By: Eastern Eye Staff
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday appointed an officer from the island’s Tamil minority to head the navy for the first time since a separatist war erupted 45 years ago. Rear Admiral Travis Sinniah is the first Tamil to head a wing of the military since 1970, even though Tamils make up around 15 percent of Sri Lanka’s population. In 1972, the separatist Tamil Tigers took up arms and launched a bloody guerrilla war for a separate state for the ethnic minority that only ended in May 2009 when they were crushed in a no-holds barred military offensive. “Rear Admiral Travis Sinniah, who has…
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