Sri Lanka's worsening war fans ethnic Tamils' fears

COLOMBO, May 30 (Reuters) Placing a green coconut by a burning brass oil lamp on a desk doubling as a makeshift Hindu altar, the woman talked about the future with hope and fear.

''We're planning to get married,'' said the smiling 29-year-old with coffee brown skin, a vermilion dot on her forehead and her husband-to-be by her side. ''But we are, together, planning to go to another country first ... Can you help?'' The pair, who requested their names not be used, are members of the Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic group that the government says makes up an estimated 12 per cent of the island's population of nearly 20 million, and, like many, they're finding life is getting harder.

''I can't go out without my I.D. card. If I do, and I get stopped, I will be detained,'' the man said, describing what could happen at any of the dozens of government check points in town.

She elaborated: ''They ask: Where do you stay? What's your address? Do you support the LTTE?'' The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, have been at war for more than two decades with the government, which has rested for years almost entirely in the hands of the Sinhalese majority, who account for around 75 per cent of the population.

The last government census in 2001 did not cover majority Tamil areas because of ongoing conflict, and so numbers are an approximation. Nor do they take into account hundreds of thousands of Tamils who have moved abroad.

DIVIDING LINES Ethnic tension sparked the conflict in this island nation off the heel of India, and decades of war have etched deep dividing lines through society.

Both sides share the blame, but analysts say successive Sinhalese-dominated governments have marginalised other ethnicities and religious groups by insisting on the primacy of Buddhism and the Sinhalese language.

The ruling party of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's draft proposal on power devolution unveiled in May included a line effectively anointing Buddhism first among equals.

Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka are disenfranchised, too, but the Tamils seem to bear the brunt.

Tamils say they are often treated unfairly at roadside checkpoints where they are interrogated and held for long period of time, automatically suspected of being Tiger sympathisers.

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