The political system, society and economy of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) were thoroughly shaken up by more than a quarter of a century-old conflict (1983-2009) between the Sinhalese majority government (75% of the population) and the Tamil separatist guerrilla led by the organisation of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The latter which controlled vast territories between 1990 and 2007 in the north and east of the island, and had built a force capable of inflicting heavy losses on the Colombo Army, has lost most of its territories and military potential since 2008, and finds itself driven to defeat on a cramped coastal strip, where it was retaining about fifty thousand civilians, by the end of April 2009, to use them as a human shield. After suspending hostilities for two days on the occasion of Sinhalese and Tamil new year (14th April), fights resumed and the Sri Lankan Army moved forward till the sea, triggering a mass exodus of civilians, which as of 29^th April, continued under disastrous sanitary conditions.

Geopolitcal map of Sri Lanka,
© Philippe Rekacewicz, Atlas du Monde diplomatique 2009
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/

But LTTE’s predicted defeat does not settle serious problems accumulated over the years and makes Sri Lanka the sick man of South-Asia. The chronic agitation of the ‘ultra-nationalist’ Sinhalese groups adds to the separatist claim of the Tamils of the North and East of the island (about 18% of the population), being orchestrated by two organisations: the Marxist-run Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (Liberation Front of the People), but now highly xenophobic, responsible for two revolutionary waves severely repressed by the ruling party in 1971 and 1987-89; and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (Heritage of the Sinhalese Nation), inspired by fundamentalist Buddhist monks.

Moreover, the years of war, rebellion and repression, that killed about a hundred thousand people, have left behind permanent scars, broken-up families, a culture of violence and impunity. They have struck almost irremediable blows to a democracy and a Welfare-State that were considered models until the 1970s. The 2004 December Tsunami aggravated the situation. Finally the economy of the country, liberalised, from the early 1980s, based on the « dragons » of Eastern Asia model, was not able to take full advantage of the spate of growth, unlike that of its neighbours, and finds itself today crippled as much by war as the world crisis.

In this context, the Government Army’s victories could change the deal for the time being, by justifying the government’s strategy, and by reducing the cost of up-keep of order. But they run two major risks:

• That of losing sight of the crying need for giving a political answer to the minorities’ claim, either in a federal form, or by a power-sharing at the centre

• That of giving a dominant role in the State, like in Pakistan, to the 200 000 strong Army, difficult to demobilise.

The numerous violations against human rights, particularly affecting journalists, since the beginning of 2009, which add to the police torture that has become part of everyday life and unbridled activities of Mafia-like armies stemming from militant groups united by the government or not, are so many signs of the critical state of the Sri Lankan democracy. In a context of intense polarisation, the actors of the conflict, both Tamils and Sinhalese, develop ultranationalist speeches that spurn the historical truth, in the country itself and in the Diaspora. What motivates the LTTE leaders is the individual sacrifice for collective cause, represented by the founder of the movement, Prabhakaran, and they have made a perfect heroine out of the kamikaze woman, following the Indian tradition of sati – the widow who sacrifices herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. By the same token, the last patch of Tigers is likely to sacrifice itself in a mass suicide like the Jauhar of the Indian Rajputs. How has it come to this, for Ceylon was reputed for its gentle pleasures of life that travel agents still sell to blind tourists?

At the roots of violence

This complex conflict lived on the identity assertion of linguistic and religious groups from the end of the 19th century, but it reached its full extent only in the middle of the 20th century. Until the end of the British colonial period (1796-1948), the two main linguistic communities – the Sinhalese and the native speakers of Tamil, who represented respectively 75 % and 25 % of the population, had coexisted peacefully. After attaining independence smoothly, a Sinhalese identity movement developed that considered that the majority of the population had been a victim of the preference shown to Tamils during foreign domination. From 1956, Sinhalese took the place of English as the only official language. Besides, Theravada Buddhism, the dominant religion with the Sinhalese, enjoyed an increasingly official recognition. The Sinhalese-Buddhist identity asserted itself to the detriment of the Tamil minorities, which included Shivaite Hindus (about 15%), Christians especially Catholics (3%), and Sunni Muslims (7%).

The Tamils originating from the region of Jaffna, at the far north of the island, developed entrepreneurial activities. This minority, prematurely provided with formal education in English, found jobs in the colonial administration and expatriated to Malaysia and Singapore from the 19th century. It had suffered a lot from the change in the official language. On the other hand, the Tamil Muslims, many of them businessmen, had not met with the same fate and did not interfere in any agitation. As for the Tamils settled down as coolies in the tea plantations of the centre of the island since the 19th century, they were prevented from acquiring citizenship for a long time, but did not have the means to go on a strike. Therefore only the Jaffna Tamils gave a political slant to the feeling of discrimination of which they considered themselves victims, by claiming an autonomy status, then independence, for the north and east provinces called « Tamil Eelam ».

Tamil women harvesting tea in Nuwara Eliya,
© 1997 / IRD - Marc Bournof

In the 1970s, the movement, which expressed itself peacefully through the voice of the Tamil deputies without producing any results, was swamped by militant organisations created by young people to whom university education had been refused through the interplay of a quota system. Those who could, left for English-speaking countries, while those who did not have the means ventured into clandestine action and formed about ten groups. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) became the strongest, eliminating or absorbing their competitors. In 1983, after a separatist attack on the Army, a sort of pogrom took place at Colombo against Tamils as a reprisal. This violence perpetrated by those close to the government gave rise to a wave of mass emigration either towards the north of the country, or towards the West where immigrants obtained political refugee status. The Sri Lankan Tamils acquired an international visibility at that point. It was the emigrants who were going to become the most ardent supporters of the Tamil separatism, by virtue of a classical phenomenon of « remote nationalism».

From 1987, India, which secretly supported the militant organisations, intervened and asked the Sri Lankan government to grant a particular status to the provinces of the North and East with a Tamil majority. But the separatists turned their weapons against India, accused it of playing into the Sinhalese hands for having accepted the principle of territorial integrity of the country. The Indians withdrew, leaving the field free to the Tigers, who took control of the North and the East of the island till 1994-1995, while the Colombo government, battling against the Sinhalese rebellion of the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna, indulged in a merciless crackdown. The Tigers showed their strength but alienated India’s support by assassinating in 1991 Rajiv Gandhi, who was behind the Indian intervention, then the Sinhalese President Premadasa in 1993.

At the end of this era of terror, an attempt at negotiation between the new President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and the masters of Jaffna was aborted. The government opted for a military solution. In 1995, the Army was sent to take back Jaffna and clear the route A7 that linked the city with the centre of the island. Having preserved the control of this axis, the Tigers fell back into the interior and made the market town of Kilinochchi their « capital »: about 200 000 persons left Jaffna to follow the LTTE, by fair means or foul. Tens of thousands of young got enrolled, parents having to provide at least one of their children for the cause. Between Kilinochchi and the port of Mullaittivu, the Tigers built a strong military base equipped with modern telecommunications facilities, a flotilla of fast patrol boats and even runways, from where tourism planes equipped with bombs took off. They financed their military efforts by collecting significant sums of money from the Diaspora, whose number increased with those who fled in the face of conflict, and by setting up international arms traffic with the help of a fleet of underworld cargos criss-crossing the Indian Ocean. They increased the number of suicide bombers in the south: The President just missed it in 1999, and the Colombo airport was targeted in 2001, which led to the decline of an economy revolving round tourism.

Tamil refugees, © 2009 / Eric Meyer

But, after 2001, the international community watched over the financial channels of suspect terrorist organisations. The Tigers, buckling under pressure, called a truce in the beginning of 2002, following negotiations under the aegis of Norway. The political negotiations that had to be part of the truce did not make headway, with the government making highly implausible proposals and the Tigers refusing all international supervision. The balance of power got readjusted in 2004, with the defection of the LTTE Head of the east of the island, Karuna. Then Tsunami struck the zones controlled by the Tigers and destroyed one part of their military infrastructures. Humanitarian aid that reached the victims became a stake, the government and Tigers vying with each other to control it. The conflict resumed at the initiative of the LTTE with the assassination of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tamil origin. The new President Rajapakse, elected by a narrow margin in 2005, in the face of the  former Prime minister and initiator of the truce, thanks to the instruction of abstention launched by the Tigers, could count on Karuna’s collaboration whose troops became aids of the regular Army. The Sri Lankan Navy managed to sink the LTTE merchant fleet in the international waters, and resisted attacks by the fast enemy patrol boats. The governmental troops took back the control of the coasts and the route A9 at the end of 2008, the Tigers left their « capital » Kilinochchi, lost their fortified positions between January and March 2009 and were besieged along the north-east coast with the civilians who had followed them, with none other hope of escaping the hoop net than to appeal to an international humanitarian intervention that the image of LTTE as terrorist organisation rendered implausible, in spite of the mobilisation of the Tamil Diaspora in the West.

The future of Sri Lanka depends on the capacity of its leaders in showing generosity in victory and accepting the emergence of a new leadership for the Tamil community, and on the capacity of the Tamil Diaspora in recognising the mistakes that it has committed by giving an unconditional support to the Tigers.

Bibliography

Le Monde Diplomatique, march 2009,

Eric Meyer, Sri Lanka entre particularismes et mondialisation. Paris, La documentation Française, 2001.

Eric Meyer, Sri Lanka, Biography of an Island. Colombo, Viator Publications, 2nd ed., 2006.