Sri Lankan Tamils to break over 1000 coconuts to bless Hillary Clinton

Obama administration has extended its support to reconciliation efforts promised by President Maithripala Sirisena to Tamils

A group of Sri Lankan Tamils in Jaffna will break over 1,000 coconuts and light as many candles to bless Hillary Clinton, saying the Democratic presidential candidate's win would be important for the future of the minority community.

"We will dash 1,008 coconuts on November 8 to bless her ahead of the US election. We expect her to win the election," MK Shivajilingam, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) member of the Tamil controlled northern provincial council said.

The event will take place in Jaffna's historic Kandsamy Kovil in Nallur. There will also be lighting of 1,008 candles at the Jaffna Cathedral, he said.

Tamils in Sri Lanka believe they can find political solution only with the intervention of the US and Clinton's win would be important for the future of the minority community in Sri Lanka, Shivajilingam said.

The Obama administration has extended its support to the reconciliation efforts promised by President Maithripala Sirisena to Tamils.

Sirisena, who came to power last year after ending former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa's nearly a decade-long rule, had promised to reach out to the Tamils to pursue reconciliation more vigorously than Rajapaksa, who was known for his hardline Sinhalese nationalism.

Last month, a UN rights expert asked the Lankan government to return military-occupied land and reduce the role of the army in northern areas, a long-pending demand of the ethnic Tamils since the end of the nearly three-decade-long separatist war led by the LTTE in 2009 in which thousands of civilians were killed.