Word: tamil
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...Many Tamil youth living around the world became committed to raising awareness of Sri Lanka's plight in the West after they visited their parents' country between 2002 and 2008, a period of truce between troops and the Tigers, and saw how their families were living there. Vasuki Guna, a 20-year-old university student in Australia, says she can't forget images of children running through a landmine-cleared field or an infant cousin screaming at the sound of a firecracker, confusing it with a grenade. "You come back and can't get the images out of your mind...
...many members of the first generation of Tamils who fled the country when the war began are relieved by the Tigers' seeming end, and wish that the global Tamil youth were more critical of the LTTE. Nirmala Rajasingam, a first-generation activist with the U.K.-based Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, says the Tigers were "packaged as martyrs and freedom fighters" to the Tamil people, and that the diaspora's "unquestionable support and loyalty made the LTTE more unaccountable for its military power." Rajasingam, who has spent much of her life in exile having once been involved with the guerrilla group...
...Support for the Tigers or rejection of their violent tactics has the potential to divide young Tamils. But "it's too early to analyze and evaluate the divisions that could emerge among the youth," says Shanaka Jayasekara, associate lecturer at the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism at Macquarie University in Sydney. "The extreme radical elements of the Tamil diaspora youth will continue to live in the past glory of the LTTE. The more moderate Tamil diaspora youth will use the opportunity to think outside the LTTE-centric worldview, and the less politicized Tamil diaspora youth will become conciliatory...
...While many youth would still like to see the eventual creation of an independent Tamil homeland, their short-term grass-roots lobbying is intended to get Western governments to influence Sri Lanka into resettling the internally displaced Tamils today. "We know that laws have been violated against our people," says Siva Vimal, 20, a university student in Toronto who is involved with the York Federation of Students but has helped out groups like the Tamil Youth Organization in the past. "A lot of us have never been to Sri Lanka or seen the circumstances there, but we know the fundamental...
...Some see another way to harness the energy of the youth movement. Ruth Kattumuri, a co-director of the Asia Research Center at the London School of Economics, encourages Western Tamil youth to promote peace and development in Sri Lanka, including creating more opportunities for Tamils by teaching them skills or helping provide medical care. "They can raise the resources they need to go there and work on rehabilitation and education," Kattumuri says, instead of seeking out media opportunities that she says promote violent images of rowdy protestors. "It's about creating projects, which gives them employability. That...