Word: tamil
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Neelan, a member of the Sri Lankan Parliament and Vice President of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), was known as a moderate peacemaker in the country's bloody 16-year-old ethnic war between the dominant Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamil minority...
...only has this Tamil history been conveniently erased, but media coverage of Sri Lanka, where journalists are severely restricted by the government, consistently fails to represent a diversity of views. For example, after Neelan's death, I made it a point to ask members of the Tamil community what they thought of his death and the war in general...
Some say that Neelan was a great leader, a great pacifist, a brilliant mind, and that his death shows that the LTTE is ruthless, responsible for the loss of countless lives and cannot compromise--that they will kill anyone, Sinhalese, civilian or Tamil, who stands in their...
...common man. When Neelan's original constitutional changes--which the LTTE would have found less objectionable--were drastically rewritten, Neelan said nothing. There are those who told me that the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the media made Neelan--who was appointed, not elected--a mouthpiece for the Tamil people. There are those who told me Neelan was a convenient, moderate leader for the West and those international leaders who ignore the Tamil cause...
...members of the Tamil community who voiced their opinions so strongly in this matter were informed by ethnic newspapers, underground publications and word-of-mouth. What about those of us who don't have access to all those sources on a regular basis? How do we sort out our opinions? Now, in Sri Lanka, the air seethes with rumors of hidden horrors--torture, rape, looting, murder. Thankfully, in our family, the worst thing that has happened is the burning of my aunt's house 15 years ago. I could tell you stories much worse and much bloodier than that...