Sri Lanka
...eir new Alfa Romeos in Colombo, and the smartly dressed young women are sitting around, sipping wine, giggling and watching male dance-strippers in swanky bungalows in posh parts of Colombo , the burden of war sacrifice falls on the poor, uneducated villagers of southern Sri Lanka, who have provided most of the estimated 18,000 troops killed so far. Funding to the Tigers comes partly from the movement's worldwide chain of businesses, including shipping lines, travel agencies, shops and money changers, augmented by clandestine weapons and drugs smuggling. Over 7000,000 Tamil-speaking Sri Lankans are now living abroad and also fund the tigers. The civil war that has been raging since 1983 between the National Army and the Tamil separatists of the "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" (LTTE) was still continuing in 2000. The liberation groups are demanding an independent Tamil state in the north-east of the island. In addition to the majority Sinhalese population (74% of the total population), Sri Lanka is also inhabited by Ceylon Tamils (12.7%) and Tamils of Indian origin (5.5%). Both population groups - Sinhalese and Tamils - are cast...