Word: tamil
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Last July the Sri Lankan government and the island's militant minority, known as the Tamils, agreed to call a truce to their bloody three-year-old civil war. But the agreement quickly broke down, and hundreds have died in renewed fighting over the past ten weeks. Last week an umbrella group representing the four Tamil guerrilla factions agreed to a new cease-fire that could lead to fresh talks on Tamil demands for self-rule...
...Vietnamese accent. "Ciao!" cries another, who has never been anywhere near Italy. And let it be noted that the boy who won the National Spelling Bee in Washington last month was Balu Natarajan, 13, who was born in India, now lives in a suburb of Chicago, and speaks Tamil at home. "Milieu" was the word with which he defeated 167 other competitors. Let it also be noted that Hung Vu and Jean Nguyen in May became the first Vietnamese-born Americans to graduate from West Point...
...more than two years, guerrillas demanding an independent homeland for the 3 million Tamil minority in Sri Lanka (pop. 16 million) have been fighting an increasingly bloody civil war against President Junius Jayawardene's government. Last week there were signs that both sides were willing to scale down the conflict, which has claimed several hundred lives so far this year. In Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali announced that the five largest Tamil guerrilla groups, known as the Tamil Tigers, had agreed to a "cessation of all hostile acts...
...discussions in New Delhi early this month between Jayawardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, during which the two leaders agreed to "defuse" the situation in Sri Lanka. Because the five insurgent organizations subscribing to the truce have their headquarters and operational commands in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, Gandhi is in a position to put pressure on them. Jayawardene, for his part, has ordered a review of the constitution, with an eye toward granting Sri Lanka's Tamils greater autonomy...
...week's death list was evidence of the growing struggle between the island's 2.6 million Tamils and its 11 million Sinhalese. Over the past two years Tamil guerrillas have stepped up their attacks on troops in an effort to force the government into granting them an independent homeland. The Tamils claim that in the 37 years since Sri Lanka achieved independence from Britain, their political rights have been gradually eroded by the Sinhalese majority. Last week's Tamil rampage through Anuradhapura was the guerrillas' first major attack on unarmed civilians...