Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war

Last updated

The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. The war has been described by social anthropologist Jonathan Spencer as 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 Sinhalese-dominant government accompanied by rhetorical wars over archeological sites and place name etymologies, and the political use of the national past. [1] [2]

Contents

Colonial period

The roots of the conflict can be traced back to Sri Lanka's colonial era. Under the British colonial rule, the strategy of divide and rule was implemented to exacerbate differences between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. [3] [4] English language schools were established in Jaffna by the American Ceylon Mission, which provided English-language skills for the Tamil population in Jaffna. [5] [6] The Jaffna Tamil upper castes benefited from this education system, enabling them to secure disproportionately more civil service opportunities compared to the Sinhalese. [4] [7] As English education was paramount for gaining employment in the civil service, the colonial policies of the British created exclusion in the government of the Sinhala only speaking majority (as well as the non-English speaking Tamils). [8] [3] The British selected their candidates for the civil service on a merit basis through an open civil service exam without an ethnic quota. [9] [10] S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the fourth Prime Minister of the Dominion of Ceylon, stated that the Tamils gained a "dominant position in the public services" due to their hard work and merit in passing the qualifying examinations. [11] Similarly historian E. F. C. Ludowyk states that "there was a larger number of Tamils in the service of the state in proportion to their numbers" due to "their greater industry and thrift". [12] The Sinhalese masses who were not proficient in English felt discriminated and were frustrated over the educational and economic inequalities they faced under the colonial rule. [13] Moreover, the British pushed for the dominance of Christianity and the removal of privileging Buddhism in the state government, the main religion followed by the Sinhalese. The policies that were put forward by the British to privilege the country’s English speaking population exacerbated the grievances of the non-English speaking population (the majority of which were Sinhalese) as they faced difficulties in accessing economic opportunity and state-granted benefits. After the British colonial rule in Sri Lanka ended, ethnic tension between the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils rose. [14] [8] [15]

Lead up to armed struggle

A primary contributor to the development of political awareness amongst Tamils during the European colonial rule 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 linguistic community in the mid-19th century. [16] [17]

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 the advisory council to the Donoughmore Commission in 1931 until the Soulbury Commission in 1947, the main dispute between the Sinhalese and Tamils elites 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. [18]

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 alternated between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. [19]

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. [20] In 1936, a Pan-Sinhala Board of Ministers was created which excluded non-Sinhala members, and further divided the Sinhala and Tamil elites. [21] The Second World War served as an interregnum where the adroit politics of D. S. Senanayake successfully balancing the polarising tendencies of the Sinhalese as well as Tamil nationalists.[ citation needed ]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,[ citation needed ] 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,[ citation needed ] and had marginalized the minorities, causing a "severe degree of alienation" among the minority communities. [22] 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 it. 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. [23] 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. [24]

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 Kazhagam (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 Lankans 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.[ citation needed ]

The policy of standardization was a policy implemented by the Sri Lankan government in 1971 [25] to curtail the number of Tamil students selected for certain faculties in the universities. [26] [27] [28]

In 1973, the Federal Party decided 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. [29] Chelvanayakam and the Federal Party had always campaigned for a united 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 [24] modified the stand to Tamil independence.

Rise of militancy

Tamil rebels in a truck in Killinochchi in 2004 LTTE car with soldiers in Killinochi april 2004.jpg
Tamil rebels in a truck in Killinochchi in 2004

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. [30] 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. [30] 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. [30] [31]

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, as well, with equal if not greater brutality. The main group: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group, decimated 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. [30]

Denial of citizenship to Indian 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 19th and 20th 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. [32] Although they speak dialects of 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.[ citation needed ]. 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 Sinhalese 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 1964, 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 Sinhalese activists who ensured S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike won a landslide victory in 1956, campaigning on a strong Sinhalese nationalist platform.

Ethnic conflict was aggravated by the Sinhala Official Language 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 which deprived the Tamils of their right to deal with government institutions in their language as well as limited their opportunity to join government service. By 1956 approximately 75% of the population maintained fluency in the Sinhala language, approximately 15% were proficient in Tamil and the remaining ethnic groups spoke mainly English including the Burghers and Muslims. Multi-linguism was not common-spread, although many Sri Lankans had knowledge of at least two of the three main 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 were disenfranchised by the Sinhala Official 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 Official Language policy was gradually weakened by all subsequent governments and in 1987 Tamil was made an official language of Sri Lanka, [33] 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 people were killed, primarily Tamils and thousands more were assaulted and Tamil property looted. Over 25,000 Tamil refugees were relocated to the North. Similarly, a large number of Sinhalese were killed or expelled from the North and East of country and were relocated in the South.

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 in 1970. This was perceived by some minority Sri Lankan Tamil politicians as directed against their cultural survival. Sri Lanka also banned groups such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Tamil Youth League. Culturally, Tamil Sri Lankans were 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.

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.

1971 – Universities Act

During the 1970s university admissions were standardized. The Policy of standardisation was a policy implemented by the Sri Lankan government in 1971 [25] to curtail the number of Tamil students selected for certain faculties in the universities. [34] [35] [36]

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 the Jaffna district, where a largely Tamil speaking populace resided, students had access to English-medium education through missionary schools. This created a situation where a large proportion of university students enrolled in professional courses such as medicine and engineering were English speaking Tamils.

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.

Vaddukoddai Resolution

The concept of a separate nation, Tamil Eelam, was proposed by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in the Vaddukoddai Resolution 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.Tamil Separatists led by LTTE took over leadership of the Tamils during the course of the Sri Lankan Civil War. [37]

1981 – Destruction of the Jaffna Public Library

A Sinhalese mob went on a 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. [38] 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 [39] and their involvement in the deaths of four individuals.

Outbreak of war

This section is an excerpt from Black July.[ edit ]
Anti-Tamil pogroms
in Sri Lanka
Gal Oya (1956)
1958 pogrom
1977 pogrom
1981 pogrom
Black July (1983)

Black July (Tamil: கறுப்பு யூலை, romanized: Kaṟuppu Yūlai; Sinhala: කළු ජූලිය, romanized: Kalu Juliya) was an anti-Tamil pogrom [40] that occurred in Sri Lanka during July 1983. [41] [42] The pogrom was premeditated, [43] [44] [45] [46] [note 1] and was finally triggered by a deadly ambush on a Sri Lankan Army patrol by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on 23 July 1983, which killed 13 soldiers. [48] Although initially orchestrated by members of the ruling UNP, the pogrom soon escalated into mass violence with significant public participation. [49]

On the night of 24 July 1983, anti-Tamil rioting started in the capital city of Colombo and then spread to other parts of the country. Over seven days, mainly Sinhalese mobs attacked, burned, looted, and killed Tamil civilians. The looting, arson and killings later spread to include all Indians, with the Indian High Commission being attacked and the Indian Overseas Bank being completely destroyed. [50] Estimates of the death toll range between 400 and 3,000, [51] and 150,000 people became homeless. [52] [53] According to Tamil Centre for Human Rights (TCHR), the total number of Tamils killed in the Black July pogrom was 5,638. [54]

Around 18,000 homes and 5,000 shops were destroyed. [55] The economic cost of the riots was estimated to be $300 million. [52] The pogrom was organised to destroy the economic base of the Tamils, with every Tamil owned shop and establishment being plundered and set alight. [50] The NGO International Commission of Jurists described the violence of the pogrom as having "amounted to acts of genocide" in a report published in December 1983. [56]

The pogrom spurred thousands of Tamil youth to spontaneously join militant groups, which prior to the pogrom had only 20-30 members. [51] [57] Black July is generally seen as the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War between the Tamil militants and the government of Sri Lanka. [53] [58] Sri Lankan Tamils fled to other countries in the ensuing years, with July becoming a period of remembrance for the diaspora around the world. [59] To date no one has been held accountable for any of the crimes committed during the pogrom. [60]

Notes

  1. ↑ George Immerwahr, a United Nations civil servant and U.S. citizen, recounted the following regarding the riots: “the most shattering report came from a [Sinhalese] friend who was a civil servant; he told me that he had himself helped plan the riots at the orders of his superiors. When I heard him say this, I was so shocked I told him I simply couldn't believe him, but he insisted he was telling the truth, and in fact he justified the government's decision to stage the riots. When I heard this, I telephoned an official in our own State Department, and while he declined to discuss the matter, I got the impression that he already knew from our Embassy in Colombo what I was telling him.” [47]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Sri Lanka</span>

The history of Sri Lanka is unique because its relevance and richness extend beyond the areas of South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. The early human remains which were found on the island of Sri Lanka date back to about 38,000 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike</span> 4th Prime Minister of the Dominion of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from 1956 to 1959

Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, also known as "The Silver Bell of Asia", was a Ceylonese statesman who served as the fourth Prime Minister of the Dominion of Ceylon, serving from 1956 until his assassination. The founder of the left-wing and Sinhalese nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party, his tenure saw the country's first left-wing reforms.

The Official Language Act , commonly referred to as the Sinhala Only Act, was an act passed in the Parliament of Ceylon in 1956. The act replaced English with Sinhala as the sole official language of Ceylon, with the exclusion of Tamil from the act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black July</span> 1983 anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka

Black July was an anti-Tamil pogrom that occurred in Sri Lanka during July 1983. The pogrom was premeditated, and was finally triggered by a deadly ambush on a Sri Lankan Army patrol by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on 23 July 1983, which killed 13 soldiers. Although initially orchestrated by members of the ruling UNP, the pogrom soon escalated into mass violence with significant public participation.

Parliamentary elections were held in Ceylon in 1956. They were a watershed in the country's political history, and were the first elections fought to realistically challenge the ruling United National Party. Former Leader of the House S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike crossed over to the opposition to form the Sri Lanka Freedom Party to launch his bid for Prime Minister. The party won the election with 51 seats, winning a majority in the house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1958 anti-Tamil pogrom</span> First islandwide Sinhalese-Tamil riots in Ceylon.

The 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in Ceylon, also known as the 58 riots, refer to the first island-wide ethnic riots and pogrom to target the minority Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon after it became an independent dominion from Britain in 1948. The riots lasted from 22 May until 29 May 1958 although sporadic disturbances happened even after the declaration of emergency on 27 May 1958. The estimates of the murders range, based on recovered bodies, from 158 to 1,500. Although most of the victims were Tamils, Sinhalese and their property were also affected by retaliatory attacks by Tamil mobs throughout the Batticaloa and Jaffna districts. As the first full-scale race riot in the country in over forty years, the events of 1958 shattered the trust the communities had in one another and led to further polarisation.

Sri Lankan state-sponsored colonization schemes is the government program of settling mostly Sinhalese farmers from the densely populated wet zone into the sparsely populated areas of the dry zone. This has taken place since the 1950s near tanks and reservoirs being built in major irrigation and hydro-power programs such as the Mahaweli project.

The policy of standardization was a policy implemented by the Sri Lankan government in 1971 to curtail the number of Tamil students selected for certain faculties in the universities. In 1972, the government added a district quota as a parameter within each language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burning of Jaffna Public Library</span> 1981 event during the Sri Lankan civil war

The burning of the Jaffna Public Library took place on the night of June 1, 1981, when an organized mob of Sinhalese individuals went on a rampage, burning the library. It was one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the 20th century. At the time of its destruction, the library was one of the biggest in Asia, containing over 97,000 books and manuscripts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1977 anti-Tamil pogrom</span> Second islandwide Sinhalese-Tamil clash in Sri Lanka

The 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka followed the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalistic Tamil United Liberation Front won a plurality of minority Sri Lankan Tamil votes. In the elections, the party stood for secession. An official government estimate put the death toll at 125, whereas other sources estimate that around 300 Tamils were killed by Sinhalese mobs. Human rights groups, such as the UTHR-J, accused the newly elected UNP-led government of orchestrating the violence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">S. J. V. Chelvanayakam</span> Sri Lankan politician (1898–1977)

Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam was a Ceylonese lawyer, politician and Member of Parliament. He was the founder and leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and a political leader of the Ceylon Tamil community for more than two decades. Chelvanayakam has been described as a father figure to Ceylon's Tamils, to whom he was known as "Thanthai Chelva".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamil Eelam</span> Proposed independent state in Sri Lanka

Tamil Eelam is a proposed independent state that many Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Eelam Tamil diaspora aspire to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Large sections of the North-East were under de facto control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for most of the 1990s–2000s during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Tamil Eelam, although encompassing the traditional homelands of Eelam Tamils, does not have official status or recognition by world states. The name is derived from the ancient Tamil name for Sri Lanka, Eelam.

Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism is the conviction of the Sri Lankan Tamil people, a minority ethnic group in the South Asian island country of Sri Lanka, that they have the right to constitute an independent or autonomous political community. This idea has not always existed. Sri Lankan Tamil national awareness began during the era of British rule during the nineteenth century, as Tamil Hindu revivalists tried to counter Protestant missionary activity. The revivalists, led by Arumuga Navalar, used literacy as a tool to spread Hinduism and its principles.

The Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact was an agreement signed between the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and the leader of the main Tamil political party in Sri Lanka S. J. V. Chelvanayakam on July 26, 1957. It advocated the creation of a series of regional councils in Sri Lanka as a means to giving a certain level of autonomy to the Tamil people of the country, and was intended to solve the communal disagreements that were occurring in the country at the time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1956 anti-Tamil pogrom</span> First major Sinhalese-Tamil clash in Ceylon

The 1956 anti-Tamil pogrom, also known as the Gal Oya riots, was the first organised pogrom against Sri Lankan Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon. It began with anti-Tamil rioting in Colombo, followed by anti-Sinhalese rioting in the Batticaloa District. The worst of the violence took place in the Gal Oya valley after the Batticaloa attacks, where local majority Sinhalese colonists and employees of the Gal Oya Development Board commandeered government vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils. It is estimated that over 150 people, mostly Tamils, had died during the violence. The police and army were eventually able to bring the situation under control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi</span> Political party in Sri Lanka

Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi is a Sri Lankan political party which represents the Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic minority in the country. It was originally founded in 1949 as a breakaway faction of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC). In 1972, ITAK merged with the ACTC and Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) to form the Tamil United Front, which later changed its name to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). ITAK remained dormant until 2004 when a split in the TULF resulted in ITAK being re-established as an active political party. ITAK is a constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance.

Task Force Anti Illicit Immigration (TAFII) was a task force deployed by the Sri Lanka Army from 1963 from 1981 to counter illegal immigration from South India. It was the first field formation deployed by the Ceylon Army and had its headquarters at Palaly.

The following lists events that happened during 1983 in Sri Lanka.

The Eksath Bhikkhu Peramuna was an umbrella organization consisting of two associations of Buddhist monks founded in 1956 in the Dominion of Ceylon to promote Sinhalese Buddhist interests in politics. It campaigned against the United National Party (UNP) and helped to bring the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna to power in the 1956 general election. It became defunct following the assassination of Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.

References

  1. ↑ Spencer, J, Sri Lankan history and roots of conflict, p. 23
  2. ↑ "Sri Lanka Summary". Jonathan Spencer. Archived from the original on 2008-06-11. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  3. 1 2 Imtiyaz, A.R.M.; Bandarage, Asoka (2009). "The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka: Understanding the Conflict Beyond the Iron Law of Terrorism". Asia Policy (8): 168–173. ISSN   1559-0968. JSTOR   24904958.
  4. 1 2 "BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Sri Lanka: The ethnic divide". news.bbc.co.uk.
  5. ↑ "Welcome to UTHRJ".
  6. ↑ Mendis, G. C. , The causes of communal conflict in Ceylon (1943) http://dlib.pdn.ac.lk/handle/123456789/1109
  7. ↑ Mendis, G. C. , The causes of communal conflict in Ceylon (1943) http://dlib.pdn.ac.lk/handle/123456789/1109
  8. 1 2 "The Sri Lankan Civil War and Its History, Revisited in 2020". Harvard International Review. 31 August 2020.
  9. ↑ Ceylon Constitution 1945, https://ia600703.us.archive.org/24/items/CeylonConstitution-1945/CeylonConstitution.pdf pp.48-50
  10. ↑ Wijeratne Mudiyanselage Don Dayananda Andradi, 1967, English educated Ceylonese in the official life of Ceylon from 1865 to 1883, PhD thesis, University of London https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/34090/1/11015906.pdf p.240
  11. ↑ S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Prime Minister (4 June 1958). Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . Dominion of Ceylon: House of Representatives. p.930
  12. ↑ E. F. C. Ludowyk, 1966, The Modern History of Ceylon, p.246
  13. ↑ Kearney, Robert N. (1964). "Sinhalese Nationalism and Social Conflict in Ceylon". Pacific Affairs. 37 (2): 125–136. doi:10.2307/2753947. ISSN   0030-851X. JSTOR   2753947.
  14. ↑ De Silva, M.U. (2004). "Suppression of Buddhism under the British and the Resistance of the Buddhists". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. 49: 15–52. ISSN   1391-720X. JSTOR   23732425.
  15. ↑ Silva, K. M. De; M, K. (2005). A History of Sri Lanka. Penguin Books India. ISBN   9789558095928.
  16. ↑ Gunasingam, Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, p. 108
  17. ↑ Gunasingam, Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, p. 201
  18. ↑ Gunasingam, Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, p. 76
  19. ↑ K. M. de Sila, History of Sri Lanka, Penguin 1995
  20. ↑ November 1948 Archived 2009-01-19 at the Wayback Machine , Peace and Conflict Timeline
  21. ↑ Suren Raghavan, Defending Buddhism by Fighting Federalism Ethnoreligious Nationalism of the Sinhala Sangha and Peacemaking in Sri Lanka: 1995-2010, PhD thesis, 2013, p.20
  22. ↑ R. Cheran (April 2009) Roots of Sri Lankan conflict at The Real News
  23. ↑ "Tamil Politics". Russell R. Ross. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  24. 1 2 "Tamil Alienation". Russell R. Ross. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  25. 1 2 The Root Causes of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka
  26. ↑ Chelvadurai Manogaran, Ethnic conflict and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, University of Hawaii press, 1987, p116
  27. ↑ A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, The Break-up of Sri Lanka The Sinhalese-Tamil Conflict, Hurst Publishers, 1988, p131
  28. ↑ C.R. Da Silva, The impact of Nationalism on Education: The school Take-over 1961 and the University Admissions Crisis 1970-1975, Collective Identities, Nationalism, and Protests in Modern Sri Lanka, pp.486
  29. ↑ Wilson, A.J. Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, pp. 101–110
  30. 1 2 3 4 "Tamil Militant Groups". Russell R. Ross. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  31. ↑ Marschall, Wolfgang (2003). "Social Change Among Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in Switzerland". Archived from the original on 2007-12-05. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  32. ↑ "BBCSinhala.com". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  33. ↑ "U.S.ENGLISH Foundation Official Language Research - Sri Lanka: Language issues". Archived from the original on 2008-02-09. Retrieved 2007-11-02.
  34. ↑ Chelvadurai Manogaran, Ethnic conflict and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, University of Hawaii press, 1987, p116
  35. ↑ A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, The Break-up of Sri Lanka The Sinhalese-Tamil Conflict, Hurst Publishers, 1988, p131
  36. ↑ C.R. Da Silva, The impact of Nationalism on Education: The school Take-over 1961 and the University Admissions Crisis 1970-1975, Collective Identities, Nationalism, and Protests in Modern Sri Lanka, pp.486
  37. ↑ A. J. Wilson (1 January 2000). Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. UBC Press. pp. 114–. ISBN   978-0-7748-0759-3 . Retrieved 14 March 2013.
  38. ↑ "Unesco Quarterly Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 1". UNESCO. June–September 2004. Archived from the original on 2004-12-23. Retrieved 2006-08-07.
  39. ↑ "Two decades after the burning down of the Jaffna library in Sri Lanka". World Socialist Web Site. 30 May 2001. Retrieved 2006-08-07.
  40. ↑ Community, Gender and Violence, edited by Partha Chatterjee, Pradeep Jeganathan
  41. ↑ Rajan Hoole, Black July: Further Evidence Of Advance Planning https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/black-july-further-evidence-of-advance-planning/
  42. ↑ Rajan Hoole, Sri Lanka’s Black July: Borella, 24th Evening https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lankas-black-july-borella-24th-evening/
  43. ↑ T. Sabaratnam, Pirapaharan, Volume 2, Chapter 2 – The Jaffna Massacre (2003)
  44. ↑ T. Sabaratnam, Pirapaharan, Volume 2, Chapter 3 – The Final Solution (2003)
  45. ↑ T. Sabaratnam, Pirapaharan, Volume 2, Chapter 4 – Massacre of Prisoners (2003)
  46. ↑ T. Sabaratnam, Pirapaharan, Volume 2, Chapter 5 – The Second Massacre (2003)
  47. ↑ A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, The Break-up of Sri Lanka: The Sinhalese-Tamil Conflict. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. p.173
  48. ↑ Nidheesh, MK (2 September 2016). "Book review: The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by Neena Gopal". Live Mint. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
  49. ↑ E.M. Thornton & Niththyananthan, R. – Sri Lanka, Island of Terror – An Indictment, ( ISBN   0 9510073 0 0), 1984, Appendix A
  50. 1 2 Pratap, Anita (August 1983). "A drop of blood in the Indian Ocean". Sunday, Vol. 11, No. 4. India. pp.34-39
  51. 1 2 Harrison, Frances (23 July 2003). "Twenty years on – riots that led to war". BBC News .
  52. 1 2 Aspinall, Jeffrey & Regan 2013, p. 104.
  53. 1 2 Buerk, Roland (23 July 2008). "Sri Lankan families count cost of war". BBC News .
  54. ↑ "Recorded figures of Arrests, Killings, Disappearances".
  55. ↑ "Peace and Conflict Timeline: 24 July 1983". Centre for Poverty Analysis. Archived from the original on 29 July 2013. Retrieved 22 July 2013.
  56. ↑ "ICJ Review no. 31 (December 1983)" (PDF). p. 24. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 March 2014.
  57. ↑ Sivakumar, Chitra (2001). Transformation in the Sri Lankan Tamil Militant Discourse. Madras: University of Madras. p.323
  58. ↑ Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja (1986). Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   0-226-78952-7.
  59. ↑ "Black July '83". Blackjuly83.com. Retrieved 2022-05-30.
  60. ↑ "Ghosts of Black July still haunt Sri Lanka". Daily FT . Colombo. 26 July 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2024.

Bibliography


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.