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Comments

1. Well who wants to take this one first?

   The usual game is that Sunny should be taking a stance on some narrow issue that I will refute the accuracy of; all the while I’ll avoid addressing the greater issue.

   Ram will come in with some analysis, usually muted in either direction.

   And Parthi will jump in at the end with a long response that no one will address.

   But it’s time for a change. Let me get the ball rolling.

   I’m surprised that they link the “underworld” with the Tigers. I realise the Tigers are the boogey-men, but you know, there is corruption, drugs, guns, etc. all over the world, I don’t think there is substantial evidence of these “connections.” I know when I was there, didn’t matter which part of the country I was in, but there was news of police corruption every day in the local papers.

   Also, it should be noted that the JVP was an extremely militant group for most of its existence, and was itself the target of (violent) government crackdowns. Politics is an equal opportunity provider when it comes to murder.

   by Haran on October 20 2005, 9:25 pm   #

2. Some background for the curious: the JVP are a Sinhalese Nationalist Marxist party in Sri Lanka. The key words to focus on here is Sinhalese Nationalist. They were involved in a very large-scale insurrection back in 1971. The government’s crack down of the JVP was incredibly harsh—I think they killed on the order of 15,000 people, and detained even more. The government’s crackdown of the JVP went largely unnoticed in the world, I suspect for two reasons: they are a Marxist party, and this all happened during the 70s; the government wasn’t killing an ethnic minority when it was bringing down the JVP.

   I think Haran is bringing the JVP up here to point out that the LTTE aren’t the only people that have been blowing shit up in Sri Lanka; the JVP for quite some time were up to the same sort of things.
   —
   Also, I think your analysis of the typical comments in these sorts of threads is flawed—well except for the fact that everything I say is muted in both directions. That’s how I roll.

   Here is how things actually work: Most everyone who posts in these Sri Lankan politics threads ignores whatever the bulk of the article linked is discussing, in this case the LTTE killing their political opponents, or trying to. Instead, people choose to focus on some narrow sentence or paragraph they feel is inaccurate or unfair, in this case “A special police taskforce has also been entrusted with monitoring underworld elements in Colombo who are suspected of ties to the Tamil Tigers.”

   I agree, this is probably a subtle attempt to paint the LTTE as a criminal organization, as the article doesn’t actually explain how or why the police suspect such a link exists. That said, the article is about the LTTE killing political oponents. I didn’t actually find it all too political infact; it’s not nearly as inflamotory or shrill as that stupid peice from the Star.

   by ramanan on October 21 2005, 1:33 pm   #

3. and in the end none of us knows anything more than 5% of the whole story

   and that is the internet!

   by Ananthan on October 21 2005, 2:20 pm   #

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