Natalie Samarasinghe: Rulers in Colombo must reach out to the whole island
[ The Independent ]
“People throughout the country are brimming with patriotic fervour,” read the front page of yesterday’s Sri Lanka Daily News. It is unlikely that any of them are located in the Wanni region, where an estimated 250,000 civilians are trapped as the government advances on the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), otherwise known as the Tamil Tigers. But it is difficult to verify much of what is reported on Sri Lanka. A successful raid on a LTTE training camp wiping out 50 cadres becomes the brutal bombing of 200 schoolchildren. The assassination of a leading newspaper editor becomes an international conspiracy to divert attention from the government’s military victories.