Sri Lanka election shows Tamils reject the status quo

Police in Kilinochchi train station, on their way back home. They’d been brought up from the south to provide law enforcement for the election, with the Sri Lankan Army in barracks and off the streets.

By: Rosie DiManno Columnist, Published on Sun Sep 22 2013

The Toronto Star

KILINOCHCHI, SRI LANKA—In an election that was largely symbolic, perhaps nowhere is a dewy sense of back-to-the-future envisioned more poignantly than here — the former de facto capital of Tigerland.

This is the town that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam captured at the beginning of a brutal civil war and kept as a formidable stronghold until almost the very end. Guerrillas blew up the train tracks, severing commuter travel from the south, using the rail ties to construct fortified bunkers.

Sri Lanka Election Shows Tamils Reject the Status Quo by nelvely