AoD Blog 1 (Sri Lankan Civil War)

Subject: The Civil War in Sri Lanka

-----There is currently a civil war going on in Sri Lanka. This war is going on between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a.k.a., the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil are a terrorist group (as defined by 32 countries) and is headed by Velupillai Prabhakaran. Their goal is to secede from Sri Lanka and become a country in the north and east areas, which was formerly known as Ceylon, before the British occupation.

-----The history of this conflict is quite interesting, and mimics the Iraq situation in some aspects. The feudal era left Sri Lanka in a situation where one island was inhabited by seven warring kingdoms. This division created a huge weakness in the kingdoms. This weakness was exploited first by the Portuguese in 1517, who founded a fort in the Muslim port city of Colombo, which led to Portuguese control of the coastal areas. This pushed the Muslim kingdom, the Sinhalese, to move their capital inwards to Kandy, for better defense against the new invaders.

-----In order to protect themselves against the Portuguese, the Kandy king (get it?) appealed to a new settler for help, the Dutch. The Dutch began to push against the Portugal inhabitants, but in 1683 they fully attacked, capturing Colombo. At this point, the Dutch controlled the whole island except for Kandy. With this new-found land, they persecuted the Catholics and heavily taxed the native inhabitants.

-----In 1659, a British captain, Robert Knox, landed on Sri Lanka and was captured by the king of Kandy, and then escaped 19 years later to Britain, where the island was brought to Britain’s attention. The Napoleonic Wars pushed Britain to act on this knowledge, for fear of it becoming French. By 1802, the whole island was British. The only exception was the kingdom of Kandy, which proved more difficult with the 3 Kandyan Wars, which consisted of British invaders and Sri Lankan defenders. On the 2nd K. War, the British actually occupied the kingdom, but the fighting stopped after the bloody suppression of the 3rd K War, also known as the Uva Rebellion. The island was renamed Ceylon, and the inhabitants reduced to peasants living in a British Dependency. Social hierarchies were introduced, with the rich British at the top, followed by the Burghers (Dutch/Sri Lankan people), then the rest of the inhabitants. The British occupation introduced diplomacy to the island for the first time, such as Burgher self-government in 1833, constitutional development in a partly-elected assembly in 1909, and majorities of elected members in comparison to official appointees in 1920.

-----Groups began to appear in favor of independence, usually following either a constitutionalist path or a radical one. The constitutional groups sought to gain independence through gradually changing the laws and rights and eventually become free, whereas the radical groups, although almost entirely made up of minorities, wanted quick and utter independence. The radicals were not able to make a move against the British government, and the constitutionalists were taking their time to gain independence. The chance for independence actually came during WWII. This war brought up many radical movements, a couple of which actually received any attention. It was the constitutionalists that eventually won independence from this opportunity with the Soulbury constitution in 1944.

-----On July 1983, the Tamil Tigers ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers, which received huge ramifications from the Sinhalese population. These riots caused 400 deaths and 150,000 to leave. “President” Junius Jayewardene used the emergency powers of his position to effectively become a dictator over Sri Lanka till 1989. In 1987, a military offensive on the Vadamarachchi peninsular caused India to become involved as well. This caused even more problems and resulted in an air raid from India, a Peace Accord between the Indian Prime Minister and Sri Lankan President, and the election of a new president. Following these events, the politics of Sri Lanka has become engulfed by ethnic fighting, primarily between the Tamil Tigers and the current government of Sinhalese. This fighting has mangled Sri Lanka’s economy, but incredibly it is still the second most prosperous nation in South Asia.