"I hope I am incorrect too, but if you think back to the times in the 80s when, with solid support from both AIADMK and DMK the Eelam issue literally shut the city down for weeks on end... I don't see anything similar now, but I am not in Madras this time around. And the more "sophisticated" (i.e., Western style) posturing of the Indian government (self-interest based exercise of power, as opposed to some, if token, concern for moral action) also gives me little hope. The LTTE [deservedly] has few friends, and the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, it seems, have even fewer."
It is true that important aspects of the present political situation are quite different from what prevailed in the 1980s. General strikes are effective political instruments when utilized appropriately. Nevertheless, the developments of the previous 48 hours partly support your view and mine. Mukherjee has send envoys to Sri Lanka and rhetorically postured in favor a truce, no doubt with an eye to the electoral calculus of the Congress. It is possible that he will apply pressure for a truce to be respected until the end of the present Indian election; Congress needs the D.M.K., after all.
I note that our dialogue has only strengthened my view that the Tamil population of Sri Lanka needs friends now. Upon the conclusion of military operations against the L.T.T.E. (good riddance to bad rubbish), they will be even more at risk from the GoSL although those risks might take a somewhat different form.
(My information is that the situation in Madras is somewhat tense.)
epoliticus
-- "In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial ... the present year of course always excepted." -- A German refugee, circa 1867 --
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