COMMENT Lee Kuan Yew. He is THE man who curbed ethnic chauvinism to bring about racial and religious equality in Singapore.

He was a friend of Tamils in Sri Lanka. When C N Annadurai, a former chief minister of Tamilnadu who is widely known as Arignar Anna, visited Singapore in 1965, Lee apparently enjoyed the speech by him.

Lee had no qualms about criticising the Sinhalese domination of Tamils and said, on more than one occasion, that whatever the military might of the dominant race, the thirst of the Tamils for freedom and dignity from oppression cannot be stalled...