The defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by the Sri Lankan army should be cause for almost universal celebration-whatever its manner. The foreign governments that had banned the Tigers as terrorists and from whose Tamil mi-rnnorities some of the Tigers' funds had been extorted are glad to see them beaten. So too are Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority, after a 26-year civil war. But Sri Lankan Tamils should also rejoice. They had borne the brunt of the Tigers' ruthless silencing of dissenting voices, of their pressganging of children and of the bloody consequences of their refusal to countenance any achievable political settlement. Yet the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is making even moderate Tamils at home and overseas feel its victory as their defeat.
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