Summary
Contents
Subject index
This is the story of the man who defined the armed struggle for an independent Eelam for over three decades and who lived by the gun and died by the gun—Velupillai Prabhakaran. A home-grown guerilla who built the LTTE into a ruthless war machine and controlled its world-wide network from his hideout and ruled territories under his control with an iron fist; who defied the world and eliminated whoever came in his way, including former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi; who had fighters ready to kill and die in thousands for him … yet he failed, leaving the future of Sri Lankan Tamils a big question mark.
The book is a first-person account by the author based on his innumerable visits to Sri Lanka during its turbulent years. He looks at the Prabhakaran era, a critical phase in the country's history, objectively, without being judgmental.
The Deep Ethnic Divide
The Deep Ethnic Divide
If the agreement failed eventually, it was not merely because of opposition from the Tamil Tigers and unwilling cooperation from successive Sri Lankan governments, but also because of India's policy towards the Tamils which was flawed from the very outset. Leave alone indigenous Tamils, it took years for India to settle the question of 1 million plantation Tamils of Indian origin who were rendered stateless by a stroke of the pen after Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948. These Tamils were taken to Ceylon (as it was then called) by the British as indentured labour to work in plantations. As long as Ceylon remained a British colony, the plantation Tamils, like their indigenous brethren and the Sinhalese, were ...
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