The Sri Lankan Civil War was a conflict which was fought on the island of Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009. The conflict centered on tensions between the Sinhalese majority that make up approximately 75% of the population of the country and the Tamil minority, which constitutes between 11% and 20% depending on the definitions being used. The Tamils may be substantially in the minority on Sri Lanka as a whole, but they are concentrated in the north and east of the island, in some parts of which they are in a substantial majority. The civil war was launched by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, colloquially known as the Tamil Tigers, in an effort to forge their own independent state after decades of Sinhalese persecution. The conflict was intermittent for a period of quarter of a century before a brutal government suppression of the Tamil independence movement in 2009 crushed the revolt at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. Both sides engaged in policies designed to limit migration from their territory during the civil war, but even still it led to the emergence of a Sri Lankan diaspora in countries like Australia, Britain and Canada.[1]
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Sri Lankan Civil War chronology of eventsSri Lankan Civil War chronology of events
There were both short-term and long-term causes of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Thousands of years ago the ancestors of both the Tamil and Sinhalese people settled on the island. These division between these two groups might have reduced over time had it not been for lingual and religious differences. Most notably, the Tamils of Sri Lanka primarily adhere to Hinduism, while the Sinhalese people are overwhelmingly Buddhist. There is also a third ethnic grouping of significance on Sri Lanka, the Moors, a Muslim community that are generally a mix of Arabs and Indians who settled here centuries ago and Tamils who intermarried with them and generally converted to Islam. The Tamil population constitutes about 11% of the overall on Sri Lanka, but the Moor population, which has a closer affinity with the Tamils, makes up another 9%.[2]
These historic tensions came to the surface again after Sri Lanka acquired independence from Britain in 1948. The Sinhalese dominated independent Sri Lanka politically, socially and economically and persecuted the Tamil minority from the very inception of the state. For instance, in May 1958 riots in Ceylon resulted in the massacre of hundreds of ethnic Tamils.[3] One of the major sparks of the civil war in the early 1980s was the burning of Jaffna Public Library in the city of Jaffna, the ancient capital of the medieval Tamil kingdom on the northern end of the island. This, combined with numerous other incidents, led the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, founded in 1976, to commence an organized war of resistance against the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government in July 1983. Their goal was to establish a Tamil-dominated breakaway state that would control the north and east of Sri Lanka where the Tamils were concentrated.[4]
The Sir Lankan Civil War would last for 26 years. It was not an even clash between two powerful states. Instead the much weaker Tamils engaged in an insurgency and guerilla war, often using terrorist tactics. This infamously even extended to India where, despite widespread support for the Tamil cause, particularly in the state of Tamil Nadu in south-eastern India, the Tamil Tigers orchestrated the assassination of the former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991. Suicide bombings and other attacks were also resorted to by the Tamil Tigers. Intense violence characterized the 1990s before peace negotiations were entered into in the early 2000s. These ultimately faltered and from 2006 onwards extensive violence resumed, such that some groups have characterized this era as one of a quasi-Tamil genocide.[5] In the spring of 2009 the Sri Lankan government launched a considerable military offensive against the Tamil strongholds in the north and along the east coast. This destructive campaign resulted in the complete defeat of the Tamil Tigers and the death of their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in a shootout on the 18th of May 2009, effectively bringing the civil war to an end.[6]
Extent of migration associated with the Sri Lankan Civil WarExtent of migration associated with the Sri Lankan Civil War
Both the Tamil Tigers and the Sinhalese government were anxious to avoid mass flight of their populations to India or other countries in order to escape the violence. Despite this, there was a steady stream of people who left the island in the course of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, while some considerable Tamil migration has continued since 2009 as the Sinhalese-dominated government has resumed its persecutory policies. The bulk of this migration has involved some 800,000 Tamils, though some Sinhalese and Moors have also left the island over the decades, pushed out by the conflict. Migration has been most extensive to neighboring India and other members of the British Commonwealth such as Britain, Australia and Canada, while there has also been immigration to the Persian Gulf region.[7]
Demographic impact of the Sri Lankan Civil WarDemographic impact of the Sri Lankan Civil War
The Sri Lankan Civil War furthered the emergence of an extensive Sir Lankan diaspora in several countries and many people in these regions today will be able to trace their ancestry to the impact of tensions in Sri Lanka either since independence in 1948 or the outbreak of the civil war in 1983. For instance, there are nearly 150,000 people of Sri Lankan heritage in Australia today, of both Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicity. As of 2021 there were 135,000 Sri Lankans in Canada and a similar number in the United Kingdom. There are also tens of thousands of Tamil Sri Lankans in France and Germany today. In recent times both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have also become centers of the Sri Lankan diaspora. Some of this can be traced to lingering interethnic tensions at home in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended in 2009.[8]
See alsoSee also
Explore more about the Sri Lankan Civil WarExplore more about the Sri Lankan Civil War
- The Sri Lankan Conflict at Council on Foreign Relations
- The Sri Lankan Civil War and its History, Revisited in 2020 in Harvard International Review
- The Case of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora at European University Institute
References
- ↑ https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/sri-lankan-conflict
- ↑ Marshall R. Singer, ‘Sri Lanka’s Tamil-Sinhalese Ethnic Conflict’, in Asian Survey, Vol. 32, No. 8 (August, 1992), pp. 712–722.
- ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12004081
- ↑ https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/the-burning-of-jaffna-public-library-sri-lankas-first-step-toward-civil-war/
- ↑ https://hir.harvard.edu/sri-lankan-civil-war/
- ↑ https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/14/15-years-sri-lankas-conflict-ended-no-justice-war-crimes
- ↑ Manohair, Velamati, ‘Sri Lankan Tamil Migration and Settlement: Time for Reconsideration’, in India Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 3 (July – September, 2009), pp. 271–294.
- ↑ https://theconversation.com/why-the-increase-in-sri-lankan-asylum-seekers-10575