Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The oppressed minority

The Tamilnadu politicians who gave undercover support to LTTE to create a separate state (Eelam) in Sri Lanka for the so called "oppressed minority Tamils" are now trying to openly say that the world was seeing only the tip of the iceberg of 100 million Tamils working behind the scene: tamilnet article.

For those who are not familiar with the issue in Sri Lanka, LTTE was fighting for a separate mono-ethnic Tamil state for the estimated 3 million Tamils in Sri Lanka (14% of the population). The proposed state occupies 2/3 of the coast of Sri Lanka and 1/3 of the land. However, 54% of the above 3 million Tamils are traditionally settled in the South among Sinhalese and other ethnic groups. Of course there were legitimate Tamil grievances in Sri Lanka that could be settled through a process of dialog, and obviously there were dark incidents where the Sinhalese over reacted in the post-colonial power struggle. However, for the World Tamil Movement who were eyeing at a Tamil state covering a part of Sri Lanka and India, the first strategic move was to claim a part of Sri Lanka saying the Tamil minority is oppressed, when the truth is 100 million Tamils were behind the frontline of 3 million Sri Lankan Tamils against 16 million Sinhalese with an annual financing of US$300 million for the LTTE (Jane's intelligence review). So far the world did not believe this.

Now the king makers have begun to play in the open. Hope India will not succumb to these racist elements.

by Thrishantha Nanayakkara

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