The Cage: The fight for Sri Lanka & the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers

by Gordon Weiss

The The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers by We...

Paperback

Published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jeff Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult book to get through as the atrocities committed -- by both sides -- make for uneasy, at times queasy, reading. Nonetheless, if one wants to understand Sri Lanka today and it's recent history, this is a necessary book. If nothing else, one should read the first three chapters and the very last. This would ground one in a firm understanding of the hows and whys of the conflict(s) -- there were multiple wars, in essence -- arose as well the challenges the country now faces. It has been 15 years since the last war ended and the Tamil Tiger leadership and families were decimated -- as is well documented -- and I do wish Mr. Weiss would write a follow-up to this book. I will say that having just returned from two weeks in the country I can attest to two things: 1) the majoritarian's will to forget everything about the conflict except that they were fighting "terrorists" and 2) the subtle but ever-present militarization of the north and east -- the Tamil regions. This story, as is the case with most, is not yet finished.

[Bobby24 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book, exactly what i wanted. The utterly amazing thing about this now is you can substitute the Words Sinhalese/Tamil For Jew and Muslim or Israeli and Gazan or The IDF for the SLA or the Tamil Tigers for Hamas or the Torah for the Sinhalese hocus pocus nonsense .....its an almost exact replica of what is happening now in Gaza.

the so-called Rajapaksa Model,

■ political will
■ go to hell (that is, ignore domestic and
international criticism)
■ no negotiations
■ regulate media
■ no ceasefire
■ complete operational freedom
■ accent on young commanders
■ keep your neighbors in the loop

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutal accounting of the final days of the Tamil tigers, when neither the rebels nor the army seemed overly concerned with protecting the lives of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the final battlefield.