04/24/2011
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Time magazine
Right through our one hour interview, she kept twitching her fingers nervously. A blue handkerchief, neatly folded when we sat down, was a crushed mess by the time the we stopped talking. She did not want her real name used; instead, she wanted me to call her Selvi. A former member of the women's wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Selvi is, for the first time in her adult life, unsure about what she will do next. Like many of the women in their ranks, Selvi was a semi-forced recruit of the Tigers. Now the insurgency, is no more, their once-feared military might brought to naught by Sri Lankan government forces in May 2009.