BRUSSELS – Three years ago, Sri Lanka elected Mahinda Rajapaksa as president because he pledged to take the offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the guerillas who have been fighting for 25 years to carve out an independent homeland for the country’s Tamil minority. Many well-meaning people saw Rajapaksa’s promise as warmongering, and, even as Sri Lanka’s army has been pressing toward victory, urged him to negotiate with perhaps the world’s most fanatical terror organization (the Tamil Tigers, it should be recalled, virtually invented the cult of the modern suicide bomber.)
布鲁塞尔－三年前，马欣达·拉贾帕克萨（Mahinda Rajapaksa）因为承诺对泰米尔伊拉姆猛虎解放组织——一个为斯里兰卡少数民族泰米尔族开创独立国家战斗了25年的游击组织——发动攻势，而被选为斯里兰卡总统。许多好心人将拉贾帕克萨的承诺看作是好战，而且，即使在斯里兰卡政府军向胜利挺进的时候，他们还强烈要求拉贾帕克萨和这个可能是世界上最狂热的恐怖组织（人们应该记住实际上是泰米尔猛虎组织发明了现代自杀式炸弹袭击）进行谈判。