TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2007, 12:49 GMT
Solid international backing for President Mahinda Rajapakse?s militarist approach to the ethnic question has made all out war inevitable, the Tamil Guardian?s editorial said this week. Operating with a problem definition that blames the LTTE for the island?s conflict, rather than the oppressive Sri Lankan state, international actors are backing Colombo?s war, the paper said. ?Every action by the Sri Lankan government is intended to foreclose the possibility of a peace process and strengthen the war effort. Yet the international response to has been one of total acquiescence. No Sri Lankan government has had it so good in this regard.?
Two Sri Lankan recipients of the 2007 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, Rajan Hoole and Kopalasingham Sritharan said that the LTTE has made it impossible for the Tamils to live in the north and east.
They added that if a larger group of people had actively challenged the LTTE, the Tamil community would not be in such a sorry plight as it found itself today.