"WE ARE like dogs in the street, while your men occupy our homes," read one of the banners strung up by Tamil protesters, mostly women in saris and ragged children. They had been camping for more than a month in a jumble of makeshift tents on a baking, dusty roadside near a Sri Lankan air-force base in the country's remote north-east. They said that the armed forces, consisting almost entirely of Sinhalese from the island's south, nabbed their land at the end of a long-running civil war nearly eight years ago and have refused to give it back, despite the promises of a kindlier reformist government elected two years ago. The government recently said it would return some of the disputed property, but the protesters are unassuaged. It is just one of the many grievances of Sri Lanka's disaffected Tamils, who feel that reconciliation between them and the Sinhalese majority is stalling.
展开▼
