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Sri Lanka Key characteristics: • 20 million people • Mid-range GDP per capita • Mountainous terrain in the center • Religious breakdown: 70% Buddhist; 13% Hindu; 10% Muslim; 7% Christian • Off the coast from Tamil region of Indian mainland • Commodity-driven economy that has experienced rapid development • Economically most developed in the West around the capital, Colombo 0 Ethnic geography of Sri Lanka Tamil areas Indian Tamils Muslim areas Sinhala areas 1 Historical developments in Sri Lankan politics • Colonized by Britain in 1815 as the island of Ceylon • Independence from Britain in 1948 with a new democratic government; Ceylon citizenship act disenfranchises Indian Tamils • Prime Minister Bandaranaike (elected in 1956) introduces Sinhala only act • 1958 riots lead to thousands of Tamil deaths; PM Bandaranaike assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959 The Tamil Tigers became famous • Marxist Sinhalese revolts in the 1970s for their female fighters and late 1980s leads to mass repression • Tamil militancy develops in the 1970s in response to “standardization” policies that reduce Tamil influence 2 Origins of the Sri Lankan conflict • Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) envisions an The rise of the Tamil Tigers • • Long-term causes • Tamil advantages under the colonial period (English) • Religious justifications for Buddhist superiority • Short-term causes autonomous Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka (1972) Tamil New Tigers formed by Prabhakaran in 1972 modeled in part on the Marxist revolutionaries The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launch an insurgency beginning in 1983 entrenched in national mythology of Sinhalese as a vulnerable chosen people Lack of Tamil faith that democratic participation can bring any relief from discrimination • Destruction of the Jaffna library by police (1981) • “Black July” 1983 massacre against Tamils kill • several thousand Government experience fighting the JVP rebellion leads to mistreatment of civilians 3 Patterns of conflict Terrorism and conventional warfare • Tigers had the world’s most highly sophisticated • suicide bombing operation; ex: assassination of Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi (1991), Sri Lankan President Primadasa (1999) Tigers developed their own navy “sea tigers,” merchant marine “sea pigeons,” and airforce • An Indian peacekeeping force intervenes 1987-1990 Indian intervention • • without Tiger agreement; Tamils to receive some autonomy; Tigers to disarm in a political agreement Leads to second Marxist insurrection (JVP) because of fears of Indian imperialism Indian withdrawal after battles with the Tamil Tigers leave 1200 Indian troops dead • Tigers reject the rigid Hindu cast system and Civilian involvement • • • • traditional gender roles Active use of child soldiers; including by abduction LTTE funding from the large Tamil diaspora abroad Tamils built a functioning parallel state under which many Tamils lived Sri Lankan army uses mass punishment of civilians 4 Counterfactual exercise In what ways could this conflict end? 5 The end of the Sri Lankan war Failed peace agreement (2002) Results of the conflict • Context of international rejection • Conflict formally lasted 26 years of terror after 9/11 • Mediated by Norway; with a • About 100,000 people killed, mostly civilians Nordic monitoring mission • Tigers withdraw from peace talks in 2003 and begin to regroup • Internal Tamil fighting starts between Northern and Eastern forces; Eastern defection to government • Hard-liner Mahinda Rajapaksa The military victory • By 2008, the government masses forces in the North • Tamil Tigers are defeated and Prabhakaran is killed, May 2009 • 40,000 civilians (mostly Tamil) killed in the final stages of the war elected as PM (2004) • Fighting begins again in 2006, and the Tamils assert statehood • The Tamil National Alliance gives up its demand for statehood in favor of a federal solution 6 Issues in the resolution of the Sri Lankan war Civilian protection • Tiger use of civilians as shields and as shock troops • Systematic army artillery attacks in civilian areas lead • • • to mass casualties No real attempts have been made to bring perpetrators of massacres to justice Use of ethnic cleansing and “internal colonization” to dilute the Tamil communal threat Attacks on the Muslim community from both sides • Can the Tamil minority regain Integration of the Tamil minority • • • confidence in the Sri Lankan state? Does it matter to the state if the Tamils are reintegrated? Does truth-telling in the conflict matter to its resolution? No real progress on this front to date Prabhakaran defeated 7 Assessing the virtues of military victories Benefits and Liabilities: • Probability of a more stable outcome • Government victories tend to be less stable, however • Popular relief at popular stability • Low incentives to deal with underlying grievances • The human rights question: is it ok to Rajapaksa’s triumph? unequivocally destroy your opponents? 8