Thanks to the rise of the amazing and unclassifiable rapper-singer M.I.A., whose father is a senior figure in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), there’s been an unusual amount of talk about this Sri Lankan separatist group in the western music press in recent years. One of the smartest discussions was offered by Robert Christgau in the Village Voice in 2005. (John Owen penned an interesting rebuttal here.) More recently, Jeff Chang wrote of how M.I.A.’s father “left the household to serve the resistance,” putting a rather romantic gloss on the matter with the use of the “r” word. Dan DeLuca of the Inquirer referred to the LTTE as an “opposition group that has used suicide bombs against the Sri Lankan government.” That’s true, but not the whole truth. Today’s news carries a report of an attack on a civilian bus, killing 25 and injuring 63, very likely the work of the Tigers:
The attack occurred early Wednesday in the remote town of Buttala, about 150 miles southeast of Colombo. A bomb exploded near a bus, shattering its windows and causing panicked passengers to flee. When they did, gunmen opened fire, witnesses said.
”Everyone that got out through the doors, they shot and killed,” said a 25-year-old passenger who gave his name as Sampath. ”I jumped from the window and just escaped.”
[…]
The assailants retreated into the bush, shooting and hacking farmers they met along the way, killing two more people and injuring three, [a military spokesman] said.
Here for an earlier post about the Tigers.
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