Taking Sri Lanka protest from Winchester to D.C.

A Winchester teenager who went on a 12-day hunger strike to raise awareness about the plight of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka met with Senator John F. Kerry in his Washington office yesterday to discuss the country's ongoing conflict.

Kerry jokingly offered to share a meal at Burger King with the student, Priya Suntharalingam, 17, whose last meal before her fast was a Whopper cheeseburger.

"I admire you enormously for caring and for taking action on what you're thinking about and for having an impact," Kerry told Suntharalingam, who was joined at his office by Tasha Manoranjan, 22, of Washington, D.C., who also fasted.

Members of People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka, or PEARL, completed their hunger strike Friday after 10,000 meals had been sacrificed by participants around the world.

Suntharalingam, the youngest member, began eating one meal a day Feb. 14 at the urging of friends and family.

Kerry and the Winchester High School junior discussed the need to end violence in the country, where fighting between the Sinhalese-led government and a Tamil rebel group has escalated in recent weeks, trapping as many as 200,000 civilians in the crossfire.

Suntharalingam told the senator that her goal for the country was "peace and equality for all its citizens," not necessarily an independent country for Tamils, the goal of the rebels.

Suntharalingam also attended a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing on Sri Lanka yesterday as Kerry's guest.

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