Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka

On December 5, 29 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in fighting in Sri Lanka. The country is fast sliding into a civil war as fierce clashes between Tamil rebels and the military have escalated in the wake of a Tamil chief’s death. On November 2, the Tamil Tiger’s political wing leader Thamilselvan was killed in an air force raid. It has been estimated that the sea clashes, ambush and other military attacks have killed about 5,000 people since last year. The deadly ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has hit the country over a long period of time.

Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural polity. The main conflict is between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. The Sinhalese, about 74 percent of the population, are the largest ethnic group and are concentrated in the central, western and southern provinces. They consider themselves to be the original inhabitants of the island. They belong to the Aryan stock and speak the Sinhala language. Sinhalese are mostly Buddhist and follow a culture rooted in Buddhism. The Sri Lankan Tamils who constitute 12.6 percent of the population primarily inhabit the northern and eastern parts of the island and are in large numbers in Colombo.

The factors that have widened the Sinhalese-Tamil rift are complex. Broadly speaking, there have been five major and often interconnected areas of contention between the two parties. These are: language rights, employment, university admission policy, irrigation policy and access to state land and devolution of power to the regional centres. The conflict on language between the Tamils and the Sinhalese became a springboard of ethnic conflict. Up to 1955, it was the policy of the major Sinhalese political parties to provide for the recognition of the Sinhalese and Tamil languages as the official languages of the island. However, in 1955-56 the two major Sinhalese political parties — the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) — reversed their position to supporting the Sinhalese language as the only official language. Thus, the linguistic nationalism of the Sinhalese deepened Tamil nationalism and, in the long run, gave an extra boost to the forces of Tamil separatism.

The Bandaranaike (1956-59) and Dudley Senanayke (1965-70) governments entered into agreements with the Federal Party leader Chelvanayakam to accord limited status to the Tamil language. Intense political competition and pressure from Sangha (Buddhist clergy) frustrated such attempts. In 1965, another pact was signed between PM Senanayke and Chelvanaykam promising that measures would be taken under the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act (No. 28 of 1958) to make provision for the Tamil language to be the language of administration and record in the northern and eastern provinces. The agreement, however, fell through due to the opposition from Sinhala-Buddhist forces. The 1972 Constitution unequivocally consolidated the "Sinhala only" policy and emphasised the essentially subordinate role of the Tamil language.
Likewise, the economic grievances of the Tamils greatly sharpened the ethnic conflict. Tamils and Sinhalese competed over employment in the state sector and over equitable distribution of the benefits of development. Before independence, and until about 1960, Tamils enjoyed a share considerably higher than their population ratio. But after that the discriminatory "Sinhala only" policy led to a sharp decline of Tamils in public sector employment. The proportion of Tamils in the state sector further declined in the post-1984 period. By the mid-1980s, Sri Lankan Tamils accounted for about 12 percent of those employed in the government corporations.

The economic alienation of Tamils was further deepened by the fact that all mega economic projects were located in the Sinhalese-dominated areas and benefited mainly the Sinhalese population.

The question of state land, involving the official settlement of Sinhalese families in areas claimed as "the traditional Tamil homelands" in the north and in the east, has been highly controversial. The Tamils argue that since independence, state-aided colonisation has contributed towards the changing of demographic composition of the homeland of Tamil-speaking people. It was unquestionably true that in the 1950s and 1960s, a great many Sinhalese have been settled in the eastern province through irrigation schemes.

The land settlement policy of Colombo led to a significant change in the ethnic composition in Trincomalee and Ampara districts in the eastern province. The problem was aggravated by a multi-purpose river development project called the Mahaweli Development scheme, which opened up new lands for the Sinhalese settlers. The Tamils oppose land colonisation on several grounds.

First, they feel that they have a prior claim to land in their homeland areas. Second, they fear that they would be swamped by the Sinhalese. Third, they apprehend that it would alter the electoral balance in these areas against them. And fourth, they believe that a homeland in which the Tamils predominated would give them security from ethnic violence. Colombo’s land alienation policy continues to be at the heart of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

This ethnic conflict has taken a heavy death toll in the preceding decades and its cost is mounting day by day. The protracted ethnic strife has led to an increase in the defence expenditure and decrease in social expenditures. This had a negative impact on the human and social development indicators of Sri Lanka. This conflict has weakened Sri Lanka’s commitment to civil liberties and freedom. Today, Sri Lanka’s society is marked by low tolerance, desensitisation to violence, high crime rate and draconian laws. The credibility of the government has taken a dip due to its failure to curb violence, protect minorities and deliver social goods. Further, ever since the intensification of the conflict, the Sri Lankan government and the militants have been found responsible for human rights abuses, disappearances and curbing of the local media.

The continuing conflict has created thousands of internally-displaced people who have been driven out from the war zones of the north and east. In this context, children have become the worst victims of the ethnic strife both as combatants and orphans. The LTTE is one of the first insurgent groups to use children as combatants and suicide bombers from 1983 until now. Assessments of the LTTE soldiers killed in combat during the 1990s found that between 40-60 percent of the dead combatants were children under the age of 17. In addition, there are large numbers of children who have lost one or both parents. As of today, more than 10,000 children live in orphanages.

The past attempts at an acceptable accommodation of the demands of the Tamil minority for equality and identity have remained unsuccessful. On February 22, 2002, Norwegian facilitators brokered a ceasefire agreement between the government and the LTTE. But this third ceasefire agreement too could not ensure peace in this region and the inhabitants of the island continued to suffer. Nowadays, India is playing a hands-off policy because of having a bad experience of the killing of Rajiv Gandhi at the hands of the Tamils. It is high time for the international community, especially the UN, to play a key role in restraining the parties and coercing them into surrendering to serious discussion for a political settlement that can help in bringing the country back from the brink of disaster.