The Future of Counterinsurgency: Contemporary Debates in Internal Security Strategy by Shemella Paul Cline Lawrence

Author:Shemella, Paul, Cline, Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE HISTORY OF THE SRI LANKAN CONFLICT

Sri Lanka was first a Portuguese and then a Dutch possession before becoming British Ceylon in 1815. Sri Lanka gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1948. The European experience had left its mark on the Sri Lankan polity, with thousands of Indian Tamils having been brought over to work in plantations and Tamils in general having a privileged position in the British system of colonial rule. In 1954, elections brought Sinhalese nationalists to office, marking the beginning of a long struggle between the dominant Sinhalese, mostly Buddhists, who account for about 75 percent of the population, and the Tamil speakers who make up about 25 percent of the population.3

The 1956 Sinhala Only Act recognized Sinhala as the sole official language, removing English but not providing recognition for Tamil, spoken by about a quarter of the population.4 The effect was to expel most Tamils, who in general did not speak Sinhalese, from the civil service, which they had dominated as a legacy from the colonial era.5 As Sinhalese nationalism continued to build, anti-Tamil attacks increased, leading to large anti-Tamil riots in 1956 and 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Tamil-speaking population was further reduced as half of the Indian Tamils segment of the population, who were officially stateless, was forced to migrate to India.6 Further tensions between the Tamils and Sinhalese about perceived colonial injustices and attempts to rectify them, such as the 1971 legislation to create quotas for university admission, became the center of political discourse with politicians of both communities using ethnic issues to leverage advantage.7 To this end, Sinhalese politicians modified the Constitution in 1972 and 1978, giving preference to Buddhism, the religion of the Sinhalese majority. Attacks on Tamils continued to escalate, and in 1981, a Sinhalese mob burned the Jaffna Public Library, destroying irreplaceable Tamil historical and cultural artifacts.8

By the early 1970s as oppression from the central government escalated, Tamil youth began to reject political solutions and turn toward violence. In 1972, 17-year-old Thiruvenkadam V. Prabhakaran founded the Tamil New Tigers, which became the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1976.9 This group sought the creation of Tamil Eelam as an independent state, “Eelam” being an archaic Tamil name for Sri Lanka. From the start LTTE worked toward an independent Tamil state in north and east Sri Lanka. The movement also included a strong diaspora movement, particularly in the West, since many young Tamils had fled the country following the 1983 pogroms.10 LTTE assassinated security forces and moderate Tamil politicians, including the mayor of Jaffna, the major city in the Tamil-dominated Northern Province, as well as other rival Tamil leaders.

In July 1983, the LTTE carried out a major attack on a Sri Lankan Army outpost, killing 13 soldiers, which prompted a large-scale pogrom against Tamils that left hundreds and perhaps thousands dead and 150,000 homeless, and prompted thousands more Tamils to flee the country.11 It also marked the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War with the LTTE as the principal opponent of the government of Sri Lanka.

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