Word: tamil
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...journalists and other organs of dissent. For Fonseka, who is due to be court-martialed, it's a long fall from the glory days of last year when - as Rajapaksa's right-hand man - he led a decisive military campaign ending the three-decade-old insurgency of the Tamil Tigers, one of the world's most ruthless separatist groups...
Upending predictions that Sri Lanka's first election since the end of its civil war would be a close fight, President Mahinda Rajapaksa easily beat his challenger, retired army commander General Sarath Fonseka, a former ally in the military victory over the separatist Tamil Tigers. The results of the largely peaceful election, announced Jan. 27, showed the President leading with 58% of the vote. Fonseka immediately rejected the results, alleging vote rigging, and claimed his life was under threat from the government...
...government has previously accused Fonseka of organizing a coup and planning to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapaksa and two of his brothers, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and member of parliament Basil Rajapaksa. Fonseka, who was once a powerful ally of Rajapaksa, led the military campaign that defeated the Tamil separatist insurgency last May. Soon after, he was named Chief of Defence Staff - a move that sidelined him and left him without any effective command. Fonseka later fell out with the Rajapaksa government and put himself forward as the opposition candidate in last month's elections. (See a bio of Mahinda Rajapaksa...
...voting pattern in the recently concluded presidential election also indicates a deep divide between two cultures in Sri Lanka. Tamil and Muslim minorities living in the North, East and the hills have said that they are a different people and put forth a resounding no-confidence vote. The elite of Sinhalese in the capitol Colombo have also voted for a political solution and lasting peace...
This is the kind of democracy and sovereignty that the Sri Lankan authorities have been using as effective political tools to carry out mass carnage on the Tamil population and to hide the evidences of unimaginable atrocities...