that Rajapaksa has so far failed to explain...
...Difficult to Read That lack of conviction has angered Rajapaksa's opposition and deeply troubles Sri Lanka's peace activists, who worry that Tamils may face even worse repression and hardship than they did before the war. Their original concerns - for the protection of Tamil language and culture and self-governance in Tamil-majority areas - are not even on the agenda...
...lifted the restrictions on the press imposed as war measures. On July 12, the government banned a popular news website that had run stories critical of the government after the war's end, and it has not yet found those responsible for the murder in January of a prominent Sri Lankan journalist and critic of the government, Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was also a freelance reporter for TIME. But those who know Rajapaksa well say that his pragmatism may, in the end, win out. He never took a strong position on the LTTE until he ran for President...