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A Brief History of Sri Lankan Violence

When the Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in the 16th century, the island was divided into three kingdoms – the Tamil-speaking Jaffna kingdom in the north and east of the island, the Sinhala-speaking kingdom Kotte kingdom along the south-western coast, and the Sinhala-speaking Kandy kingdom in the central highlands. The Portuguese captured Kotte in 1505 and Jaffna in 1615. Both the Portuguese and the Dutch who followed them were unable to capture Kandy. The Dutch ceded Kotte and Jaffna to the British in 1796. The British captured Kandy in 1815 and amalgamated all three kingdoms in to the Crown Colony of Ceylon in 1833.[1]

The roots of Sri Lanka’s civil war lie in the Buddhist revivalist movement, which began in the mid-1800’s. Their goal was to re-create the imagined glorious days of Buddhism and fulfill a prophecy told in The Mahavamsa – that Sinhalese kings would conquer and rule the entire island, creating a Buddhist state dedicated to the fostering of Buddhist ideals. [2] The prime targets of the Buddhist revivalist movement were therefore the British colonialists, Colombo’s English-speaking (largely Christian) elite, and Tamils. The British left in 1948, without granting any minority safeguards or devolution of power to the Tamil minority. The Buddhist revivalist movement morphed into Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, which resulted in the coming to power of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party in 1956 [3].

The Tamils have been systematically disempowered, disenfranchised, and eliminated since 1948. 1 million Tamils had their citizenship taken away in 1948. This reduced Tamil representation in Parliament from 33% to 20%, making it impossible for Tamils to effectively oppose Sinhalese policy affecting them, including constitutional amendments. [4]

State-sponsored colonization schemes were implemented throughout traditionally Tamil areas. Hundreds of thousands of Sinhalese settlers were brought into the Tamil-dominated north and east, drastically altering the demographics of many districts and further reducing Tamil representation in Parliament. Hundreds of Tamil villages were wiped off the map and many districts were renamed in Sinhala. The Sri Lankan military established outposts to ‘protect’ the settlers and trained “Home Guards” – civilian militia who routinely engaged in violence against neighbouring Tamil villages. [5]

The Sinhala Only Act was passed in 1956, making Sinhala the sole official language across the island. Sinhalese proficiency standards were imposed for government jobs. Tamil parliamentarians were unable to stop the passing of the legislation and took to non-violent sit-ins, effectively shutting down the north and east. Protesters were brutally beaten and/or arrested.

State-sponsored anti-Tamil riots were unleashed against Tamils living in Sinhalese regions of the island. [6] These anti-Tamil riots would recur once or twice every 10 years, with increasing brutality and state-collusion. Tamil civilians were (without provocation) beaten, raped, and humiliated by Sinhalese mobs as well as Sri Lankan policemen and soldiers. The Tamil financial base across the Sinhalese areas (including the capital city) was systematically eliminated. [7]

In 1971, A ‘standardization’ scheme was implemented to restrict Tamil admissions to university. The national discourse, including school textbooks were significantly “Sinhalized”, denying the historical Tamil presence on the island and constructing the island as a Sinhala Buddhist country. [8], [9]. [10]

The constitution was changed in 1972. Buddhism was made the state religion and the name of the country was changed from ‘Ceylon’ to the Sinhalese name ‘Sri Lanka’. The flag of the island retained the Lion – the symbol of the Sinhalese ethnicity (‘Sinha’ itself means lion)

Throughout this time period, Tamil resistance to majoritarian persecution was non-violent and called for a federal system of government, with administrative and legislative powers devolved to the Tamil regions. This is all before the advent of the LTTE.

In May 1976, a coalition of Tamil political parties (the TULF - Tamil United Liberation Front) drafted the now famous Vaddukoddai Resolution, which resolved to: “restore and reconstitute the free, sovereign, secular socialist state of Tamil Eelam based on the right of self determination inherent to every nation in order to safeguard the very existence of the Tamil nation in this country.” [11] The TULF called for a referendum on separation in accordance with the Vaddukoddai resolution, which the government refused and they asked the Tamil electorate to consider a vote for the TULF in the 1977 Parliamentary elections to be equivalent to a vote in favour of the resolution and of separation. The TULF won 18 of the 23 districts in which they contested. [12]

This prompted anti-Tamil riots in 1977, the burning of the Jaffna Library (which contained over 90,000 ancient manuscripts of the Jaffna kingdom) and a brutal week of anti-Tamil riots in 1983. Thousands of Tamils were killed in a week of rioting and over 100,000 Tamils were displaced. The entire Tamil commercial base in Sri Lanka (which comprised 80% of the wholesale trade and 60% of the retail trade) was destroyed. Tamils fled the country in the tens of thousands, many of them eventually settling in Canada.

The Sri Lankan president remarked:

“I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people. .. now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion… The more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy.” [13]

The 1983 anti-Tamil riots prompted the Tamil community to turn towards the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to fulfil the Vaddukoddai resolution and establish a secular, socialist Tamil Eelam through armed resistance.

Dissent of the government policy of Sinhalization is promptly squashed. Over 100,000 Tamils have been killed since 1983. Over 1 million Tamils have fled the country and another million remain internally displaced. In 1983, when the war began, the country only had 4 million Tamils (of a population of 17 million). The current President and his ministers have openly stated that Sri Lanka is only for the Sinhalese and the “Sinhalization” of areas previously controlled by Tigers has begun in earnest.

The government is herding refugees into what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are calling ‘concentration camps’. No one is allowed to visit them; not family members, NGO workers, or journalists. No records are kept of who goes in and no one is allowed to leave. The UN Human Rights Commissioner has warned the Sri Lankan government of engaging in crimes against humanity. The Sri Lankan armed forces have been using artillery, air strikes, and naval bombardments on areas that they themselves have declared no-fire zones. This includes hospitals, orphanages, and refugee camps. It is the reporting of these acts that prompted the Sri Lankan government to ask all NGO workers and journalists to leave the Tamil areas.

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QUICK FACTS

More Tamils have been killed in Sri Lanka in the last 4 months than in the Srebrenica massacre, for which Serbian officials were charged with war crimes.

Canada provides financial aid to Sri Lanka and has provided diplomatic support for its war against the Tamil people.

Over 300,000 Canadians have brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers whose lives are threatened daily or taken.

The United States has trained Sri Lankan military officers and have procured air force bombers and naval attack craft for them.

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[1] E.F.C. Ludowyk, “The Modern History of History”, Weidenfield and Nicolson (London), 1966

[2] Alan Strathern, “Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land “,Cambridge 2007

[3] S. Arasaratnam, “Ceylon”, Prentice-Hall (New Jersey), 1964

[4] Virginia. Leary, “The Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka”, International Commission of Jurists (Geneva), August 1981

[5] N. DeVotta, “Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka”, Stanford University Press, 2004

[6] T. Vittachi, “Emergency ’58: The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots”, Andre Deutsch, 1958

[7] The Economist, August 8 1983, p. 43; The Economist, August 20 1983, p. 43

[8] J.C.A. Corea, “One Hundred Years of Education in Ceylon”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1969), pp. 151-175

[9] J. Spencer, “Writing Within Anthropology: Nationalism and Culture in Sri Lanka”, Current Anthropology, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jun., 1990), pp. 283-300

[10] E. Leach, “Buddhism in the Post-Colonial Political Order in Burma and Ceylon”, Daedalus, Vol. 102, No. 1, Post-Traditional Societies (Winter, 1973), pp. 29-54

[11] Vaddukoddai Resolution, reproduced: http://www.sangam.org/articles/view/?id=377

[12] Sri Lanka Dept of Elections: http://www.slelections.gov.lk/index.html

[13]Daily Telegraph (London), 11th July 1983

Information and text c/o unknown Tamil activist

Posted May 11, 2009 at 9:31am || home