Cultural Clash: The Sinhalese Lion and Crouching Tamil Tiger in Perpetual

Conflict
By Richard L. Dixon

The recently concluded war between the Sinhalese majority government of Sri Lanka and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) led by the late Velupillai Prabhakaran (who was killed
by Sri Lankan soldiers) was one of forceful brutality, mass human suffering, and the
displacement of over 300,000 Tamil refugees in the Northern Part of Sri Lanka. It played itself
out in the living rooms around the world. The Sri Lankan Civil War was one of the fiercest
fought in the world that claimed over 60,000 lives in a 25 year period. On one hand you had a
Sinhalese government that subjected the Tamil minority to one of the cruelest forms of racism,
torture, and ethnic cleansing that the world has ever known. The Tamil’s were discriminated in
employment, housing, jobs, and stripped of their language and culture. They were reduced to
second class servitude in all matters Yet on the other hand with the Tamil Tigers you had one of
the most ruthless and bloodthirsty rebel groups who utilized the tactics of suicide bombing,
kidnapping, assassination of high ranking government officials (such as Sri Lankan President
Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991), the
targeting of innocent civilians (the Aranthalawa Massacre, Anuradhapura massacre, Kattankudy
mosque massacre, and Kebithigollewa massacres), and ambushing of government troops and
soldiers. It is stated that the LTTE also had established connections with other Muslim terrorist
that were associated with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. They engaged in
smuggling arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and heavily recruited child soldiers into their
ranks. “Most child soldiers, both boys and girls, are drawn from the poorest, least educated and
most marginalized social sectors. Especially at risk are children with a disrupted family
background, refugee and internally displaced children, children living in conflict zones and
garrison towns, children from a particular ethnic, racial or religious group, and former child
soldiers. The recruited children are used to fight, lay mines and explosives and as spies,
messengers, guards, scouts, cooks, porters, servants and for sexual purposes.”1 It was the scope
and level of these activities by the Tamil Tigers that resulted in them being placed on the list of
ruthless terrorist organizations by the United Nations, EU, and the State Department.

The Sri Lankan Civil War between the Sinhalese majority government and LTTE is a textbook
example of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilization and John Mueller’s Banality of Ethnic
War analogy. “A group of well-armed thugs and bullies encouraged by, and working under
rough constraints set out by, official security services would arrive or band together in a
community. Sometimes operating with local authorities, they would then take control and
persecute members of other ethnic groups, who would usually flee to areas protected by their
own ethnic ruffians, sometimes to join them in seeking revenge. Carnivals of often-drunken
looting, destruction, and violence would take place, and others--guiltily or not so guiltily-might
join in. Gradually, however, many of the people under the thugs' arbitrary and chaotic

1
Peters, Lilian. War is no Child’s Play: child Soldiers from Battlefield to Playgrounds. Geneva
Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Occasional Paper, #8,
July, 2005, 2.
"protection," especially the more moderate ones and young men unwilling to be pressed into
military service would immigrate to safer places. In all this, nationalism was not so much the
impelling force as simply the characteristic around which the marauders happened to have
arrayed themselves.”2

Sri Lanka was a country that was divided into four separate distinct cultures, religions, and races
that was on a spontaneous collision course of ethnic conflict. This conflict was directly and
indirectly influenced by outside actors such as the Indian & Chinese government. “According to
the CIA Fact book, the ethnic, breakdown of Sri Lanka was as follows, Sinhalese 73.8%, Sri
Lankan Moors 7.2%, Indian Tamil 4.6%, Sri Lankan Tamil 3.9%, other 0.5%, unspecified 10%
(2001 census provisional data). Religiously the Sinhalese were primarily Buddhist/Christian,
(69. 1% and 6.2%) the Moors were Muslim (7.6%), and the Indian Tamil and Sri Lankan Tamil
were Hindu (7.1%).”3 In some ways, the ethnic and religious situation in Sri Lanka was a mirror
image of the Balkanization that transpired in the now defunct Yugoslavia Republic under the
leadership of the deceased Joseph Tito. The big difference was that there was no fatherland
concept or ideology that bounded the Sri Lankans under one national banner. “The ethnic
differentiations within the category ‘Ceylonese’, of course, were not sustained only by political
competition. Their foundational sources were (a) sets of cultural practices that, amidst
commonalities, implanted difference in both explicit and insidiously powerful taken‐for‐granted
ways and (b) widespread practices of endogamous marriage among the Sinhalese, Tamils and
Moors that were in turn based on the propensity for Sinhalese and Tamil people to marry within
their own caste – with the caste identities nestling differentially within each ethnic grouping.”4

To fully understand the separatist tendencies of the Tamils as well as that of the Sri Lankan
Moors one must go back to the history of Sri Lanka as a former British Colony. Sri Lanka was
originally an ancient kingdom established by the Sinhalese in the 6th century BC. Later in the 14
century AD, Indians from the subcontinent established a kingdom in the Southern Region of the
island nation. During this era Sri Lanka was known as the kingdom of Ceylon and went through
a cycle of colonial rulers starting with the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the English in 1796.
Under British rule, ethnic tendencies between the Sinhalese and Tamils were played out for
political advantages. The same tactics were utilized successfully in the British colonies of
Malaysia, Mauritius, India, and Singapore. In all instances, the British government brought in
cheap labor from either India or China. The British brought in thousands of Tamils to work
administrative functions as well as the tea plantations. It wasn’t long after that the Sinhalese
majority started a movement for independence in Ceylon led by S W R D Bandaranayake which
resulted in a negotiation of independence in 1948 from the British Government. Yet it became
apparent from the start that the movement for independence by the Sinhalese majority was done
at the exclusion of the Tamil minority who at this time made up 17% of the population. Once
Ceylon had gained its independence they initiated a pro-Sinhalese platform in the new
constitution, passed laws to make Buddhism the official state religion, and the implementation of
2
Mueller, John. The Banality of Ethnic War, International Security, Vol. 25, Issue 1, Summer,
2000, 1.
3
CIA World Factbook, Sri Lanka, accessed on October 28, 2009, from:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ce.html
4
Roberts, Michael. Split Asunder: Four Nations in Sri Lanka, 4.
the Sinhala Language only act. ” This was soon followed by the ‘Sinhala only’ Language Act
that made the Tamil speaking people stripped of their right to use their language in their jobs, in
their courts, and in their communications with the State. The sense of alienation from the State
was further intensified when Tamils were faced with discrimination in education and jobs as
well.”5

Sri Lanka’s peaceful transition failed because its legislative framework was in a Westminister
democratic straitjacket that did not take into account the plurality of its ethnic and religious
minorities into a cooperative government framework. Indeed the Westphalian System of
government from a western perspective was totally inadequate to handle the multitude of sects,
clans, religions, and races in the former colonial empires have contributed greatly to the ethnic
conflicts that have flared up on the continents of Africa and Asia. Even Samuel Huntington
referred to the failure of the Westphalian System as one of the primary causes of ethnic conflict.
The former British Colonies of Malaysia and Singapore unlike their Sri Lankan counterparts
realized the shortcomings of the Westminister system and made concessions to accommodate
their ethnic and religious minorities. In the case of Malaysia, the Malay majority were resentful
of the Chinese and Indian minorities who held significant economic power in the country and
culminated in the May1969 riots which killed hundreds. The Malaysians sought to remedy the
situation by bringing the Malay majority in the mainstream with the passage of the National
Development Plan, First Malaysian Plan, and Vision 2020 to incorporate all citizens into a
government of national unity.

The Sinhalese majority on the other hand sought to capitalize on its status by alienating the other
ethnic groups such as the Tamils. When the Tamil tried to protest the alleged cases of
discrimination and alienation that was perpetuated upon them by the Sinhalese majority, they
were demonized and were massacred by the Sinhalese population who were wiped up into frenzy
by the politicians. “It is evident that the violence and ethnocentric policies of the Sinhala ruling
elites contributed to the growth of Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka. Tamil moderate parties,
such as the Federal Party (FP) led by skillful politicians such as S.J.V. Selvanayakam,
articulated frustration among common Tamil people into a ‘defensive nationalism’ with
peaceful protests. However, Sinhalese collective, competitive chauvinism responded
violently to the Tamil moderates…. Scholarly works on the Sri Lanka ethnic conflict suggest that
communal riots in 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977 and 1983 in which Tamils were killed, maimed,
robbed and rendered homeless were carefully designed by the Sinhala elites. This persistent
pattern of violence set the stage for violent Tamil retaliation and efforts to secede”6

The beatings and massacres of ethnic Tamils by their Sinhalese counterparts such as the
Inginiyakala massacre, Tamil research conference massacre, burning of the Jaffna library, 1977
communal pogrom, and 1958 pogrom were savage and inhuman. Even those these atrocities
were committed by the Sinhalese majority, there were moderates within the Tamil community
who were still committed for the continued process of attempting to integrate their communities
into the Sri Lankan political process through constructive dialogue. Those efforts though were
5
North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR), Lest We Forget, Massacres of Tamilis,
1956-2001, (Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka: Statistical Centre for North East SN, 2007), vii.
6
Stavis, Ben, & Imtiyaz, A.R.M. Ethno-Political Conflict in Sri Lanka. The Journal of Third
World Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2, Fall, 2008, 8, 10.
negated by a strong Sinhalese nationalist movement that sought to have a have a mandated
affirmative action program at the expense of the Tamil people because at the time they occupied
high status positions in the civil service sector of the government and were well represented as
students and instructors in the university level.

“From the 1970s the democratic political system and the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka came under
increasing threat of growing political conflict concurrently in two facets. In 1971, there emerged an
insurrection, organized by the youth of the Sinhala community to capture state power. The Sinhala
community is the main ethnic group of the country accounting for nearly three-fourth of the total
population. The Sinhala community is concentrated largely in the Southern part of the country. The
militant organization of the Sinhala youth, known as the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, which
means People’s Liberation Front), after its first aborted attempt, dissolved temporally. The JVP
arose again by the early 1980s and made their second attempt launching an armed struggle since
1986 to capture state power. The large-scale violence spread over the Southern parts of the country
and lasted for a period of four years till 1989. But the JVP has continued to remain as an important
force in the political scene.”7

The movement manifested itself in the denial of university of Tamil youth by the Sinhalese
majority government. “In 1970, the government intervened in the university admission process
So that, in effect, Tamil students had to obtain higher marks than Sinhalese students for
admission. This came as a huge blow to the Tamil youth who were strongly focused on gaining
an education and entering professions due to the lack of economic alternatives in their stronghold
of Jaffna in the north, a terrain that was singularly inhospitable for most traditional farming, and
distant from the commercial centers of the country. Tamil students were particularly hard hit in
medicine and engineering where they had been performing well for decades.”8

The rampant discrimination led the frustrated Tamil youth to form a separate movement for an
independent state. “This chipping away of the economic rights of the Tamils was clearly a factor
in the outbreak of Tamil militancy for the first time in 1977.”9 The most militant of the Tamil
movement for independence was the LTTE group. “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, led
by its charismatic founder and chief strategist Velupillai Prabhakaran, was established in 1976
and emerged as the strongest and best organized of these groups.”10 In essence, the stage was set
for a full scale civil war which commenced in 1983. There were two opposing nationalist
movements in the guise of the Sinhalese and Tamil student movements that had no intention of
reconciliation or dialogue which had truly fragmented. Both groups throughout the course of the
civil war would acts of savagery, barbarism, and brutality that would garner the condemnation of
the entire world community. There was no room for compromise and any individual or group
that tried would meet a quick demise. This was especially true of the LTTE Tigers whose forte
7
Abeyratne, Sirmal. Economic roots of Political Conflict, the Case of Sri Lanka, Department
of Economics, University of Colombo, 6.
8
Ollapally, Deepa, M. The Politics of Extremism in South Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008, 163.
9
Ibid, Ollapally, 163.
10
Kronstadt, K. Alan & Bruce Vaughn. Sri Lanka: Background & U.S. Relations. Congressional
Research Service, June 4, 2009, 8.
was assassinating moderate Tamil politicians who tried to reach out to the (such as Thiagarajah
Maheswaran from the United National Party UNP) Sinhalese majority government.

Over the years during the civil war, the Tamil Tigers was one of the most efficient para
revolutionary organizations in the world. Contrary to what has been written about Al Qaeda and
militant Islamic groups, it was they who specialized in suicide bombings by devising the suicide
belt to use in conjunction against Sri Lankan government and military targets. They also
pioneered the use of women as suicide bombers as well. “Over the course of the conflict the
LTTE waged an insurgent campaign against the Sri Lankan state in the course of which the
insurgents carried out hundreds of suicide attacks and bombed public buildings, transportation
hubs, Buddhist temples and other locations. In 1997, the LTTE was designated a foreign terrorist
organization by the U.S. Secretary of State, and is believed to be the only terrorist group to have
assassinated two world leaders – President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka in 1993 and
former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991.”11

The Tamil Tigers also earned a reputation of being both loyal and ruthless when it came to
dealing with their own people. It is said that they required an oath of loyalty as well as their
followers wearing vials of cyanide capsules to be taken if they were captured by government
soldiers. These actions garnered a measure of respect from the Tamil population. In addition,
they forcefully merged other Tamil insurgent groups under the LTTE umbrella. Their
ruthlessness was shown towards where they were known to use whole villages as a human shield
against government forces. “In desperation, the Tamil Tigers are using tens of thousands of
locals as human shields. The Sri Lankan government declared a cease-fire and called on the
Tigers to release their hostages, but unmanned-aerial-vehicle video footage shows the terrorists
holding masses of innocents at gunpoint, refusing them freedom.”12

I had attributed at the beginning of this paper that the governments of India and China were
outside actors who played a major role in the shaping and influencing of this conflict. Starting in
1987 India tried to broker a ceasefire between the Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil
separatist. They also bought in an Indian Peacekeeping force to police the region. The
government of India had a vested interest in the Indian Tamil people because they were
predominantly Hindu and saw an opportunity to extend their strategic influence within the
region. Unfortunately both the Sinhalese Government and the Tamil Tigers abandoned support
for the peace initiative by continuing attacks on both civilian and military targets.

“Paradoxically, LTTE dominance in the north and east was finally entrenched in the context of a
failed peace initiative. In 1987, India and Sri Lanka signed an Accord designed to bring about a
ceasefire and an end to the conflict. The Accord offered a degree of autonomy for Tamil majority
areas in the North and East, but not independence. An amendment (known as the 13th
Amendment) to the 1978 Constitution was passed that provided for the establishment of
Provincial Councils and specified a range of powers that would be devolved to them. An interim
joint North-East Provincial Council was soon created in an effort to meet Tamil demands for the
two regions to be administered as one. The merger was to be put to a referendum at the end of
11
U.S. Department of State, Report to Congress on Incidents during the Recent Conflict in Sri
Lanka, 2009, 6.
12
Sri Lanka High Commission on Ottawa, Canada, “Issues & Views”, April, 2003, 3.
the interim period. Tamil was also upgraded to an ‘official language’. While it did not initially
oppose the Accord as a whole, the LTTE rejected the proposed autonomy arrangements. From
the other end of the political spectrum, it was joined in opposition by a revived JVP, which after
a brief period of engagement with parliamentary politics, had abandoned them. The organisation
was banned again in 1983.”13

The interjection of the Indian government into the conflict went badly for them as well with the
assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the ambushing of the Indian
Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) by the Tamil Tigers. The Indian government then initiated counter-
insurgency operations which proved to be unpopular with the Tamil population within the region
because hundreds of civilians were either killed or wounded. “In 1991, the LTTE assassinated
Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, who had authorised the sending to Sri Lanka
of the IPKF. Since then, while mindful of sentiment in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the
Indian Government, which prior to 1987 had at points displayed considerable sympathy
for its cause, has been very hostile to the LTTE. Many have argued since that the
assassination was a major miscalculation by the Tigers. In 1989 a second JVP insurrection broke
out, mainly triggered by vociferous opposition to the presence of the IPKF on the island,
although the social and economic discontent that had led to its first insurrection had also
deepened. At one point, the insurrection looked as if it might succeed in capturing power. In
response, many left-wing Sinhalese activists were targeted by government death squads and
ultra-nationalist groups. The role of the IPKF in the north and east freed up much of the Sri
Lankan armed forces to combat the insurrection and by 1991 it had been bloodily quelled.”14

In 1989 the Indian Government eventually withdrew their peacekeeping forces from Sri Lanka
and the status of the Civil War went from bad to worst. The Indian tried to mediate the conflict
from behind the scenes role but were ineffective. It was during this time that the LTTE gained
the upper hand from the Sri Lankan government forces in solidifying their gains in the captured
territory in their quest to establish a separate Tamil autonomous region. Another attempt for
peace and ceasefire was made between the years 2002-03 in Oslo, Norway between the warring
parties and the international community. “The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was
signed by the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with the
help of Norway’s mediation in February 2002 and the international donor conference in Tokyo in
June 2003 have created new hopes for a peaceful settlement of the war in Sri Lanka. On the
national level the elections between 1999 and 2002 helped to reduce the fragmentation of the
political landscape. The cohabitation created for the first time an institutional framework in
which the two major parties were forced to co-operate and to share governmental responsibility.
At the international level the mediating efforts of Norway since spring 2000, the impacts of the
11 September 2001 attacks in the U.S., and the financial engagement of the international
community at the Tokyo conference contributed to this optimism. These developments seemed
to have opened a new window of opportunity for a durable peace to end the protracted conflict
between the Singhalese majority and the Tamil minority.”15
13
House of Commons. War and Peace in Sri Lanka, Research 05/51, June 5, 2009, 12.
14
Ibid, House of Commons, 12.
15
Wagner, Dr. Christian. Sri Lanka New Chance for Peace? German Institute for International
and Security Affairs, January, 2004, 3.
Even with the added enthusiasm to mediate the conflict it was doomed to fail for several reasons.

1. The disagreement that occurred between the newly elected president (Chandrika
Kumaratunga) and Prime Minister (Ranil Wickremesinghe) on which direction to mediate
the conflict. Prime Wickeremeisnghe supported conciliatory talks with the Tamil Rebels
while President Kumaratunga opposed them. It should be noted that President
Kumaratunga had lost vision in one eye prior to her election from a Tamil Rebel suicide
attack which killed 26 people. Due to this dispute between President Kumaratunga and
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, the parliament was dissolved and new elections were
called. The Tamil faction viewed this as a lack of good faith on the part of the
government to settle the conflict. In addition, the terms of the Oslo accord as had been the
case with the 1987 Indian brokered accord called for new elections with the participation
of the Tamil minority. The Sri Lankan government failed to follow thru on their end.

2. The continued isolation of the Sri Lankan Muslim community who were left out of the
process. Throughout this conflict, the Sri Lankan Muslim found themselves forced to take
side and also bore the brunt of civilian casualties from both the government and Tamil
forces. Since the independence of Sri Lanka from British rule, the Muslim community
have been marginalized and discriminated in terms of educational, economical, and
political opportunities. “To understand why the Muslim has been marginalized from the
peace process and their key issues repeatedly ignored at the national level, it is necessary
to recognize the contributing roles played by the ethnic Sinhala majority-controlled Sri
Lankan state, the ruthless Tamil separatist movement, and the self-interested Muslim
political elites.”16

3. Opposition to the peace accord by the Sinhala nationalist parties such as the SLFP,
Jathike Hele Urumaya (JHU), and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Both the SLFP and
JVP had a long history of antagonizing and disrupting mediation efforts to settle the
ongoing civil war between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. It was they that
stirred up nationalistic tendencies among the Sinhalese majority that resulted in the mass
pogroms against the Tamil minorities and Sri Lankan Muslim Moors in 1958 and 1983.
Their opposition to the Oslo Accord split the Sinhalese majority in pro treaty and anti-
treaty camps.

With the collapse of the talks, the war took a turn in favor of the Sri Lankan military starting
with the election of Mahinda Rajapakse as President in 2005. President Rajapakse opposed
the Peace Process of 2002 because he believed it gave the LTTE the upper hand and was
dedicated to smashing the Tamil Tigers as both a political and military entity. President
Rajapakse united the Sinhalese majority in support of this goal by forming an alliance with
the notorious JVP who too were opposed to the peace process. The military was completely
rearmed and refinanced from money from the Peoples Republic of China. In fact, the Sri
Lankan government formed an agreement of understanding in both diplomatic and trade
relations with the Chinese. “China and Sri Lanka issued a Joint Communique in Colombo

16
McGilvray, Dennis B., & Mirak Raheem. Muslin Perspectives on the Sri Lankan Conflict.
East-West Center, Policy Studies #41, 2007, 2.
 Saturday at the end of Premier Wen Jiabao's official visit. Both sides declared that, as Asian
neighbors with a long tradition of friendship, based on the Five Principles for Peaceful
Coexistence, China and Sri Lanka will establish and develop an all-round cooperative
partnership featuring sincere mutual support and everlasting friendship, said the
communiqué. Following are a series of agreements and memorandums of understanding
signed during premier Wen's visit in the joint communiqué: Agreement on the Further
Development of Bilateral Economic and Trade Relationship between the Government of the
People's Republic of China and the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri
Lanka.”17

The Chinese and Sri Lankan Alliance was ideal for several reasons:

1. Both the Chinese and Sri Lankan governments had similar ideologies in terms of
socialism. Sri Lanka was one of the first Southeastern nations to establish a social welfare
safety net for its people in advancing free healthcare and education. The Sri Lankan
government has also adopted a strategy of establishing a free-market economy within a
socialist framework just as the Chinese have done.

2. The diplomatic and trade relationships with Sri Lanka by China, continued its long
standing policy of trading with governments with less than impressive human rights
records without trying to involve itself in that country’s domestic affairs. Numerous
human rights organizations, the United States, and the EU have been highly critical of
China in this regard especially it comes to its relationship with Sudan. However, the
Chinese proved instrumental in thwarting efforts by the UN Security Council to condemn
the Sri Lankan government’s major military offensive to crush the Tamil Tigers for good.

3. The Chinese viewed the island of Sri Lanka from a strategic perspective in establishing a
foothold in the Indian Ocean to guard its trade routes from the Gulf of Oman to the
mainland through ‘A String of Pearls’ strategy by building naval ports in Pakistan,
Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Strait of Malacca. “China’s development
of these strategic geopolitical ‘pearls’ has been nonconfrontational,
with no evidence of imperial or neocolonial ambition. The development
of the ‘String of Pearls’ may not, in fact, be a strategy explicitly guided
by China’s central government. Rather, it may be a convenient label
applied by some in the United States to describe an element of China’s
foreign policy. Washington’s perception of China’s de facto strategy
may not be a view shared in Beijing, but the fact remains that
economic benefits and diplomatic rhetoric have been an enticement
for countries to facilitate China’s strategic ambitions in the region.”18
17
Peoples Daily. China, Sri Lanka issue Joint Communique to Specify Cooperation in All
Areas. April 10, 2005. Accessed on October 31, 2009 from:
http://enlish.people.com.cn/200504/10/eng20050410_180290.html.

18
Pehrson, Christopher J. Strings of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power
across the Asian Littoral. Strategic Studies Institute, July, 2006, 3-4.
Indeed China spent over one billion dollars in the building of a major naval
port on the island of Sri Lanka in the fishing village of Hambantota. Sri Lanka serves as the
vital link in their geo-strategy of becoming a major Naval Power within the region and around
the world.

Now that they had money, weapons, and technical advisors from the Chinese Military, the
Sri Lankan government went about the task of destroying the Tamil separatist
movement with brute force and superior firepower. The howls of human rights
abuses and atrocities by the international community fail on deaf ears within the Sri
Lankan leadership. The doctrine of the responsibility to protect as advocated by the
United Nations failed to materialize because of the diversionary tactics of the
Chinese during Security Council proceedings and the realization by the
international community to interject itself in the Sri Lankan Civil War, would result
in a quagmire worst than Afghanistan. By the late spring of 2009 the territory that
the Tamil Tigers had captured in earlier military successes was reduced to a 12 mile
parcel where 300,000 refugees were caught between the advancing Sri Lankan
Army and the rapidly retreating Tamil rebels who continually used them as human
shields. There were eye witness accounts of the government forces deliberately
bombarding hospitals with critically wounded noncombatants because of the
suspicion that Tamil rebels were being harbored in the camps. Hundreds of civilians
were killed in similar cross fires inside Tamil territory. As the Sri Lankan Army
advanced closer, the Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran exhorted his warriors
to fight to the last man or woman and not to dishonor themselves by being captured.
He also vowed to commit suicide by taking the vial of cyanide capsules that hung
around his neck. In the end though, it was the Sri Lankan Army who ended the life
of one of the most notorious, vicious, and charismatic rebel leaders since Che
Guevara or Yasser Arafat of the PLO.

On May 19 2009, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared an end to the war and a
victory for all the Sri Lankan citizens. Or was it? Sri Lankan faced the daunting task of
reintegrating hundred of thousands of IDP citizens who were stuffed into refugee camps that
were lacking in water, food, sanitation, and were incubators for disease such as dysentery. The
government had to decide the best approach to engage a disillusioned Tamil as well as a
disgruntled Muslim minority who themselves were having rumblings of nationalistic tendencies.
It also has to deal with the nationalistic hardcore ideologies of the SLFP, Jathike Hele Urumaya
(JHU), and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which does not allow for any dialogue between
the Tamil and Muslim communities and was a contributing factor to the events that led to the
Civil War in the first place. If Sri Lanka is to achieve peace it must involve the international
community to broker a peace with all parties involved as equal partners and the tolerance of
differing cultures, races, and religions.

When the British granted Ceylon independence in 1948, it was the crown jewel of its colonial
empire in Southeast Asia because it had developed a strong democratic model and tolerance for
all citizens. “Thus, come independence, Ceylon had, by developing-country standards, a well
developed infrastructure, an efficient public administration and judiciary, and a democratic
Westminster-type political system. Unlike India, there was a peaceful handover of power in
stable political conditions. In addition to a prospering plantation economy, there were significant
achievements in health and education. The literacy rate, for example, was the highest in Asia
outside Japan and the Philippines. The one black spot – in the eyes of development economists at
the time – was the lack of industrialisation.”19

Many had expected both Singapore and Malaysia to disintegrate into sectarian fighting but yet it
was the Sri Lankans who went down that path because of nationalism, intolerance, and an
unwillingness to engage in constructive dialogue and the implementation of policies to
successfully integrate their marginalized minorities as the Singaporeans and Malaysians have
successfully done. Sri Lanka has the opportunity to start on a clean slate to rectify past
disagreements, reintegrate its Tamil and Muslim refugees, guarantee the security of its minority
community, and to rebuild its war-torn country through foreign investments and aid by providing
essential services such as water, healthcare, power, sanitation, and permanent housing. Current
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has declared that the top goal in the healing of the rift
that has tragically divided his country. The world will now wait to see if his actions will match
his rhetoric.

References
1. Lilian Peters, “War is no Child’s Play: Child Soldiers from Battlefield to Playgrounds,”
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Occasional Paper,
#8 (July 2005), 2.

2. John Mueller, “The Banality of Ethnic War,” International Security, Vol. 25, Issue 1
(Summer 2000), 1.

3. CIA World Factbook, “Sri Lanka.” Accessed on October 28, 2009 from:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ce.html

4. Michael Roberts, Split Asunder: Four Nations in Sri Lanka, 4.

5. North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR), Lest We Forget, Massacres of

Tamilis, 1956-2001 (Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka: Statistical Centre for North East SN, 2007),
vii.

19
Sally, Razeen. Sri Lanka: the Political Economy of Failure. Paper presented at the
conference on Globalization and Economic Success: Policy Options for Africa, Cairo.
November 13-14, 2006, 3.
6. A.R.M. Imtiyaz & Ben Stavis, “Ethno-Political Conflict in Sri Lanka,” The Journal of
Third World Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Fall 2008), 8 & 10.

7. Sirmal Abeyratne, “Economic roots of Political Conflict, the Case of Sri Lanka”,
Department of Economics, University of Colombo, 6.

8. Deepa M. Ollapally, The Politics of Extremism in South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2008), 163.

9. Ibid., 163.

10. K. Alan Kronstadt & Bruce Vaughn, “Sri Lanka: Background & U.S. Relations,”
Congressional Research Service (June 4, 2009), 8.

11. U.S. Department of State, “Report to Congress on Incidents during the Recent Conflict in
Sri Lanka”, (2009), 6.

12. Sri Lanka High Commission on Ottawa, Canada, “Issues & Views,” April 2003, 3.

13. House of Commons, “War and Peace in Sri Lanka,” Research 05/51, June 5, 2009, 12.

14. Ibid. 12.

15. Dr. Christian Wagner, “Sri Lanka-a New Chance for Peace?” German Institute for
International and Security Affairs (January 2004), 3.

16. McGilvray, Dennis B., & Mirak Raheem. Muslin Perspectives on the Sri Lankan
Conflict. East-West Center, Policy Studies #41, 2007, 2.

17. Peoples Daily, “China, Sri Lanka issue Joint Communique to Specify Cooperation in All
Areas,” April 10, 2005, Accessed on October 31, 2009 from:
http://english.people.com.cn/200504/10/eng20050410_180290.html

18. Christopher J. Pehrson, “Strings of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising
Power across the Asian Littoral,” Strategic Studies Institute (July 2006), 3-4.

19. Razeen Sally, “Sri Lanka: the Political Economy of Failure” (paper presented at the
conference on Globalization and Economic Success: Policy Options for Africa, Cairo,
November 13-14, 2006), 3.