Thileepan Statue Seized in Jaffna, Exposing Rifts Over Tamil Remembrance
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan police removed a statue of Thileepan, a Tamil Tiger political leader who starved himself to death in 1987, from a memorial in Jaffna before dawn on Sunday, hours after the last of 12 days of commemorations had ended. The removal set off protests across the Tamil-majority north and left President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government, which won unprecedented Tamil support in recent elections, trying to explain an operation carried out by a police force it controls.
Our Reporter