Since
independence (from the British Empire in 1948), the
struggle between majority Sinhala-speaking Buddhists
and minority Tamils (mostly Hindu) was a regular feature
of political life in Sri Lanka. There was also occasionally
significant personal and property violence, and since
1983 there has been on-and-off civil war, mostly between
the government and the LTTE -- the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam. Tens of thousands have died in the
war, which has included terrorist tactics by the LTTE,
village-scale slaughters on both sides, government
"disappearances", etc. Hundreds of thousands
of refugees are displaced internally or have fled
to Tamil Nadu and around the world. The largest concentration
of Lankan Tamils outside the country is in Toronto.
Concerns about minority representation were expressed
and given some attention during the independence struggle,
but nothing was incorporated into the new governmental
structure. Official and unofficial governmental preference
for Sinhalese became a sore spot with Tamils as they
lost employment and educational opportunities.
Sinhalese argue that Tamils received preferential
treatment under British rule. By the time of independence,
there were more British built schools in Tamil dominated
Jaffna than in the rest of the island. There also
was a disproportionate number of Tamils in the civil
service, medicine and law. Tamils claim that measures
taken by the Sinhalese-majority governments discriminated
against them. Examples include the Sinhala-only Act
of 1956, which restricted many government jobs to
Sinhala speakers, and changes in university admissions
policies which greatly reduced the number of Tamils
getting higher education.
In the decades after independence, Tamils supported
a more federal system through the Federal Party. The
concept of a separate nation, Tamil Eelam, was proposed
by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1976.
TULF was a coalition of Tamil parties who went on
to campaign in the 1977 elections for an independent
state for Tamils in Sri Lanka. They won and went to
Parliament to represent the northern and eastern provinces.
The government banned TULF representatives from parliament
for advocating an independent state. Talk and nonviolence
actions continued, but youths started to form militant
groups, some funded by bank robberies, and military
presence in the north also grew.
A deadly attack on the military in the north sparked
riots in Colombo and elsewhere in 1983. Thousands
of Tamils died in the violence, and many more fled
Sinhalese-majority areas. This is usually taken as
the beginning of the ethnic conflict. Attacks and
counterattacks became common, and support on both
sides for violence grew.
Initially there was a plethora of different resistance
groups. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's position,
attempting to learn from Palestine, was that there
should be only one. Over time the LTTE, often bloodily,
merged with or eliminated almost all the other groups.
Historically, there have been two ethnic groups on
the island. Sinhalese have been the largest, located
in the center, west and south. Center of kingdom was
in the central highlands of Kandy. Presently, they
comprise about 70% of the population.
Tamils are next, in the north and east. They are
ethnically aligned with Tamils in India, roughly 30
miles away.
There is a small number of Veddahs on the island,
a Stone Age group located in the center of the island.
They are not critical to our understanding of the
conflict.
The Sinhalese and Tamils lived in relative peace
for centuries. They traded with each other, intermarried,
had conflicts and worked them out. The original name
for island, Serendib, meant “place of happy
occurrences”.
The roots of present conflict (as with most of the
present “ethnic” conflict on the planet)
was in colonization. British colonization threw together
two very different cultures, without providing any
means to reconcile the differences. The only common
denominator between the two cultures was British rule.
At one point, the British forcibly moved tens of thousands
of Tamils from their traditional base in the North
to the center of the island, the heart of the traditional
Sinhalese kingdom, with no thought of the long-term
consequences. The British withdrew from Sri Lanka
at same time as Indian independence, leaving the same
culture and power vacuum that the Indian sub-continent
has experienced.
As long as there was an external force dominating
both ethnic groups, the island appeared peaceful.
This peace was illusory, as subsequent events demonstrated.
Added to the conflict caused by colonialism is the
pressure toward urbanization, caused by changing world
economic structures. Millions of people gravitate
toward cities, where they hope to find “jobs”
and a better life. Most are disappointed. (Sri Lanka
has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world,
and (I have heard) the highest for women.)
Moreover, the Sri Lankan conflict is fueled by the
fact that “men with guns” exploit any
societal conflict. While there are people on both
sides of the Sri Lanka conflict that honestly believe
that warfare will solve their problems, there are
many, many others who recognize that the continuation
of conflict is the continuation of their power. They
have no intention to resolve the conflict; they continue
in power by maintaining the conflict. In order to
resolve the conflict, alternative pathways to power
must be found.
Ethnic conflicts generally have atrocities on all
sides; the Sri Lanka conflict is no different. Acts
of terrorism (by both the Tamil Tigers and the government
soldiers) have polarized both populations and clouds
the search for peace. Neither side has “clean
hands”, or occupies some moral high ground over
the other.
The on-going conflict in Sri Lanka is commonly interpreted
as an ethno-nationalist conflict by the media, academia,
and activist organizations both locally and internationally.
It is presented as the expression of an antagonism
dating from pre-colonial times, a deeply etched enmity
exacerbated in the course of the current conflict.
The ethno-nationalist interpretation of the conflict
is not limited to extremist nationalism on each side:
it also pervades liberal as well as what is left of
Marxist thinking in the country. Thus, some international
and local NGOs in the fields of human rights and peace
activism focus on the transformation of consciousness
and the creation of a new Sri Lankan cultural identity
while the Marxists uphold national self-determination
as the solutions to the present crisis.
However, narrow ethnically based analyses contribute
to further ethnic polarization and hysteria. The framing
of the present crisis as a local, primordial phenomenon
prevents the development of broader analyses and deeper
understanding of the multiplicity of social issues
involved. Indeed, the dominance of psychologically-based
interpretations, such as Cultural Studies, over political-economic
analyses is not peculiar to the Sri Lankan case: it
is a global phenomenon. Moreover, the preoccupation
with single issues, symptoms of the problem, and immediate
concerns such as refugees and humanitarian aid have
also contributed to a relative neglect of deeper causes
and long-term solutions.
In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere in the European colonies,
economic exploitation, import of plantation labor,
the transformation of demographic patterns, the divide-and-conquer
policies favoring minorities, andthe privileges assigned
to the English language and the Christian religion,
among other policies, contributed to uneven and unequal
development across regions, social classes, and ethnic
and religious groups. Moreover, political structures
inherited at independence, including an over-centralized
state and an electoral system built on division and
conflict, set the stage for continuous competition
for power amongst elites within and across ethnic
communities.
The post-independence state legislation sought to
reverse some of the colonial policies in favor of
the Sinhala Buddhist majority with regard to language,
religion, and university entrance. These measures
were opposed by English-educated upper classes of
all ethnic groups, not only Tamils but also Sinhalese,
Muslims, and Burghers, as well as the Christian minority.
However, as is now well known, it was the opposition
of the Tamil minority to these policies that was the
most vehement and contributed to the demand for a
separate state.
In the current ethno-nationalist debates on Sri Lanka,
the impact of contemporary globalization patterns
on the present conflict receives even less attention
than its colonial origins. Economic inequalities accompanying
economic liberalization have deepened poverty and
exacerbated ethnic as well as religious antagonisms.
Just as we need to ask how militarism contributes
to poverty by draining resources from social development,
we need also to see how poverty contributes to militarism:
indeed, they reinforce each other.
In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, increasing transnational
corporate dominance, privatization, and dismantling
of state welfare services have undermined local ecosystems
and economies, destroying traditional employment and
survival opportunities of the masses. Migration of
labor to the Free Trade Zones and the Middle East
and the influence of consumerism and western cultural
homogenization have weakened family, community, and
local cultures, contributing to increasing alienation
and despair, especially among the masses of youth.
Privatisation and cut backs in state social services
led by the IMF and World Bank have increasingly reduced
the government to the role of maintaining law and
order while allowing a wide array of foreign funded
NGOs to fill in the vacuum. Meanwhile, political authoritarianism
of the state increased under the Open Economy, resulting
not only in the suppression of organized labor and
resistance movements but also resulting in even state-sponsored
pogroms against both Tamil and Sinhalese populations,
as seen in the anti-Tamil violence of 1983 and the
anti-Sinhala violence in the late 1980s. Unlike the
anti-Tamil violence, anti-Sinhala violence did not
receive wide international attention.
Despite their ethnically-based political mobilization,
the economic and political deprivation and cultural
marginalization experienced by the Sinhala and Tamil
youth are similar. The cadres of both the JVP and
the LTTE have been drawn from similar social class
backgrounds. In fact, the cadres of the state's armed
forces are also poor rural Sinhala youth without alternative
economic opportunities.
While middle and upper classes in both the Sinhala
and Tamil communities have their own children in expensive
international schools and universities in the west,
they are promoting an ethno-nationalist war which
has turned poor children into an expendable population
trained to kill each other. Nowhere is this expendability
and lack of respect for life more apparent than in
the deployment of poor, young girls as suicide bombers
by the LTTE leadership. This connotes not women's
liberation, but ultimate violence against women.
However, the creation of this expendable population
cannot be attributed simply to internal class dynamics
or the cult of martyrdom. It is a global phenomenon,
a product of the widening economic divide between
the rich countries in the North and the poor countries
in the South. The increasing concentration of economic,
political, and cultural power in a handful of transnational
corporations underlies the turning of 1.6 billion
or more people living in absolute poverty into a surplus
population. The statistics are now familiar: the industrialized
North which has less than 20% of the global population
controls over 85% of the global income while the poor
countries in the South with over 80% of the global
population have access to 15% of the world's income.
These disparities are widening. The Sri Lankan crisis
has to be understood in this broader international
context.
Ultimately, this unequal global social order is maintained
through militarism. The military is the biggest sector
of the global economy. Not only is it a highly profitable
industry, it also helps control the global population.
While espousing human rights, freedom, and democracy,
the industrialized countries and the US, the military
super power, in particular, are pushing weapons on
the Third World. These weapons coming from the west
and from other small arms producers around the world
end up in the hands of children who use them to kill
each other. While we need to question the costs of
war and who bears those costs, we need also to ask
who benefits from war. The arms producers and arms
traders and a small group of politicians and armed
personnel benefit from war. They want to continue
war. Today, in many war-torn regions, weapons are
more readily available than food: an AK 47 can be
exchanged for a chicken or even a loaf of bread.
Although economic inequality is the main issue, resistance
around the world is most frequently being directed
at the ethnic Other rather than the pinnacles of corporate
power and the global military-industrial complex.
This certainly helps unbridled corporate expansion
without the constraints of ecological, social, or
ethical criteria. In Sri Lanka, the preoccupation
with ethnicity, cultural identity, and the war has
diverted attention from the massive environmental,
social, and cultural destruction associated with contemporary
globalization.
There is a need to look at the usefulness or functionality
of ethno-nationalist analysis for the maintenance
of the global status-quo. It helps locate causes of
social crises within the local population and in so-called
primordial consciousness rather than in external sources
and material circumstances. Likewise the solution
offered which is frequently fragmentation of local
political entities can be an effective tool of divide
and conquer. Fragmentation weakens local resistance
against the forces of global economic concentration.
It is in this context that local skepticism towards
the hundreds of international NGOs and foreign-funded
local NGOs in a country like Sri Lanka needs to be
understood. Although NGOs can be important in safeguarding
the rights of oppressed groups, they are not always
impartial saviors providing the middle ground between
the extremes. They may have their vested interests;
they may also add further confusion in an already
confused and complicated situation. Most NGOs are
not in a position to challenge the economic fundamentalism
of corporate expansion or develop alternative models
of development.
Indeed, local people without literacy in English
and other means of access to the outside world such
as electronic media may be suspicious of attempts
to change their thinking, seeing that as a neo-colonialist
attempt to destroy their culture, especially when
those attempts are led by Christian NGOs working in
a predominantly Buddhist and then a Hindu country.
This may be particularly so when there are attempts
to introduce a new national identity at the expense
of fundamental socio-economic changes. On the other
hand, some individuals may in fact accept changes
in cultural identity especially if they are accompanied
by economic benefits. Indeed, for poor people struggling
to survive, changing cultural identity--conversion
to another religion, for example--may be a small loss
compared to the burdens of economic survival. Cultural
identities are not always as fixed as is assumed by
dominant ethno-religious perspectives.
Indian involvement
India's involvement has been motivated by a mix
of issues -- its leaders' desire to project India
as the regional power in the area, worries about India's
own Tamils seeking independence, and a genuine concern
for the Sri Lankan Tamils' plight. Uncoordinated in
the 1980s, the central and state governments (and
even different agencies within them!) supported both
sides in different ways.
In the late 1980s the Indian government negotiated
an agreement with the government of Sri Lanka on the
Tamils' behalf (without consulting the armed resistance).
India promised military support if needed, and Sri
Lanka agreed to concessions, including Constitutional
changes to grant more local power (this was eventually
enacted as the 13th Amendment). India got agreement
from all of the Tamil resistance groups including,
grudgingly, the all-important LTTE.
The Sri Lankan government was facing a mostly unrelated
uprising by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the south,
and called in the Indian military immediately after
the agreement was signed. The Indian Peace Keeping
Force (IPKF) was formed, and initially oversaw a cease-fire
and modest disarmament of the militant groups. The
Sri Lankan government pulled its troops south and
put down the JVP rebellion, but dragged its feet on
reforms. The LTTE's trust in both governments dissolved
and the IPKF ended up fighting the LTTE. Nationalist
sentiment among the Sinhalese led to the government's
call for India to quit the island, and eventually
even supply the LTTE!
Rajiv Gandhi, India's Prime Minister during their
involvement, was assassinated on May 21, 1991, by
a presumedly LTTE operative. Indian support for the
LTTE dropped to near zero, and even in Tamil Nadu
(home to 60 million Tamils) feelings are still mixed.
India's central government has been firmly against
the LTTE since, although they do still speak up for
Tamils' rights.
In the 1980s and 1990s, successive governments officially
revoked some of the discriminatory policies, recognizing
Tamil as an official language and introducing a district
based quota system for university admissions with
Tamil majority districts having the lowest cut-off
points. Sinhalese and Muslims today claim they are
reverse discriminated. Tamils deny the latter claim,
and see the changes that have been made as too little
too late.
The 1990s
The LTTE took significant parts of the north as
the IPKF withdrew, and established many government-like
functions in the areas under its control. Amidst great
hope, in 1994 elections brought the Sri Lanka Freedom
Party to power on a peace platform. After failed peace
talks, the government pursued a "war for peace"
line, and retook Jaffna (the largest city in the north).
Repeated attempts by the government to take control
of the land route from the south to Jaffna gained
ground but ultimately failed. The LTTE then rolled
the government out of much of the territory it had
taken, but never succeeded in re-taking Jaffna.
The Government forces often schools, Christian churches
and Hindu Temples. Scores of Tamil civilians died
as these institutions were bombed when filled with
refugees. This act by the Sri Lankan government is
often considered a Genocide act by many.
The LTTE's often-terrorist political and economic
attacks continued. In December 1999 the LTTE attempted
the assassination of President Kumaratunga (she lost
one eye among other injuries); they also bombed the
central bank in January 1996 (see Central Bank Bombing),
and the World Trade Center in October 1997. In January
1998, the LTTE detonated a truck bomb in Kandy, damaging
the Temple of the Tooth, the holiest Buddhist shrine
in the country. In response to this last bombing,
the Sri Lankan government outlawed the LTTE and with
some success pressed other governments around the
world to do the same, significantly interfering with
their fund-rasinig activities.
The suicide rate on the island climbed to become
first in the world per capita.
A significant peace movement also developed in the
1990s, with new organizations and old holding peace
camps, conferences, trainings and peace meditations,
and many other efforts to bridge the two sides at
all levels.
Tentative peace
In 2000 the LTTE began to declare their willingness
to explore measures that would safeguard Tamils' rights
and autonomy as part of Sri Lanka, and announced a
unilateral ceasefire just before Christmas 2000. Their
July 2001 assault on the international airport destroying
half of the air force's planes, and damaging several
of SriLankan Airlines's planes dampened the economy
(e.g. tourism plummeted), and Sinhalese hopes for
a military solution. In parliamentary elections toward
the end of the year the United National Front (UNF)
came to power on a peace platform.
For the first time since the 1978 constitution introduced
a strong presidency, one party held the Presidency
(Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka Freedom Party) and
the other, Parliament (with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe,
United National Party). This co-habitation was extremely
uneasy. The new government reciprocated another unilateral
LTTE ceasefire offer at the end of 2001. The two sides
formalized it in a Memorandum of Understanding signed
in February 2002. Norway is mediating, together with
the other Nordic countries it also monitors the ceasefire
through the SLMM and many other countries are offering
substantial financial support if peace is achieved.
Some Sinhalese and Muslims have refused to support
any concessions unless the LTTE disarms and becomes
a democratic political entity.
The LTTE temporarily pulled out of the peace talks
in 2003, saying that insufficient attention was being
put on developing an interim political solution. The
government eventually produced a proposal, and the
LTTE a counter-proposal, which President Kumaratunge
responded to by taking over several defense-related
ministries. Peace talks remained suspended. In 2004
she took over additional ministries, and dissolved
Parliament, calling for an election, which has now
brought her United People's Freedom Alliance to power.
During the election, LTTE commander Karuna of Batticaloa-Ampara
split from the group's main leadership, claiming insufficient
resources and power were being given to Tamils of
the eastern part of the island. The LTTE officially
sacked him, small-scale violence erupted, and tensions
were extremely high. After the election, brief fighting
south of Trincomalee led to a rapid retreat and capitulation
of the Karuna group, their leaders eventually fleeing
to Colombo. It has now been revealed that a ruling
Muslim politician was involved with Karuna's escape.
It is believed to have been done so that Karuna's
group could continue hit-and-run warfare against innocent
Tamils.
The cease fire between the LTTE and the government
has largely held through all of this, and negotiations
are expected to recommence in the near future.
