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The Sri Lankan Situation in context Printable Version PRINTABLE VERSION
by Erandi, Sri Lanka Nov 6, 2006
Peace & Conflict   Opinions
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Sri Lanka, the tear drop island off the Indian Ocean, was a peaceful country. But the consecutive arrivals of the Portuguese, Dutch and British eroded the system of happy coexistence between the two major ethnic groups. The Sinhalese and Tamils were bonded in mutual liking before the advent of the above and that trust disappeared due to the practices of the armies who sought to divide the two groups for their personal gain.
The absence of that trust has now created an ethnic crisis where a minority is fighting for a separate state.

(An excerpt from a paper I did for a class deals with this issue.)

The beginning of the war in Sri Lanka is believed to stem from the attack on army personnel by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the following 1983 riots and burning of the Jaffna library (both acts by a group of Sinhalese) and has continued with the retaliatory actions taken by each party. And what was once a rebel group (one of a host of rebel groups) has now become one of the most ruthless organizations in the world.

It is also believed that the demands for a separate state by the Tamils came in 1949 by ITAK, long before the communal violence and any ‘discrimination’ took place. Holders of this opinion say that plans to establish a separate Tamil State was underway even in 1947, and that seceding and federating with South India was on the cards for one particular Tamil political party.


Whatever the truth about the war, it continues to today, taking as many lives as possible in the shortest time imaginable, wreaking havoc on the countries economy, tourist industry and creating voids in the countries resource pool that probably will never be filled. (There have been retaliations especially following the escalated violence in Jaffna and the inhumane conduct by the LTTE – prices on nearly every stock has been raised and civilians can be seen standing in line for their rations from 3.00, 4.00 am, fuel prices are at a record high, even when they have come down in the rest of the country, and flights to Jaffna from any other area was forbidden till last week, and curfew was imposed for many weeks and checks were common in the area thus stopping all communication between Jaffna and other parts for weeks. Needless to say, this caused much inconvenience and heartache, not least to families in the separate parts of the country who could not see each other for months on end. It affected even my office work as well, as they could not leave their homes thanks to the continuing roundups and checking and they couldn’t communicate with us even to send a fax. Even Colombo is not exempt, with many road blocks and checks but we are much better off with minimal restrictions on movement and trouble)

With peace talks once again failing (in Switzerland) thanks to LTTE questioning the opening of the A9 road when they were supposedly coming to the ‘peace’ table without any conditions, (the govt. had no conditions), the country seems back in the age-of-darkness. The officials are warning of heightened activity by the LTTE hoping it will not be prophetic.

Many bomb attacks have taken place within the mainland. The Galle Navy Base, the exact extreme of Jaffna was attacked two weeks ago by 5 LTTE cadres pretending to be fishermen, a bus with unarmed personnel was bombed a few weeks ago, two towns faced major massacres – civilians among the most injured, and every other day we hear of cadres with bombs coming into Colombo, the hub of the country.

It is true the govt. has not been blameless in its retaliations, sometimes attacking the wrong sites but there has been no evidence of targeted attacks on civilians the way LTTE attacks, who are ruthless in their quest of elimination.
(They once targeted the Pakistan High Commissioner on their National Day while he was returning from the ceremonies and killed dozens of civilians)
These are just a few of the incidents where it can be safely said an LTTE hand has been present.

23 years after the beginning, the war continuing has created much dissatisfaction in the country, with many young people enrolling in the forces following each attack, with an unprecedented amount joining up after the Galle attacks. And the youth in other areas of work feel the pain and wish to contribute somehow to the common cause. Many juggle the idea of joining the forces and working to eradicate other issues facing the country. More and more youth are getting involved in community issues probably due to the helplessness they feel. At least we may eradicate the common issues and work for a better country even though the future is uncertain for all of us.

Writing this, I wondered, am I being biased? Maybe I am: but biased towards peace loving humans who cannot stand war and what it stands for, who laud any action that wishes to address or eradicate war. i maybe pro govt. and anti-LTTE but I am by no means anti-Tamils. I understand their plight the best i can. And





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Erandi


A concerned young person
Comments


This was the real truth.
Indika Athauda | Jan 2nd, 2007
I think we need to understand clearly the difference between ethnic war and terrorism. Is there an “Ethnic war”? Or is this so called “Ethnic Conflict” in Sri Lanka? When we get into our history, Sinhalese and Tamils do have a great mutual binding on their cultural and religious events. If you think about their major cultural event, “The New Year”, they do have good relationship and most of the time they call it as “Sinhala and Tamil New Year”. Not only in the race, also is religion; can you say that there is a conflict? All most all the Buddhists have visited “Katharagama Devala” and “Munneshwaram” which are the religious places of Hindus. So what has happened to that cultural binding? Nothing has happened to that relationship. Only a few of people, who have excessive craving, have become a barrier for this everlasting relationship between Tamils and Sinhalese. They use the word “Ethnicity” for the sake of survival. And kill innocent people. This is not an Ethnic Conflict. This is “Terrorism”. So are we going to live with this “Terrorism”? You have to decide.

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