The expulsion of the Muslims from the Northern province was an act of ethnic cleansing [1] [2] carried out by the Tamil militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) organization in October 1990. Yogi, the LTTE's political spokesman, stated that this expulsion was carried out in retaliation for atrocities committed against Tamils in the Eastern Province by Muslims, who were seen by the LTTE as collaborators with the Sri Lankan Army. [3] [4] As a consequence, in October 1990, the LTTE forcibly expelled 72,000 Muslims from the Northern Province. [5] [6] [7]
In the early years of Tamil political struggle for linguistic parity, a few Sri Lankan Muslims as a Tamil-speaking people identified with the Tamil cause and participated in it. Even during the early years of Tamil militant struggle for separatism, a few Muslim youth joined Tamil militant groups, though there has also been forced recruitment of Muslim youths by Tamil militants. [8] However, despite being a Tamil-speaking group, the Muslims see themselves as a different ethnicity or use their religious identity as their primary identity. [9] With the creation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) on 21 September 1981, the idea of the Muslim people of Sri Lanka being separate from the Tamils was being reinforced. [10] Due to this they felt that if the goal of Tamil Eelam was reached they would be a "minority in a minority state", [11] and the SLMC were strongly opposed to the idea of Tamil Eelam. The situation was further aggravated with the creation of the Muslim Home Guard by the Sri Lankan Government, leading to violent clashes between the two communities. [11] Tensions between the Tamils and Muslims were at an all-time high. [12]
The first expulsion was of 1,500 people in Chavakachcheri. After this, many Muslims in Kilinochchi and Mannar were forced to leave their homeland. The turn of Jaffna came on 30 October 1990, when LTTE trucks drove through the streets ordering Muslim families to assemble at Osmania College. On October 30 early morning, the LTTE ordered the northern Muslims to leave in two hours and to be leave behind every material possession that belonged to the community or otherwise to face death. [13] Each person was allowed only 150 rupees each and only one set of clothes. Feeble protests were raised by Muslims. However, the brandishing of sophisticated weapons and threats in aggressive tones quickly silenced them. Women and girls were stripped of jewels. Some LTTE women cadres were brutal even pulling out ear studs with blood spurting in the ear lobes. At least 35 wealthy Muslim businessmen were abducted. They were detained by the LTTE. Some Muslim jewellers were tortured for details of hidden gold. One jeweller was killed by the beatings in front of the others. Later huge sums of money were demanded for their release. Some paid up to 3 million. The abducted persons were released in stages over the years. 13 people however never returned and were presumed dead. [14] Moreover, the LTTE had expropriated Muslim homes, lands, and businesses and threatened Muslim families with death if they attempt to return. [15]
The entire Muslim population was expelled from Jaffna. According to a 1981 census (the last official count), the total Muslim population in Jaffna was 14,844. In total, over 14,400 Muslim families, roughly 72,000 people, were forcibly evicted from LTTE-controlled areas of the Northern Province. [16] This includes 38,000 people from Mannar, 20,000 from Jaffna and Kilinochchi, 9,000 from Vavuniya and 5,000 from Mullaitivu. [17] The flight to government-controlled areas was dangerous. Muslims found themselves in the crossfire between the LTTE and the army, and some were killed and injured. [18]
Most of the Muslims were resettled in Puttalam district, though the Jaffna Muslim refugees can be found in other parts of Sri Lanka as well.
Tareek, a former resident of Jaffna, recounted the expulsion as follows: [19]
"People believed you could take what you could carry, but at every junction the LTTE took things from us. At that time my eldest son was not even one year old, and they took even the milk packets that we had for him. As they did so, they told us, “If you ever talk about this, we will shoot you.” In the end, we had only the clothes we were wearing … My younger sisters couldn't even keep the jewellery they were wearing; they even took earrings from their ears. For us Muslims, it's a big thing when these young men are touching our women's ears and necks to take the jewellery off. When the women cadres searched our young women, they took them behind a screen … Inside, they took all the money … We came here with bare pockets. That's like everybody behind us."
The expulsion still carries bitter memories amongst Sri Lanka's Muslims. In a press conference in Kilinochchi in 2002, the LTTE negotiator and political strategist Anton Balasingham appeared alongside the LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran and explained that they had already apologized to the Muslims and that the Tamil homeland also belonged to the Muslim people. [20] [21] Balasingham also expressed that the expulsion of the Muslims from Jaffna was a political blunder which could not be justified and said that the LTTE leadership would be willing to re-settle them in the northern district. [22] There has been a stream of Muslims travelling to and from Jaffna since the ceasefire.[ when? ] Some families have returned and the re-opened Osmaniya College now has 450 students enrolled. 11 Mosques are functioning again. According to a Jaffna Muslim source, there is a floating population of about 2000 Muslims in Jaffna. Around 1500 are Jaffna Muslims, while the rest are Muslim traders from other areas. About 10 Muslim shops are functioning and the numbers are thought to have grown.[ citation needed ]
On October 10, 2012, the government of Sri Lanka published several gazettes that effectively expanded the Wilpattu National Park's boundary to include northern provinces' regions. [23] [24] The original boundary of the park had enclosed the Puttalam District in the south and Anuradhapura District in the east. [25] [26] However, this expansion of the boundary prevented many people from returning to their homes and traditional lands within the newly designated park boundaries. The move was made under section 3 of the Forest Conservation Ordinance, chapter 451. [27] [28]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the northeast of the island in response to violent persecution and discriminatory policies against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan Government.
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.
The Tamil National Alliance is a political alliance in Sri Lanka that represents the country's Sri Lankan Tamil minority. It was formed in October 2001 by a group of moderate Tamil nationalist parties and former militant groups. The alliance originally supported self-determination in an autonomous state for the island's Tamils. It supported negotiations with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to resolve the civil war in Sri Lanka. The TNA was considered a political proxy of the LTTE which selected some of its candidates even though its leadership maintains it never supported the LTTE and merely negotiated with the LTTE just as the Government did.
The Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), also known as the Eelam Revolutionary Organisers, is a former Tamil militant group in Sri Lanka. Most of the EROS membership was absorbed into the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1990. The other half of EROS that did not join forces with the LTTE due was led by PLO trained Shankar Rajee, Senior politburo member and military commander of EROS from 1990 until his demise in 2005. The political wing of 'EROS' is known as the Eelavar Democratic Front.
Anton Balasingham Stanislaus was a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist, rebel and chief political strategist and chief negotiator for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist Tamil militant organisation in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan Moors are an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka, comprising 9.3% of the country's total population. Most of them are native speakers of the Tamil language. The majority of Moors who are not native to the North and East also speak Sinhalese as a second language. They are predominantly followers of Islam. The Sri Lankan Muslim community is mostly divided between Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Moors, Sri Lankan Malays and Sri Lankan Bohras. These groups are differentiated by lineage, language, history, culture and traditions.
Veerasingham Anandasangaree is a Sri Lankan Tamil politician, former Member of Parliament and leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front. He is commonly known as Sangaree. A vocal critic of violence committed by all sides, Sangaree is a supporter of federalism similar to that of India as a solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict.
Relangi Selvarajah was a popular Tamil broadcaster and a one time actress. She was assassinated by unknown assailants on 12 August in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The Chencholai bombing took place on August 14, 2006 when the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed what it said was a rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) training camp, killing 61 girls aged 16 to 18. The LTTE, UNICEF, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and UTHR all said those in the compound were not LTTE cadres.
The Anuradhapura massacre occurred in Sri Lanka in 1985 and was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This was the largest massacre of Sinhalese civilians by the LTTE to date; it was also the first major operation carried out by the LTTE outside a Tamil majority area. Initially, EROS claimed responsibility for the massacre, but it later retracted the statement, and joined the PLOTE in denouncing the incident. The groups later accused the LTTE for the attack. Since then, no Tamil militant group has admitted to committing the massacre. However, state intelligence discovered that the operation was ordered by the LTTE's leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He assigned the massacre to the LTTE Mannar commander Victor and it was executed by Victor's subordinate Anthony Kaththiar. The LTTE claimed the attack was in revenge of the 1985 Valvettiturai massacre, where the Sri Lanka Army killed 70 Tamil civilians in Prabhakaran's hometown.
Eelam War II is the name given to the second phase of armed conflict between Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The war started after the failure of peace talks between the Premadasa government and the LTTE. This phase of the war was initiated by the LTTE who massacred almost 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police personnel after they were ordered by the Premadasa government to surrender to the LTTE. The truce was broken on June 10, 1990 when the LTTE in October expelled all the 28,000 Muslims residing in Jaffna.
Wilpattu National Park is a national park in Sri Lanka. The unique feature of this park is the existence of "Willus" – natural, sand-rimmed water basins or depressions that fill with rainwater. Located on the northwest coast lowland dry zone of Sri Lanka, the park is 30 km (19 mi) west of Anuradhapura and 26 km (16 mi) north of Puttalam. The park is 1,317 km2 (508 sq mi) in area and ranges from 0–152 m (0–499 ft) above sea level. Nearly one hundred and six lakes (Willu) and tanks are found spread throughout Wilpattu. Wilpattu is the largest and one of the oldest national parks in Sri Lanka. Wilpattu is world-renowned for its leopard population. A remote camera survey conducted in Wilpattu from July to October 2015 by the Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation Trust captured photographs of forty-nine individual leopards in the surveyed area, the core area density of which was between that of Yala National Park's Block I and Horton Plains National Park.
Velayuthapillai Baheerathakumar was a leading member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist Tamil militant organisation in Sri Lanka. He played a leading role in the LTTE's military victories in the Vanni during Eelam War III, including Mullaitivu (1996), Kilinochchi (1998), Oddusuddan (1999) and Elephant Pass (2000). He was killed at the Battle of Ananthapuram in the last days of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Balasingham Nadesan was the Political Chief of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from late 2007 until his death in 2009. He was formerly the organization's Chief of Police.
The Battle of Kilinochchi was a land battle fought between the Sri Lankan Military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for control of the town of Kilinochchi in the Northern Theatre of Eelam War IV during the Sri Lankan civil war between November 2008 and January 2009. The town of Kilinochchi was the administrative center and de facto capital of the LTTE's proposed state of Tamil Eelam.
Mannar District is one of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka, the second level administrative division of the country. The district is administered by a District Secretariat headed by a District Secretary appointed by the central government of Sri Lanka. The capital of the district is Mannar, which is located on Mannar Island.
Shritharan Sivagnanam is a Sri Lankan Tamil school teacher and politician. He is the Member of Parliament for the Jaffna District and leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi.
The Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan Civil War was the deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka intended to perform a peacekeeping role. The deployment followed the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord between India and Sri Lanka of 1987 which was intended to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between militant Sri Lankan Tamil nationalists, principally the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the Sri Lankan military.
Velayutham Dayanidhi was a leading member and media spokesman for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist Tamil militant organisation in Sri Lanka.
Shahul Hameed Hasbullah was a Sri Lankan social activist, geographer and academic.
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