Rousedruminations
8th February 2010, 07:35
Prior to becoming an avid communist, a reader of philosophy, class struggles, history, politics and Guerrilla warfare i had been an eager follower of the ' Srilankan Tamil Liberation' Struggle or the LTTE. I am of Srilankan Tamil decent, yet i was born in Australia. I would follow up on the news literally every day about their militancy and guerrilla achievements in asking for a separate state after several years of oppression of both overt and covert discrimination through out the Island since the 1950 and 1960's. Yet it has saddened me that the LTTE's eventful demise was due to the numerous governmental business dealings with other countries to increase the strength of its weaponry and military power and the factional dissent with in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam caused conspicuously by the government . Now it seems that the political buying power of the minority in Srilanka ( that is the Tamils who comprise of about 18-20 % of the population) has been mitigated, and many in the NE of Srilanka are apprehensively contemplating if the current government will return to its oppressive past or heal its historical grievances with the Tamils. It seems as though that the picture of Che Guevara behind the leader and its rebel soldiers was an inspiration. However the ruthless insurgency is all but dead..
Cry for Self-Rule by Tamils Is Muffled by Reality
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: February 7, 2010
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Jaffna is a city of ruins. Some are physical, like the overgrown jumbles of mold-streaked concrete where graceful buildings used to stand. But perhaps the biggest ruin of the Tamil Tiger insurgency against the Sri Lankan government is the very thing the Tigers wanted most: any hope of self-rule.
After 26 years of war that ended with a decisive government assault last May, Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority seems no closer to winning a measure of autonomy in a Sinhalese-dominated nation, and Tamil nationalism, the cri de coeur of the Tamil Tiger insurgency, seems all but dead.
“All of this armed struggle, so many dead and wounded, for what?” said P. Balasundarampillai, who leads the Citizen Committee in this city on the claw-shaped peninsula of the northern Tamil heartland. “In many spheres of public life our role is very much reduced. Economically we are weak, and politically we are weak.”
Just how little power Tamils have was made plain in last month’s presidential election. Though the Tamil Tigers’ war for a separate homeland in the north and east of this island nation has dominated life in Sri Lanka for nearly three decades, the question of how to address the root causes of the conflict — perceived discrimination by the Sinhalese majority against the Tamils — barely figured in the campaign.
Instead it was a contest between two men claiming the mantle of war hero for vanquishing the Tigers, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his former military chief, Gen. Sarath Fonseka.
The main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, cast its lot with General Fonseka, betting that a fragile coalition with disaffected Sinhalese and Muslim voters could dislodge the popular incumbent. The gamble failed, and Mr. Rajapaksa rode to a resounding 17-point victory.
Now more powerful than ever, Mr. Rajapaksa has given vague assurances about unifying the country. He has made clear, however, what is not on the table. Federalism, the starting point for virtually every Tamil party, is not acceptable, he said. Nor is he willing to merge the provinces in the north and east to create a large, Tamil-dominated state.
Mr. Rajapaksa has, however, said he would cede some powers to the existing provinces, which was required by a constitutional amendment but never fully put into practice.
This leaves many Tamils wondering where this shattered community will go from here. The Jaffna Peninsula, the cultural heart of Tamil life, lost hundreds of thousands of residents over the course of the war. About 100,000 are dead, but many more have fled.
Far from Colombo’s shimmering seaside skyscrapers, the hollowed-out city of Jaffna seems stuck a generation behind the rest of the country. For every inhabited house stands an abandoned, weed-choked one. Many buildings still bear bullet scars even though the last fighting here was in 1996. Its famous university, once among South Asia’s best, is crumbling.
These ghostly vistas are a stark contrast to the camps just south of here where at least 100,000 people live in squalid detention camps, awaiting the government’s permission to go home.
A political settlement to what is known here as “the Tamil question” remains as elusive as ever.
Professor S. K. Sitrampalam, a historian who is also a senior member of one of the largest Tamil political parties, said that there was “a history of broken promises and missed opportunities” between the government and the Tamils.
Part of the problem for the Tamils is that the war left few political leaders standing. Many talented and skilled Tamils fled to exile in Canada, England, the United States and elsewhere. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the ruthless rebel commander and self-proclaimed leader of the Tamil people, was killed in the Tigers’ last stand. Before that, his forces had systematically purged dissident leaders in a series of chilling assassinations.
Other Tamil political parties have joined forces with the government, seeing little point in struggling against the majority. Douglas Devananda, a former Tiger who has become a powerful minister in Mr. Rajapaksa’s government, said it was better to work with those in power to gain something rather than remain on the sidelines achieving little.
Still, asked what he had achieved for the Tamils, the barrel-chested former fighter seemed at a loss.
“It is difficult to say,” he said. “There are a lot of achievements. Ask the people. They will tell you.”
But he conceded that the Tamils, having overwhelmingly opposed the president’s re-election, were in no position to make demands from the government.
For young Tamils the frustration is even greater.
“With the defeat of the Tigers the political power of the Tamil people is gone,” said S. Arihan, president of the student union at the University of Jaffna.
Like many Tamils in the north, he said he hoped that international pressure would force the government to act.
But such hopes are unrealistic, said Ahilan Kadirgamar of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, an organization that is trying to reconcile the country’s ethnic divides. Hard-line nationalists “just keep waiting for the international community, but it is not going to deliver,” he said.
Indeed, much of the ideology of Tamil nationalism was formed in the 1970s and ’80s, when Tamils were facing pogroms and fleeing the country by the thousands.
An armed struggle for an independent state had a certain logic then, analysts say. But in postwar Sri Lanka the situation is less black and white, and many Tamils are focused on recovering from war.
“People have been so battered by the war that the basic issues, like resettlement and jobs, that is what is foremost in their minds,” Mr. Kadirgamar said. “It is not that the desire for a political solution is gone; it just needs to take account for the ground realities of today.”
A History of the LTTE
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil: தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், ISO 15919: tamiḻ īḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ; commonly known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers) was a separatist organization formerly based in northern Sri Lanka. Founded in May 1976, it waged a violent secessionist campaign that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. This campaign evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, which was one of the longest running armed conflicts in Asia until the LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan Military in May 2009.
The Tigers, who during the height of their power possessed a well-developed militia, were notorious for recruiting child soldiers, for carrying out civilian massacres, suicide bombings and various other high profile attacks, including the assassinations of several high-ranking Sri Lankan and Indian politicians like Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. They invented the suicide belt and pioneered the use of suicide bombing as a tactic. They also pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks, and used light aircraft in some of their attacks.They are currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries (see list of countries), but have extensive support amongst the Tamil diaspora in Europe and North America, and amongst Tamils in India. Since its inception, and until his death, the LTTE was headed by its founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Over the course of the conflict, the Tamil Tigers frequently exchanged control of territory in north-east Sri Lanka with the Sri Lankan military, engaging in fierce confrontations in the process. They were also involved in peace talks to end the conflict four times, each time unsuccessfully. At the start of the final round of peace talks in 2002, they had a 15,000 km2 area under their control. However after the breakdown of the peace process in 2006, the Sri Lankan military launched a major offensive against the Tigers, bringing the entire country under their control and defeating the LTTE militarily. Victory over the Tigers was declared by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 16, 2009, and the LTTE admitted defeat on May 17, 2009. Prabhakaran was subsequently killed by government forces on May 19, 2009. Selvarasa Pathmanathan took over the leadership, however he was arrested, and interrogated by the Sri Lankan authorities. Following Pathmanathan's arrest, Visvanathan Rudrakumaran became the de facto leader
Founding
The LTTE was founded on May 5, 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran, as a successor to the Tamil New Tigers, a militant group most notable for the assassination of the Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiyappah in 1975. Prabhakaran sought to "refashion the old TNT/new LTTE into an elite, ruthlessly efficient, and highly professional fighting force", which, as terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna notes, he did by "keeping [his] numbers small, maintaining a high standard of training, [and] enforcing discipline at all levels". According to the Indian media news channel "ibnCNN," the LTTE's main members including Prabhakaran were trained by the Indian Army and Indian intelligence agency "RAW" which attracted many supporters among disenchanted Tamil youth. They carried out low-key attacks against various government targets, including policemen and local politicians.
The LTTE carried out their first major attack on July 23, 1983 when they ambushed a Sri Lanka Army troop transport outside Jaffna. 13 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed in the attack, leading to the Black July riots against the Tamil community of Sri Lanka. The subsequent anger amongst the Tamil community resulted in numerous Tamil youths joining Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government, in what is considered start of the insurgency in Sri Lanka.
Rise to power
Initially, LTTE operated in cooperation with other Tamil militant groups which shared their objectives, and in April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between LTTE, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).
TELO usually held the Indian view of problems and pushed for India's view during peace talks with Sri Lanka and other groups. LTTE denounced the TELO view and claimed that India was only acting on its own interest. As a result in 1986, the LTTE broke from the ENLF. Soon fighting broke out between the TELO and the LTTE and clashes occurred over the next few months. As a result almost the entire TELO leadership and many of the TELO militants were killed by the LTTE. The LTTE attacked training camps of the EPRLF a few months later, forcing it to withdraw entirely from the Jaffna peninsula.
The LTTE then demanded that all remaining Tamil insurgents join the LTTE. Notices were issued to that effect in Jaffna and in Madras, India where the Tamil groups were headquartered. With the major groups including the TELO and EPRLF eliminated, the remaining Tamil insurgent groups, numbering around 20, were then absorbed into the LTTE, making Jaffna an LTTE-dominated city.
LTTE's practice such as wearing a cyanide vial for consumption if captured appealed to the Tamil people as dedication and sacrifice. Another practice that increased support by Tamil people was LTTE's practice of taking an oath of loyalty which stated LTTE’s goal of establishing a state for the Sri Lankan Tamils.
In 1987, LTTE established the Black Tigers, a unit of LTTE responsible for conducting suicide attacks against political, economic and military targets, and launched its first suicide attack against a Sri Lanka Army camp, killing 40 soldiers.
IPKF period
In 1987, faced with growing anger among its own Tamils, and a flood of refugees, India intervened directly in the conflict for the first time by initially airdropping food parcels into Jaffna. After subsequent negotiations, India and Sri Lanka entered into the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. Though the conflict was between the Tamil and Sinhalese people, India and Sri Lanka signed the peace accord instead of India influencing both parties to sign a peace accord among themselves. The peace accord assigned a certain degree of regional autonomy in the Tamil areas with Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) controlling the regional council and called for the Tamil militant groups to lay down their arms. India was to send a peacekeeping force, named the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), part of the Indian Army, to Sri Lanka to enforce the disarmament and to watch over the regional council.
Although the accord was signed between the governments of Sri Lanka and India, and the Tamil militant groups did not have a role in the agreement, most Tamil militant groups accepted it.bBut the LTTE rejected the accord because they opposed the candidate, who belonged to the EPRLF, for chief administrative officer of the merged Northern and Eastern provinces. Instead, the LTTE named three other candidates for the position, which India rejected. The LTTE subsequently refused to hand over their weapons to the IPKF.
Thus LTTE found itself engaged in military conflict with the Indian Army, and launched its first attack on an Indian army rations truck on October 8, killing five Indian para-commandos who were on board by strapping burning tires around their necks. The government of India decided that the IPKF should disarm the LTTE by force, and the Indian Army launched number of assaults on the LTTE, including a month-long campaign dubbed Operation Pawan to win control of the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. The ruthlessness of this campaign, and the Indian army's subsequent anti-LTTE operations made it extremely unpopular among many Tamils in Sri Lanka
After IPKF
The Indian intervention was also unpopular among the Sinhalese majority, and the IPKF became bogged down in the fighting with the Tamil Tigers for over 2 years, experiencing heavy losses. The last members of the IPKF, which was estimated to have had a strength of well over 50,000 at its peak, left the country in 1990 upon request of the Sri Lankan government. A shaky peace initially held between the government and the LTTE, and peace talks progressed towards providing devolution for Tamils in the north and east of the country.
Fighting continued throughout the 1990s, and was marked by two key assassinations carried out by the LTTE, that of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, using suicide bombers in both occasions. The fighting briefly halted in 1994 following the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as President of Sri Lanka and the onset of peace talks, but fighting resumed after LTTE sunk two Sri Lanka Navy boats in April 1995. In a series of military operations that followed, the Sri Lanka Army re-captured the Jaffna peninsula, the heartland of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Further offensives followed over the next three years, and the military captured vast areas in the north of the country from the LTTE, including area in the Vanni region, the town of Kilinochchi and many smaller towns. However, from 1998 onward the LTTE hit back, regaining control of these areas. This culminated in the capture of the strategically important Elephant Pass base complex, located at the entrance of the Jaffna Peninsula, in April 2000, after prolonged fighting against the Sri Lanka Army.
Mahattaya, a one-time deputy leader of LTTE, was accused of treason by the LTTE and killed in 1994. He is said to have collaborated with the Indian Research and Analysis Wing to remove Prabhakaran from the LTTE leadership
2001 ceasefire
In 2001, the LTTE dropped its demand for a separate state. Instead, it stated that a form of regional autonomy would meet its demands. Following the landslide election defeat of Kumaratunga and the coming to power of Ranil Wickramasinghe in December 2001, the LTTE declared a unilateral ceasefire. The Sri Lankan Government agreed to the ceasefire. In March 2002, both sides signed an official Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). As part of the agreement, Norway and the other Nordic countries agreed to jointly monitor the ceasefire through the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
Six rounds of peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE were held, but they were temporarily suspended after the LTTE pulled out of the talks in 2003 claiming "certain critical issues relating to the ongoing peace process".
In 2003, the LTTE proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). This move was welcomed by the international community, but rejected by the Sri Lankan President.
In December 2005, the LTTE boycotted the 2005 presidential election. While LTTE claimed that the people under its control were free to vote, it is alleged that they used threats to prevent the population from voting. The United States condemned this act.
The new government of Sri Lanka came into power in 2006 and demanded to abrogate the ceasefire agreement, stating that the only possible solution to the ethnic conflict was military solution, and that the only way to achieve this is by eliminating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil. Further peace talks were scheduled in Oslo, Norway, on June 8 and 9, 2006, but canceled when the LTTE refused to meet directly with the government delegation, stating its fighters were not being allowed safe passage to travel to the talks. Norwegian mediator Erik Solheim told journalists that the LTTE should take direct responsibility for the collapse of the talks.
Rifts grew between the government and LTTE, and resulted in a number of ceasefire agreement violations by both sides during 2006. Suicide attacks, military skirmishes and air raids took place during the latter part of 2006. Military confrontation continued into 2007 and 2008. On January 2008, the government officially pulled out of the Cease Fire Agreement
Dissension
In the biggest show of dissent from within the organization, a senior LTTE commander named Colonel Karuna (nom de guerre of Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan) broke away from the LTTE in March 2004 and formed the TamilEela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal amid allegations that the northern commanders were overlooking the needs of the eastern Tamils. The LTTE leadership accused him of mishandling of funds and questioned him about his recent personal behavior. He tried to take control of the eastern province from the LTTE, which caused clashes between the LTTE and TEMVP. The LTTE has suggested that TEMVP was backed by the government, and the Nordic SLMM monitors have corroborated this
Military defeat
On January 2, 2009, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, announced that the Sri Lankan troops had captured Kilinochchi, the city which the LTTE had used for over a decade as its de facto administrative capital It was stated that the loss of Kilinochchi had caused a substantial dent in the LTTE's image. It was also stated that after the fall of Kilinochchi the LTTE was likely to collapse soon under unbearable military pressure on multiple fronts. As of January 8, 2009, the LTTE was abandoning its positions on the Jaffna peninsula to make a last stand in the jungles of Mullaitivu, their last main base. The entire Jaffna peninsula was captured by the Sri Lanka Army by January 14. On January 25, 2009 SLA troops "completely captured" Mullaitivu town, the last major LTTE stronghold. As a result of the offensive, there is increasing belief that the final military defeat of the LTTE is near, although the LTTE may launch an underground guerrilla campaign if it is defeated as a conventional force.
Top LTTE leader Cheliyan, the second-in-command of the Sea Tigers, was killed in Kariyamullivaikkal on May 8, 2009 dealing another blow to the organization. The Sri Lanka Government accused the LTTE of causing a human disaster by trapping civilians in the shrinking area under their control. With LTTE on brink of defeat the fate of the leader of LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran remained uncertain. On May 12, 2009 BBC reported that LTTE was now clinging on to only about 840 acres of land near town of Mullaitivu which is roughly the same area as Central Park of New York.
U.N secretary General Ban Ki Moon appealed on LTTE that children should not be held hostage, recruited as child soldiers or put in harm's way. Claude Heller of United Nations Security Council said 'We demand that the LTTE immediately lay down arms, renounce terrorism, allow a UN-assisted evacuation of the remaining civilians in the conflict area, and join the political process.' The council president, speaking on behalf of the 15 members, also said they 'strongly condemned the LTTE, a terrorist organisation, for the use of civilians as human shields and for not allowing them to leave the area'. On May 13, 2009 the UN security council condemned the rebel LTTE again and denounced its use of civilians as human shields and urged them to acknowledge the legitimate right of the government of Sri Lanka to combat terrorism by laying down their arms and allowing the tens of thousands of civilians to leave the conflict zone. On May 14, 2009 The United Nations acting representative for Sri Lanka, Amin Awad, said that 6,000 civilians had fled or were trying to flee, but that LTTE was firing on them to prevent them from escaping.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared military victory over the Tamil tigers on May 16, 2009 after 26 years of conflict. On the same day for the first time in their long struggle against the Sri Lankan government, the rebels were offering to lay down their weapons in return for a guarantee of safety. Sri Lanka's disaster relief and human-rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe stated 'The military phase is over. The LTTE has been militarily defeated. Now the biggest hostage rescue operation in the world has come to a conclusion, The figure I have here is since 20th of April, 179,000 hostages have been rescued.'
On May 17, 2009, rebel official Selvarasa Pathmanathan conceded defeat saying in an email statement "This battle has reached its bitter end". Several rebel fighters committed suicide when they became surrounded. On May 18, it was confirmed that the rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran had been killed along with several other high ranking Tamil officials. State run television interrupted its regular programming and a government information department sent a text message to cell phones across the country with the news
Links to other designated organizations
As early as the mid-1970s, LTTE rebels were widely known to have trained members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Southern Lebanon, where concepts of suicide bombings, taxation, and war memorials were imparted to PFLP fighters. After the 1990 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Indian government officials claimed to have discovered a covert link between the PLO and the LTTE: the PLO had plead for Mr. Gandhi to accept a proposal from the LTTE. This advice raised eyebrows at the time, but was largely ignored until his assassination shortly thereafter.
As late as 1998, the Tigers clearly stated:
... the LTTE has resolved to work in solidarity with the world national liberation movements, socialist states, and international working class parties. We uphold an anti-imperialist policy and therefore we pledge our militant solidarity against western imperialism, neo-colonialists, Zionism, racism and other forces of reaction.
The Westminster Journal further states:
Intelligence agencies are well aware that the LTTE was involved in the 1990s in training the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) both of which are closely linked to al-Qaeda. In 1995 and 1998, an LTTE combat tactician and an LTTE explosives expert accompanying groups of al-Qaeda Arabs was recorded training members of MILF. In 1999, an LTTE combat tactician accompanying a group of al-Qaeda Arabs was recorded training members of the ASG. At the apparent behest of al-Qaeda, the LTTE is recorded training members of Al Ummah (An Islamic terrorist group formed in India in 1992, believed to be responsible for bombings in southern India in 1998) in Tamil Nadu, India.
The Times of India, in a 2001 article, highlights an alleged nexus between al-Qaeda and the LTTE, and claims that "[al-Qaeda links with the LTTE] are the first instance of an Islamist group collaborating with an essentially secular outfit". Additionally, the US-based research organisation "Maritime Intelligence Group" said the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiya, which has known links to al-Qaeda, had been trained in sea-borne guerrilla tactics by LTTE Sea Tiger veterans.
"Norwegians Against Terrorism", a one-man band led by convicted murderer Falk Rune Rovik, further described how the Tamil community in Norway, at the behest of the LTTE, sold fake and stolen Norwegian passports to al-Qaeda members. The LTTE itself acquired a fake passport for Ramzi Yousef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
A Council on Foreign Affairs article by Preeti Bhattacharji stated, "the secular nationalist LTTE currently has no operational connection with al-Qaeda, its radical Islamist affiliates, or other terrorist groups," but "In its early days, experts say the LTTE did train with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The group may still interact with other terrorist organizations through illegal arms markets in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia."
Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war
The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. According to Jonathan Spencer, a social anthropologist from the School of Social and Political Studies of the University of Edinburgh, the war is an outcome of how modern ethnic identities have been made and re-made since the colonial period, with the political struggle between minority Tamils and the Sinhala-dominant government accompanied by rhetorical wars over archeological sites and place name etymologies, and the political use of the national past
Before independence
A primary contributor to the development of political awareness amongst Tamils was the advent of Protestant missionaries on a large scale from 1814. Missionary activities by missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Methodists and Anglican churches led to a revival amongst Hindu Tamils who built their own schools, temples, societies and published literature to counter the missionary activities. The success of this effort led the Tamils to think confidently of themselves as a community and prepared the way for self consciousness as a cultural, religious and linguisitic community in the mid nineteenth century.
Great Britain, which had come to control the whole of the island in 1815, instituted a legislative council in 1833 with three Europeans and one each for Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils and Burghers. This council's primary requirement was to play an advisory role to the Governor. These positions eventually came to be elected. From the introduction of advisory council to the Donoughmore Commission in 1931 until the Soulbury Commission in 1947 the main dispute between the elite of Sinhalese and Tamils was over the question of representation and not on the structure of the government. The issue of power sharing was used by the nationalists of both communities to create an escalating inter ethnic rivalry which has continually gained momentum ever since.
There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well the Tamils in the national legislative council. However, the British Governor William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo seat which was dangled between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.
Subsequently, the Donoughmore Commission strongly rejected communal representation, and brought in universal franchise. The decision was strongly opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realized that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament, according to the proportion of the population they make up. G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, proposed to the Soulbury Commission that there should be 50-50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese, 50% for all other ethnic groups, including Tamils) in the proposed independent Ceylon - a proposal that was rejected. The Second World War served as an interregnum where the adroit politics of D. S. Senanayake successfully balancing the polarising tendencies of the Sinhala as well as Tamil nationalists
Post-independence
Following independence in 1948, G. G. Ponnambalam and the party he founded, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (Tamil Congress), joined D. S. Senanayake's moderate, Western-oriented, United National Party Government. This Government pass the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948, which denied citizenship to Sri Lankans of Indian origin and resulted in Sri Lanka becoming a majoritanian state. Sri Lanka's government represented only the majority community, the Sinhalese community, and had marginalized the minorities, causing a "severe degree of alienation" among the minority communities. When this Act was passed, the Tamil Congress was strongly criticized by the opposition Marxist groups and the newly formed Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist Federal Party (FP). S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the leader of this new party, contested the citizenship act before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and then in the Privy council in England, on grounds of discrimination towards minorities, but he did not prevail in overturning the act. The FP took two seats in the 1952 election, against the Tamil Congress' four, but in the 1956 election it became the dominant party in the Tamil districts and remained so for two decades. The FP's came to be known for its uncompromising stand on Tamil rights.[10] In response to the parliamentary act that made Sinhala the sole official language in 1956, Federal MPs staged a non violent sit in (satyagraha) protest, but it was broken up by a nationalist mob. The police and other state authorities present at the location failed to take action to stop the violence. The FP was cast as scapegoats and were briefly banned after the 1958 riots in which many were killed and thousands of Tamils forced to flee their homes.
Another point of conflict between the communities was state sponsored colonization schemes that had the effect of changing the demographic balance in the Eastern province in favor of majority Sinhalese that the Tamil nationalists considered to be their traditional homeland. It has been perhaps the most immediate cause of inter-communal violence.
In the 1970s importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals, etc. from the cultural hub of Tamil Nadu, India was banned. Sri Lanka also banned local groups affiliated with groups such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) and the Tamil Youth League. Foreign exchange for the long established practice of Tamil students going to India for university education was stopped. Equally, examinations for external degrees from the University of London were abolished. This had the effect of culturally cutting off the links between Tamil Sri Lankan and Tamils from India. The then government insisted that these measures were part of a general program of economic self-sufficiency as part of its socialist agenda and not targeted against the Tamil minority.
In 1973 the policy of standardization was implemented by the Sri Lankan government to what they believed was to rectify disparities created in university enrollment in Sri Lanka under British colonial rule. It was in essence an affirmative action scheme to assist geographically disadvantaged students to gain tertiary education. The resultant benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese students also meant a significant fall in the number of Tamil students within the Sri Lankan university student populace.
In 1973, the Federal Party decide to demand for a separate state. To further their nationalistic cause they merged with the other Tamil political parties to become the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1975. On 1976, after the first National convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front, the Ceylon Tamils moved towards a morphed nationalism which meant that they were now unwilling to live within a confined single island entity. Chelvanayakam and the Federal Party had always campaigned for a unitary country and thought that partitioning of the country would be “suicidal” up until 1973. However policies by the various governments that was considered to be discriminatory by Tamil leadership modified the stand to Tamil Nationalism.
Rise of militancy
Since 1948 when Sri Lanka became independent, successive governments have adopted policies that had the effect of net preference to the majority Sinhalese at the expense of the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. The governments adopted these policies in order to assist the Sinhalese community in such areas as education and public employment. But these policies severely curtailed the middle class Tamil youth, who found it more difficult during the 1970s and 1980s to enter a university or secure employment. These individuals belonging to this younger generation, often referred to by other Tamils as "the boys" (Podiyan in Tamil language) formed many militant organizations. The most important contributor to the strength of the militant groups was the Black July pogrom which was perceived have been an organized event in which over 1000 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians were killed prompting many youth to prefer the armed path of resistance.
By the end of 1987, they had fought not only the Sri Lankan security forces but also the Indian Peace Keeping Force. They also fought among each other with equal if not greater brutality with each other with main Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group decimating most of the others. They represented intergenerational tensions as well as caste and ideological differences. Except the LTTE many of the remaining organizations have morphed into minor political parties within the Tamil National Alliance or as standalone political parties. Some also function as paramilitary groups within the Sri Lankan military
Denial of citizenship to estate Tamils
There is a sizable population of Tamils in the Central Province, plantation laborers brought down from India by the British colonial authorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These Indian Tamils (or Estate Tamils), as they are called, still work mainly in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations. They have been locked in poverty for generations and continue to experience poor living conditions. Although they speak the same language, they are usually considered a separate community from the Sri Lankan Tamils of the North and East.
The government of D.S. Senanayake passed legislation stripping the estate Tamils of their citizenship in 1949, leaving them stateless.
The effect was to tilt the island's political balance away from the Tamils. In 1948, at independence, the Tamils had 33% of the voting power in Parliament. Upon the disenfranchisement of the estate Tamils, however, this proportion dropped to 20%. The Sinhalese could and did obtain more than a 2/3 majority in Parliament, making it impossible for Tamils to exercise an effective opposition to Sinhalese policies affecting them. The main reason for the imbalance was that several multi-member constituencies elected a Tamil member of Parliament in a majority Sinhala electorate. The idea in having multi-member constituencies was to prevent domination of minorities by a future nationalist government.
Not content with stripping their citizenship, successive governments tried to remove the estate Tamils from the country entirely. In 1962, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike signed an agreement with Indian Prime Minister L.B. Shastri. A second agreement was signed three years later with Indira Gandhi. These provided that 600,000 of the estate Tamils would be expelled and sent to India over a 15-year period, and 375,000 would be restored their Sri Lankan citizenship. Not all of the former group actually returned to India, and remained in Sri Lanka without the ability to vote, travel abroad, or participate fully in Sri Lankan life. It was not until 2003 that full citizenship rights were restored to the remaining Tamils in the hill country.
Language policy
The detailed reports of the Kandyan Peasantry commission (1947), the Buddhist commission (1956), as well as statistics of preponderant admissions of Tamil speaking students to the university provided a basis for these Sinhala activists who ensured S.W.R.D Bandaranaike won a landslide victory in 1956, campaigning on a strong Sinhala nationalist platform.
Ethnic conflict was exacerbated by the Sinhala Only Act of 1956. General consensus existed that English should be replaced as the country's official language. In the Act, the Sri Lankan government replaced English with Sinhala only, rather than with joint official languages of Sinhala and Tamil as most of the Tamil community advocated. A small minority Sri Lanka's population in 1956—Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim—were proficient in English; approximately 75% of the population had proficiency or fluency in the Sinhala language, and a majority of the remaining 25% were proficient in Tamil. Some speakers, of course, were and are proficient in multiple languages.
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government led by Solomon Bandaranaike was sworn into office on a platform that of helping the growing population of unemployed youth who despite general educational achievement were disenfranchised by the ‘Sinhala Only’ language policy. A majority of civil servants under colonial rule were Tamil whose positions benefited from free English-medium missionary schools in the north and east of the island. The Tamil Federal Party led a group of Tamil volunteers and staged a sit-down satyagraha (peaceful protest).
The Sinhala Only language policy was gradually weakened by all subsequent governments and in 1987 Tamil was made an official language of Sri Lanka, alongside Sinhala. English has remained the de facto language of governance; government activity continues to be carried out in English, including the drafting of legislation.
1958 riots
In the 1958 riots, 150-200 Tamils were killed, thousands more were assaulted and Tamil property looted. Over 25,000 Tamil refugees were relocated to the North.
1970 - Banning of Tamil media and literature importation
Importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals, etc. from the cultural hub of Tamil Nadu, India was banned. Sri Lanka also banned groups such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham and the Tamil Youth League. Culturally, Tamil Sri Lankans were cut off from Tamil Nadu. Foreign exchange for the long established practice of Tamil students going to India for university education was stopped. Equally, examinations for external degrees from the University of London were abolished. The government insisted this was a part of a general program of economic self-sufficiency, part of its socialist agenda, however most of the Tamil population did not accept nor believe this.
The banning of Tamil language media importation by the government of Sri Lanka in 1970 was perceived by some minority Sri Lankan Tamil politicians as directed against their cultural survival. Importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals from Tamil Nadu, India were banned.
Sri Lanka also proscribed the local branch of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham and the Tamil Youth League. Culturally, the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people felt cut off from Tamil Nadu. But some argue that it led to native Sri Lankan Tamil literature and media to thrive without competition from India.
1971 - Universities Act
During the 1970s university admissions were standardized. This initiative took place to rectify disparities created in university enrollment during colonial rule.
Under the British, English was the state language and consequently greatly benefited English speakers. However, the majority of the Sri Lankan populace lived outside urban areas and did not belong to the social elite, and therefore did not enjoy the benefits of English-medium education.
The issue was compounded further by the fact that in northern and eastern regions of the island, where a largely Tamil speaking populace resided, students had access to English-medium education through missionary schools regardless of their socio-economic status. This created a situation where the large proportion of students enrolled in universities were English speaking Tamils, particularly in professional courses such as medicine and engineering.
The government policy of standardization in essence was an affirmative action scheme to assist geographically disadvantaged students to gain tertiary education. The benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese students also meant a significant fall in the number of Tamil students within the university population.
Rise of separatism
At first, Tamil politicians pushed for a federal system through the Federal Party. This was met with suspicion and resistance from many Sinhalese. In the 1960s, the government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike proceeded to nationalize most missionary schools in the country, secularizing them and changing the language of instruction from English to Sinhala only. After this, it became rare for Sinhalese and Tamil children to attend school together. Unable to speak Sinhalese, it became increasingly difficult for Tamil youth to gain access to civil service jobs or attend universities, and unemployment rose.
The name of the country was changed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka in 1970, a name of Sanskrit origin that angered and alienated many Tamils.
The concept of a separate nation, Tamil Eelam, was proposed by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1976 . TULF was a coalition of parties who went on to campaign in the 1977 elections for an independent state for Tamils in Sri Lanka. They won most of the Tamil seats, but the government later banned them from Parliament for advocating an independent state.
1981 - Destruction of the Jaffna Public Library
A mob went on rampage on the nights of May 31 to June 2 burning the market area of Jaffna, the office of the Tamil Newspaper, the home of the member of Parliament for Jaffna, the Jaffna Public Library and killing four people. The destruction of the Jaffna Public Library was the incident which appeared to cause the most distress to the people of Jaffna. The 95,000 volumes of the Public Library destroyed by the fire included numerous culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts. Witnesses reported the presence of uniformed police officers in the mob and their involvement in the deaths of four individuals.
Cry for Self-Rule by Tamils Is Muffled by Reality
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: February 7, 2010
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Jaffna is a city of ruins. Some are physical, like the overgrown jumbles of mold-streaked concrete where graceful buildings used to stand. But perhaps the biggest ruin of the Tamil Tiger insurgency against the Sri Lankan government is the very thing the Tigers wanted most: any hope of self-rule.
After 26 years of war that ended with a decisive government assault last May, Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority seems no closer to winning a measure of autonomy in a Sinhalese-dominated nation, and Tamil nationalism, the cri de coeur of the Tamil Tiger insurgency, seems all but dead.
“All of this armed struggle, so many dead and wounded, for what?” said P. Balasundarampillai, who leads the Citizen Committee in this city on the claw-shaped peninsula of the northern Tamil heartland. “In many spheres of public life our role is very much reduced. Economically we are weak, and politically we are weak.”
Just how little power Tamils have was made plain in last month’s presidential election. Though the Tamil Tigers’ war for a separate homeland in the north and east of this island nation has dominated life in Sri Lanka for nearly three decades, the question of how to address the root causes of the conflict — perceived discrimination by the Sinhalese majority against the Tamils — barely figured in the campaign.
Instead it was a contest between two men claiming the mantle of war hero for vanquishing the Tigers, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his former military chief, Gen. Sarath Fonseka.
The main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, cast its lot with General Fonseka, betting that a fragile coalition with disaffected Sinhalese and Muslim voters could dislodge the popular incumbent. The gamble failed, and Mr. Rajapaksa rode to a resounding 17-point victory.
Now more powerful than ever, Mr. Rajapaksa has given vague assurances about unifying the country. He has made clear, however, what is not on the table. Federalism, the starting point for virtually every Tamil party, is not acceptable, he said. Nor is he willing to merge the provinces in the north and east to create a large, Tamil-dominated state.
Mr. Rajapaksa has, however, said he would cede some powers to the existing provinces, which was required by a constitutional amendment but never fully put into practice.
This leaves many Tamils wondering where this shattered community will go from here. The Jaffna Peninsula, the cultural heart of Tamil life, lost hundreds of thousands of residents over the course of the war. About 100,000 are dead, but many more have fled.
Far from Colombo’s shimmering seaside skyscrapers, the hollowed-out city of Jaffna seems stuck a generation behind the rest of the country. For every inhabited house stands an abandoned, weed-choked one. Many buildings still bear bullet scars even though the last fighting here was in 1996. Its famous university, once among South Asia’s best, is crumbling.
These ghostly vistas are a stark contrast to the camps just south of here where at least 100,000 people live in squalid detention camps, awaiting the government’s permission to go home.
A political settlement to what is known here as “the Tamil question” remains as elusive as ever.
Professor S. K. Sitrampalam, a historian who is also a senior member of one of the largest Tamil political parties, said that there was “a history of broken promises and missed opportunities” between the government and the Tamils.
Part of the problem for the Tamils is that the war left few political leaders standing. Many talented and skilled Tamils fled to exile in Canada, England, the United States and elsewhere. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the ruthless rebel commander and self-proclaimed leader of the Tamil people, was killed in the Tigers’ last stand. Before that, his forces had systematically purged dissident leaders in a series of chilling assassinations.
Other Tamil political parties have joined forces with the government, seeing little point in struggling against the majority. Douglas Devananda, a former Tiger who has become a powerful minister in Mr. Rajapaksa’s government, said it was better to work with those in power to gain something rather than remain on the sidelines achieving little.
Still, asked what he had achieved for the Tamils, the barrel-chested former fighter seemed at a loss.
“It is difficult to say,” he said. “There are a lot of achievements. Ask the people. They will tell you.”
But he conceded that the Tamils, having overwhelmingly opposed the president’s re-election, were in no position to make demands from the government.
For young Tamils the frustration is even greater.
“With the defeat of the Tigers the political power of the Tamil people is gone,” said S. Arihan, president of the student union at the University of Jaffna.
Like many Tamils in the north, he said he hoped that international pressure would force the government to act.
But such hopes are unrealistic, said Ahilan Kadirgamar of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, an organization that is trying to reconcile the country’s ethnic divides. Hard-line nationalists “just keep waiting for the international community, but it is not going to deliver,” he said.
Indeed, much of the ideology of Tamil nationalism was formed in the 1970s and ’80s, when Tamils were facing pogroms and fleeing the country by the thousands.
An armed struggle for an independent state had a certain logic then, analysts say. But in postwar Sri Lanka the situation is less black and white, and many Tamils are focused on recovering from war.
“People have been so battered by the war that the basic issues, like resettlement and jobs, that is what is foremost in their minds,” Mr. Kadirgamar said. “It is not that the desire for a political solution is gone; it just needs to take account for the ground realities of today.”
A History of the LTTE
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil: தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், ISO 15919: tamiḻ īḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ; commonly known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers) was a separatist organization formerly based in northern Sri Lanka. Founded in May 1976, it waged a violent secessionist campaign that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. This campaign evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, which was one of the longest running armed conflicts in Asia until the LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan Military in May 2009.
The Tigers, who during the height of their power possessed a well-developed militia, were notorious for recruiting child soldiers, for carrying out civilian massacres, suicide bombings and various other high profile attacks, including the assassinations of several high-ranking Sri Lankan and Indian politicians like Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. They invented the suicide belt and pioneered the use of suicide bombing as a tactic. They also pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks, and used light aircraft in some of their attacks.They are currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries (see list of countries), but have extensive support amongst the Tamil diaspora in Europe and North America, and amongst Tamils in India. Since its inception, and until his death, the LTTE was headed by its founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Over the course of the conflict, the Tamil Tigers frequently exchanged control of territory in north-east Sri Lanka with the Sri Lankan military, engaging in fierce confrontations in the process. They were also involved in peace talks to end the conflict four times, each time unsuccessfully. At the start of the final round of peace talks in 2002, they had a 15,000 km2 area under their control. However after the breakdown of the peace process in 2006, the Sri Lankan military launched a major offensive against the Tigers, bringing the entire country under their control and defeating the LTTE militarily. Victory over the Tigers was declared by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 16, 2009, and the LTTE admitted defeat on May 17, 2009. Prabhakaran was subsequently killed by government forces on May 19, 2009. Selvarasa Pathmanathan took over the leadership, however he was arrested, and interrogated by the Sri Lankan authorities. Following Pathmanathan's arrest, Visvanathan Rudrakumaran became the de facto leader
Founding
The LTTE was founded on May 5, 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran, as a successor to the Tamil New Tigers, a militant group most notable for the assassination of the Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiyappah in 1975. Prabhakaran sought to "refashion the old TNT/new LTTE into an elite, ruthlessly efficient, and highly professional fighting force", which, as terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna notes, he did by "keeping [his] numbers small, maintaining a high standard of training, [and] enforcing discipline at all levels". According to the Indian media news channel "ibnCNN," the LTTE's main members including Prabhakaran were trained by the Indian Army and Indian intelligence agency "RAW" which attracted many supporters among disenchanted Tamil youth. They carried out low-key attacks against various government targets, including policemen and local politicians.
The LTTE carried out their first major attack on July 23, 1983 when they ambushed a Sri Lanka Army troop transport outside Jaffna. 13 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed in the attack, leading to the Black July riots against the Tamil community of Sri Lanka. The subsequent anger amongst the Tamil community resulted in numerous Tamil youths joining Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government, in what is considered start of the insurgency in Sri Lanka.
Rise to power
Initially, LTTE operated in cooperation with other Tamil militant groups which shared their objectives, and in April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between LTTE, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).
TELO usually held the Indian view of problems and pushed for India's view during peace talks with Sri Lanka and other groups. LTTE denounced the TELO view and claimed that India was only acting on its own interest. As a result in 1986, the LTTE broke from the ENLF. Soon fighting broke out between the TELO and the LTTE and clashes occurred over the next few months. As a result almost the entire TELO leadership and many of the TELO militants were killed by the LTTE. The LTTE attacked training camps of the EPRLF a few months later, forcing it to withdraw entirely from the Jaffna peninsula.
The LTTE then demanded that all remaining Tamil insurgents join the LTTE. Notices were issued to that effect in Jaffna and in Madras, India where the Tamil groups were headquartered. With the major groups including the TELO and EPRLF eliminated, the remaining Tamil insurgent groups, numbering around 20, were then absorbed into the LTTE, making Jaffna an LTTE-dominated city.
LTTE's practice such as wearing a cyanide vial for consumption if captured appealed to the Tamil people as dedication and sacrifice. Another practice that increased support by Tamil people was LTTE's practice of taking an oath of loyalty which stated LTTE’s goal of establishing a state for the Sri Lankan Tamils.
In 1987, LTTE established the Black Tigers, a unit of LTTE responsible for conducting suicide attacks against political, economic and military targets, and launched its first suicide attack against a Sri Lanka Army camp, killing 40 soldiers.
IPKF period
In 1987, faced with growing anger among its own Tamils, and a flood of refugees, India intervened directly in the conflict for the first time by initially airdropping food parcels into Jaffna. After subsequent negotiations, India and Sri Lanka entered into the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. Though the conflict was between the Tamil and Sinhalese people, India and Sri Lanka signed the peace accord instead of India influencing both parties to sign a peace accord among themselves. The peace accord assigned a certain degree of regional autonomy in the Tamil areas with Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) controlling the regional council and called for the Tamil militant groups to lay down their arms. India was to send a peacekeeping force, named the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), part of the Indian Army, to Sri Lanka to enforce the disarmament and to watch over the regional council.
Although the accord was signed between the governments of Sri Lanka and India, and the Tamil militant groups did not have a role in the agreement, most Tamil militant groups accepted it.bBut the LTTE rejected the accord because they opposed the candidate, who belonged to the EPRLF, for chief administrative officer of the merged Northern and Eastern provinces. Instead, the LTTE named three other candidates for the position, which India rejected. The LTTE subsequently refused to hand over their weapons to the IPKF.
Thus LTTE found itself engaged in military conflict with the Indian Army, and launched its first attack on an Indian army rations truck on October 8, killing five Indian para-commandos who were on board by strapping burning tires around their necks. The government of India decided that the IPKF should disarm the LTTE by force, and the Indian Army launched number of assaults on the LTTE, including a month-long campaign dubbed Operation Pawan to win control of the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. The ruthlessness of this campaign, and the Indian army's subsequent anti-LTTE operations made it extremely unpopular among many Tamils in Sri Lanka
After IPKF
The Indian intervention was also unpopular among the Sinhalese majority, and the IPKF became bogged down in the fighting with the Tamil Tigers for over 2 years, experiencing heavy losses. The last members of the IPKF, which was estimated to have had a strength of well over 50,000 at its peak, left the country in 1990 upon request of the Sri Lankan government. A shaky peace initially held between the government and the LTTE, and peace talks progressed towards providing devolution for Tamils in the north and east of the country.
Fighting continued throughout the 1990s, and was marked by two key assassinations carried out by the LTTE, that of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, using suicide bombers in both occasions. The fighting briefly halted in 1994 following the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as President of Sri Lanka and the onset of peace talks, but fighting resumed after LTTE sunk two Sri Lanka Navy boats in April 1995. In a series of military operations that followed, the Sri Lanka Army re-captured the Jaffna peninsula, the heartland of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Further offensives followed over the next three years, and the military captured vast areas in the north of the country from the LTTE, including area in the Vanni region, the town of Kilinochchi and many smaller towns. However, from 1998 onward the LTTE hit back, regaining control of these areas. This culminated in the capture of the strategically important Elephant Pass base complex, located at the entrance of the Jaffna Peninsula, in April 2000, after prolonged fighting against the Sri Lanka Army.
Mahattaya, a one-time deputy leader of LTTE, was accused of treason by the LTTE and killed in 1994. He is said to have collaborated with the Indian Research and Analysis Wing to remove Prabhakaran from the LTTE leadership
2001 ceasefire
In 2001, the LTTE dropped its demand for a separate state. Instead, it stated that a form of regional autonomy would meet its demands. Following the landslide election defeat of Kumaratunga and the coming to power of Ranil Wickramasinghe in December 2001, the LTTE declared a unilateral ceasefire. The Sri Lankan Government agreed to the ceasefire. In March 2002, both sides signed an official Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). As part of the agreement, Norway and the other Nordic countries agreed to jointly monitor the ceasefire through the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
Six rounds of peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE were held, but they were temporarily suspended after the LTTE pulled out of the talks in 2003 claiming "certain critical issues relating to the ongoing peace process".
In 2003, the LTTE proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). This move was welcomed by the international community, but rejected by the Sri Lankan President.
In December 2005, the LTTE boycotted the 2005 presidential election. While LTTE claimed that the people under its control were free to vote, it is alleged that they used threats to prevent the population from voting. The United States condemned this act.
The new government of Sri Lanka came into power in 2006 and demanded to abrogate the ceasefire agreement, stating that the only possible solution to the ethnic conflict was military solution, and that the only way to achieve this is by eliminating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil. Further peace talks were scheduled in Oslo, Norway, on June 8 and 9, 2006, but canceled when the LTTE refused to meet directly with the government delegation, stating its fighters were not being allowed safe passage to travel to the talks. Norwegian mediator Erik Solheim told journalists that the LTTE should take direct responsibility for the collapse of the talks.
Rifts grew between the government and LTTE, and resulted in a number of ceasefire agreement violations by both sides during 2006. Suicide attacks, military skirmishes and air raids took place during the latter part of 2006. Military confrontation continued into 2007 and 2008. On January 2008, the government officially pulled out of the Cease Fire Agreement
Dissension
In the biggest show of dissent from within the organization, a senior LTTE commander named Colonel Karuna (nom de guerre of Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan) broke away from the LTTE in March 2004 and formed the TamilEela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal amid allegations that the northern commanders were overlooking the needs of the eastern Tamils. The LTTE leadership accused him of mishandling of funds and questioned him about his recent personal behavior. He tried to take control of the eastern province from the LTTE, which caused clashes between the LTTE and TEMVP. The LTTE has suggested that TEMVP was backed by the government, and the Nordic SLMM monitors have corroborated this
Military defeat
On January 2, 2009, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, announced that the Sri Lankan troops had captured Kilinochchi, the city which the LTTE had used for over a decade as its de facto administrative capital It was stated that the loss of Kilinochchi had caused a substantial dent in the LTTE's image. It was also stated that after the fall of Kilinochchi the LTTE was likely to collapse soon under unbearable military pressure on multiple fronts. As of January 8, 2009, the LTTE was abandoning its positions on the Jaffna peninsula to make a last stand in the jungles of Mullaitivu, their last main base. The entire Jaffna peninsula was captured by the Sri Lanka Army by January 14. On January 25, 2009 SLA troops "completely captured" Mullaitivu town, the last major LTTE stronghold. As a result of the offensive, there is increasing belief that the final military defeat of the LTTE is near, although the LTTE may launch an underground guerrilla campaign if it is defeated as a conventional force.
Top LTTE leader Cheliyan, the second-in-command of the Sea Tigers, was killed in Kariyamullivaikkal on May 8, 2009 dealing another blow to the organization. The Sri Lanka Government accused the LTTE of causing a human disaster by trapping civilians in the shrinking area under their control. With LTTE on brink of defeat the fate of the leader of LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran remained uncertain. On May 12, 2009 BBC reported that LTTE was now clinging on to only about 840 acres of land near town of Mullaitivu which is roughly the same area as Central Park of New York.
U.N secretary General Ban Ki Moon appealed on LTTE that children should not be held hostage, recruited as child soldiers or put in harm's way. Claude Heller of United Nations Security Council said 'We demand that the LTTE immediately lay down arms, renounce terrorism, allow a UN-assisted evacuation of the remaining civilians in the conflict area, and join the political process.' The council president, speaking on behalf of the 15 members, also said they 'strongly condemned the LTTE, a terrorist organisation, for the use of civilians as human shields and for not allowing them to leave the area'. On May 13, 2009 the UN security council condemned the rebel LTTE again and denounced its use of civilians as human shields and urged them to acknowledge the legitimate right of the government of Sri Lanka to combat terrorism by laying down their arms and allowing the tens of thousands of civilians to leave the conflict zone. On May 14, 2009 The United Nations acting representative for Sri Lanka, Amin Awad, said that 6,000 civilians had fled or were trying to flee, but that LTTE was firing on them to prevent them from escaping.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared military victory over the Tamil tigers on May 16, 2009 after 26 years of conflict. On the same day for the first time in their long struggle against the Sri Lankan government, the rebels were offering to lay down their weapons in return for a guarantee of safety. Sri Lanka's disaster relief and human-rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe stated 'The military phase is over. The LTTE has been militarily defeated. Now the biggest hostage rescue operation in the world has come to a conclusion, The figure I have here is since 20th of April, 179,000 hostages have been rescued.'
On May 17, 2009, rebel official Selvarasa Pathmanathan conceded defeat saying in an email statement "This battle has reached its bitter end". Several rebel fighters committed suicide when they became surrounded. On May 18, it was confirmed that the rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran had been killed along with several other high ranking Tamil officials. State run television interrupted its regular programming and a government information department sent a text message to cell phones across the country with the news
Links to other designated organizations
As early as the mid-1970s, LTTE rebels were widely known to have trained members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Southern Lebanon, where concepts of suicide bombings, taxation, and war memorials were imparted to PFLP fighters. After the 1990 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Indian government officials claimed to have discovered a covert link between the PLO and the LTTE: the PLO had plead for Mr. Gandhi to accept a proposal from the LTTE. This advice raised eyebrows at the time, but was largely ignored until his assassination shortly thereafter.
As late as 1998, the Tigers clearly stated:
... the LTTE has resolved to work in solidarity with the world national liberation movements, socialist states, and international working class parties. We uphold an anti-imperialist policy and therefore we pledge our militant solidarity against western imperialism, neo-colonialists, Zionism, racism and other forces of reaction.
The Westminster Journal further states:
Intelligence agencies are well aware that the LTTE was involved in the 1990s in training the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) both of which are closely linked to al-Qaeda. In 1995 and 1998, an LTTE combat tactician and an LTTE explosives expert accompanying groups of al-Qaeda Arabs was recorded training members of MILF. In 1999, an LTTE combat tactician accompanying a group of al-Qaeda Arabs was recorded training members of the ASG. At the apparent behest of al-Qaeda, the LTTE is recorded training members of Al Ummah (An Islamic terrorist group formed in India in 1992, believed to be responsible for bombings in southern India in 1998) in Tamil Nadu, India.
The Times of India, in a 2001 article, highlights an alleged nexus between al-Qaeda and the LTTE, and claims that "[al-Qaeda links with the LTTE] are the first instance of an Islamist group collaborating with an essentially secular outfit". Additionally, the US-based research organisation "Maritime Intelligence Group" said the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiya, which has known links to al-Qaeda, had been trained in sea-borne guerrilla tactics by LTTE Sea Tiger veterans.
"Norwegians Against Terrorism", a one-man band led by convicted murderer Falk Rune Rovik, further described how the Tamil community in Norway, at the behest of the LTTE, sold fake and stolen Norwegian passports to al-Qaeda members. The LTTE itself acquired a fake passport for Ramzi Yousef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
A Council on Foreign Affairs article by Preeti Bhattacharji stated, "the secular nationalist LTTE currently has no operational connection with al-Qaeda, its radical Islamist affiliates, or other terrorist groups," but "In its early days, experts say the LTTE did train with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The group may still interact with other terrorist organizations through illegal arms markets in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia."
Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war
The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. According to Jonathan Spencer, a social anthropologist from the School of Social and Political Studies of the University of Edinburgh, the war is an outcome of how modern ethnic identities have been made and re-made since the colonial period, with the political struggle between minority Tamils and the Sinhala-dominant government accompanied by rhetorical wars over archeological sites and place name etymologies, and the political use of the national past
Before independence
A primary contributor to the development of political awareness amongst Tamils was the advent of Protestant missionaries on a large scale from 1814. Missionary activities by missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Methodists and Anglican churches led to a revival amongst Hindu Tamils who built their own schools, temples, societies and published literature to counter the missionary activities. The success of this effort led the Tamils to think confidently of themselves as a community and prepared the way for self consciousness as a cultural, religious and linguisitic community in the mid nineteenth century.
Great Britain, which had come to control the whole of the island in 1815, instituted a legislative council in 1833 with three Europeans and one each for Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils and Burghers. This council's primary requirement was to play an advisory role to the Governor. These positions eventually came to be elected. From the introduction of advisory council to the Donoughmore Commission in 1931 until the Soulbury Commission in 1947 the main dispute between the elite of Sinhalese and Tamils was over the question of representation and not on the structure of the government. The issue of power sharing was used by the nationalists of both communities to create an escalating inter ethnic rivalry which has continually gained momentum ever since.
There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well the Tamils in the national legislative council. However, the British Governor William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo seat which was dangled between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.
Subsequently, the Donoughmore Commission strongly rejected communal representation, and brought in universal franchise. The decision was strongly opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realized that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament, according to the proportion of the population they make up. G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, proposed to the Soulbury Commission that there should be 50-50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese, 50% for all other ethnic groups, including Tamils) in the proposed independent Ceylon - a proposal that was rejected. The Second World War served as an interregnum where the adroit politics of D. S. Senanayake successfully balancing the polarising tendencies of the Sinhala as well as Tamil nationalists
Post-independence
Following independence in 1948, G. G. Ponnambalam and the party he founded, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (Tamil Congress), joined D. S. Senanayake's moderate, Western-oriented, United National Party Government. This Government pass the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948, which denied citizenship to Sri Lankans of Indian origin and resulted in Sri Lanka becoming a majoritanian state. Sri Lanka's government represented only the majority community, the Sinhalese community, and had marginalized the minorities, causing a "severe degree of alienation" among the minority communities. When this Act was passed, the Tamil Congress was strongly criticized by the opposition Marxist groups and the newly formed Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist Federal Party (FP). S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the leader of this new party, contested the citizenship act before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and then in the Privy council in England, on grounds of discrimination towards minorities, but he did not prevail in overturning the act. The FP took two seats in the 1952 election, against the Tamil Congress' four, but in the 1956 election it became the dominant party in the Tamil districts and remained so for two decades. The FP's came to be known for its uncompromising stand on Tamil rights.[10] In response to the parliamentary act that made Sinhala the sole official language in 1956, Federal MPs staged a non violent sit in (satyagraha) protest, but it was broken up by a nationalist mob. The police and other state authorities present at the location failed to take action to stop the violence. The FP was cast as scapegoats and were briefly banned after the 1958 riots in which many were killed and thousands of Tamils forced to flee their homes.
Another point of conflict between the communities was state sponsored colonization schemes that had the effect of changing the demographic balance in the Eastern province in favor of majority Sinhalese that the Tamil nationalists considered to be their traditional homeland. It has been perhaps the most immediate cause of inter-communal violence.
In the 1970s importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals, etc. from the cultural hub of Tamil Nadu, India was banned. Sri Lanka also banned local groups affiliated with groups such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) and the Tamil Youth League. Foreign exchange for the long established practice of Tamil students going to India for university education was stopped. Equally, examinations for external degrees from the University of London were abolished. This had the effect of culturally cutting off the links between Tamil Sri Lankan and Tamils from India. The then government insisted that these measures were part of a general program of economic self-sufficiency as part of its socialist agenda and not targeted against the Tamil minority.
In 1973 the policy of standardization was implemented by the Sri Lankan government to what they believed was to rectify disparities created in university enrollment in Sri Lanka under British colonial rule. It was in essence an affirmative action scheme to assist geographically disadvantaged students to gain tertiary education. The resultant benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese students also meant a significant fall in the number of Tamil students within the Sri Lankan university student populace.
In 1973, the Federal Party decide to demand for a separate state. To further their nationalistic cause they merged with the other Tamil political parties to become the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1975. On 1976, after the first National convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front, the Ceylon Tamils moved towards a morphed nationalism which meant that they were now unwilling to live within a confined single island entity. Chelvanayakam and the Federal Party had always campaigned for a unitary country and thought that partitioning of the country would be “suicidal” up until 1973. However policies by the various governments that was considered to be discriminatory by Tamil leadership modified the stand to Tamil Nationalism.
Rise of militancy
Since 1948 when Sri Lanka became independent, successive governments have adopted policies that had the effect of net preference to the majority Sinhalese at the expense of the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. The governments adopted these policies in order to assist the Sinhalese community in such areas as education and public employment. But these policies severely curtailed the middle class Tamil youth, who found it more difficult during the 1970s and 1980s to enter a university or secure employment. These individuals belonging to this younger generation, often referred to by other Tamils as "the boys" (Podiyan in Tamil language) formed many militant organizations. The most important contributor to the strength of the militant groups was the Black July pogrom which was perceived have been an organized event in which over 1000 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians were killed prompting many youth to prefer the armed path of resistance.
By the end of 1987, they had fought not only the Sri Lankan security forces but also the Indian Peace Keeping Force. They also fought among each other with equal if not greater brutality with each other with main Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group decimating most of the others. They represented intergenerational tensions as well as caste and ideological differences. Except the LTTE many of the remaining organizations have morphed into minor political parties within the Tamil National Alliance or as standalone political parties. Some also function as paramilitary groups within the Sri Lankan military
Denial of citizenship to estate Tamils
There is a sizable population of Tamils in the Central Province, plantation laborers brought down from India by the British colonial authorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These Indian Tamils (or Estate Tamils), as they are called, still work mainly in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations. They have been locked in poverty for generations and continue to experience poor living conditions. Although they speak the same language, they are usually considered a separate community from the Sri Lankan Tamils of the North and East.
The government of D.S. Senanayake passed legislation stripping the estate Tamils of their citizenship in 1949, leaving them stateless.
The effect was to tilt the island's political balance away from the Tamils. In 1948, at independence, the Tamils had 33% of the voting power in Parliament. Upon the disenfranchisement of the estate Tamils, however, this proportion dropped to 20%. The Sinhalese could and did obtain more than a 2/3 majority in Parliament, making it impossible for Tamils to exercise an effective opposition to Sinhalese policies affecting them. The main reason for the imbalance was that several multi-member constituencies elected a Tamil member of Parliament in a majority Sinhala electorate. The idea in having multi-member constituencies was to prevent domination of minorities by a future nationalist government.
Not content with stripping their citizenship, successive governments tried to remove the estate Tamils from the country entirely. In 1962, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike signed an agreement with Indian Prime Minister L.B. Shastri. A second agreement was signed three years later with Indira Gandhi. These provided that 600,000 of the estate Tamils would be expelled and sent to India over a 15-year period, and 375,000 would be restored their Sri Lankan citizenship. Not all of the former group actually returned to India, and remained in Sri Lanka without the ability to vote, travel abroad, or participate fully in Sri Lankan life. It was not until 2003 that full citizenship rights were restored to the remaining Tamils in the hill country.
Language policy
The detailed reports of the Kandyan Peasantry commission (1947), the Buddhist commission (1956), as well as statistics of preponderant admissions of Tamil speaking students to the university provided a basis for these Sinhala activists who ensured S.W.R.D Bandaranaike won a landslide victory in 1956, campaigning on a strong Sinhala nationalist platform.
Ethnic conflict was exacerbated by the Sinhala Only Act of 1956. General consensus existed that English should be replaced as the country's official language. In the Act, the Sri Lankan government replaced English with Sinhala only, rather than with joint official languages of Sinhala and Tamil as most of the Tamil community advocated. A small minority Sri Lanka's population in 1956—Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim—were proficient in English; approximately 75% of the population had proficiency or fluency in the Sinhala language, and a majority of the remaining 25% were proficient in Tamil. Some speakers, of course, were and are proficient in multiple languages.
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government led by Solomon Bandaranaike was sworn into office on a platform that of helping the growing population of unemployed youth who despite general educational achievement were disenfranchised by the ‘Sinhala Only’ language policy. A majority of civil servants under colonial rule were Tamil whose positions benefited from free English-medium missionary schools in the north and east of the island. The Tamil Federal Party led a group of Tamil volunteers and staged a sit-down satyagraha (peaceful protest).
The Sinhala Only language policy was gradually weakened by all subsequent governments and in 1987 Tamil was made an official language of Sri Lanka, alongside Sinhala. English has remained the de facto language of governance; government activity continues to be carried out in English, including the drafting of legislation.
1958 riots
In the 1958 riots, 150-200 Tamils were killed, thousands more were assaulted and Tamil property looted. Over 25,000 Tamil refugees were relocated to the North.
1970 - Banning of Tamil media and literature importation
Importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals, etc. from the cultural hub of Tamil Nadu, India was banned. Sri Lanka also banned groups such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham and the Tamil Youth League. Culturally, Tamil Sri Lankans were cut off from Tamil Nadu. Foreign exchange for the long established practice of Tamil students going to India for university education was stopped. Equally, examinations for external degrees from the University of London were abolished. The government insisted this was a part of a general program of economic self-sufficiency, part of its socialist agenda, however most of the Tamil population did not accept nor believe this.
The banning of Tamil language media importation by the government of Sri Lanka in 1970 was perceived by some minority Sri Lankan Tamil politicians as directed against their cultural survival. Importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals from Tamil Nadu, India were banned.
Sri Lanka also proscribed the local branch of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham and the Tamil Youth League. Culturally, the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people felt cut off from Tamil Nadu. But some argue that it led to native Sri Lankan Tamil literature and media to thrive without competition from India.
1971 - Universities Act
During the 1970s university admissions were standardized. This initiative took place to rectify disparities created in university enrollment during colonial rule.
Under the British, English was the state language and consequently greatly benefited English speakers. However, the majority of the Sri Lankan populace lived outside urban areas and did not belong to the social elite, and therefore did not enjoy the benefits of English-medium education.
The issue was compounded further by the fact that in northern and eastern regions of the island, where a largely Tamil speaking populace resided, students had access to English-medium education through missionary schools regardless of their socio-economic status. This created a situation where the large proportion of students enrolled in universities were English speaking Tamils, particularly in professional courses such as medicine and engineering.
The government policy of standardization in essence was an affirmative action scheme to assist geographically disadvantaged students to gain tertiary education. The benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese students also meant a significant fall in the number of Tamil students within the university population.
Rise of separatism
At first, Tamil politicians pushed for a federal system through the Federal Party. This was met with suspicion and resistance from many Sinhalese. In the 1960s, the government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike proceeded to nationalize most missionary schools in the country, secularizing them and changing the language of instruction from English to Sinhala only. After this, it became rare for Sinhalese and Tamil children to attend school together. Unable to speak Sinhalese, it became increasingly difficult for Tamil youth to gain access to civil service jobs or attend universities, and unemployment rose.
The name of the country was changed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka in 1970, a name of Sanskrit origin that angered and alienated many Tamils.
The concept of a separate nation, Tamil Eelam, was proposed by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1976 . TULF was a coalition of parties who went on to campaign in the 1977 elections for an independent state for Tamils in Sri Lanka. They won most of the Tamil seats, but the government later banned them from Parliament for advocating an independent state.
1981 - Destruction of the Jaffna Public Library
A mob went on rampage on the nights of May 31 to June 2 burning the market area of Jaffna, the office of the Tamil Newspaper, the home of the member of Parliament for Jaffna, the Jaffna Public Library and killing four people. The destruction of the Jaffna Public Library was the incident which appeared to cause the most distress to the people of Jaffna. The 95,000 volumes of the Public Library destroyed by the fire included numerous culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts. Witnesses reported the presence of uniformed police officers in the mob and their involvement in the deaths of four individuals.