Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar shot dead
Sri Lanka’s foreign minister was shot dead by unidentified gunmen Friday near his home in Colombo, police said.
Lakshman Kadirgamar, 73, was rushed to the National Hospital in the capital where doctors’ attempts to save him failed, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. News reports said he had been shot in the head.
Kadirgamar is from Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority and is a close aide of President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
Re: Lakshman Kadirgamar Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister shot dead
Apparently he had been feeling under threat from the LTTE. As a Tamil in the government that had been fighting against the LTTE, he was regarded by the LTTE as being a sell-out traitor to his own people.
Re: Lakshman Kadirgamar Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister shot dead
ah.. i c.. well i cant blame tamils not that they haven't been doing wrong things as well (recruiting kids for soldiers etc), but sinhalese have been undermining them for a long time now. more than 3 generations of constant fighting and hatered.. it seems like an endless war now with no hope for peace.
Re: Lakshman Kadirgamar Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister shot dead
I am a Tamil myself, but the only way out is for all other countries to ban the LTTE and stop transfer of money to the LTTE. Even if an organisation is supposedly fighting for freedom, no country on the earth should support those who don't believe in democracy. Cut out the money supply, and LTTE will soon peter out because there would be a limit to how much 'taxes' they will be able to collect from the local populace.
Re: Lakshman Kadirgamar Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister shot dead
^ true, there was cbc documentary on the amount of funds collected within canada to support LTTE. but there has to be something they must be doing right to still gather so much support from the diaspora. and its not even like elites helping them out.. its ur average people giving out funds to these people.
i think the mistakes made by government were bigger than what LTTE did. it was afterall formed in response to the discrimination by the government in the first place.
Re: Lakshman Kadirgamar Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister shot dead
It is true that there was official/ state sponsored discrimination against the Tamils in Sri Lanka. For example, a Sinhalese with say 50% marks in the qualifying examination stood a far better chance of getting into college than a Tamil with 70% marks, some 20-30 years back (I don't know if this has changed now).
The ground situation has changed though. The SL government, with a lot of prodding from the rest of the world, is open to a federal structure and is even willing to let the LTTE come to power in the N and NE through elections. But the LTTE is not willing to let go of arms or give up on its 'army' and 'navy' even if it comes into power. They are also not keen on having multi-party elections.
They don't realise that the world has very low enthusiasm levels for new 'independent nations' the size of pinheads, and particularly so if they are not going to be multi-party democracies. Theoretically at least, the Kashmir movement may obtain support from islamic countries, but the Tamils have nowhere to go to, not even to Tamil Nadu, where they burned their bridges by assasinating Rajiv Gandhi.