This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past.

5th December 1995 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka’s government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/nazly/32246797116]

The island nation of Sri Lanka has a dark history of civil war and ethnic strife in the second halfd of the 20th century. The civil war saw the minority Tamil population, who were mostly Hindus, Muslims and Christians, pitted against the majority Buddhist Sinhalese.  

The division of Sri Lanka into Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic groups is not a straightforward story to tell, and his roots going deep into pre-history. Sometime between 1000 and 500 BC, Indo-Aryan-language speakers migrated onto the island. The people already living there were likely culturally similar to the Dravidian peoples of southern India who would later become the Tamils. The population of the north of the island would become culturally identifiable as modern Tamils during the time of the Jaffna kingdom, in the 1200s AD.

Southern Sri Lanka would over time become culturally assimilated into the Indo-Aryan culture. Contact remained strong between South India and Sri Lanka, and trade and migration continued between the two regions for centuries. A long string of shoals nearly connects Sri Lanka and India and may at some point in the last 1,000 years have been a solid chain allowing one to walk from India to Sri Lanka. It is famous in Hindu stories as Rama’s Bridge, a bridge supposedly built by the Hindu god Rama with the help of an army of forest people.

Gangaramaya Temple [https://www.flickr.com/photos/9508280@N07/25675886701]

Around 247 BC the adoption of Buddhism by the Indian emperor Ashoka spread the religion to Sri Lanka, which was likely at the time proto-Hindu. Strict Buddhism of the Theravada school would become the dominant state religion on Sri Lanka from them until now, becoming closely associated with Sinhalese identity. Even as Buddhism fell out of favour across India, to become replaced by Hinduism and later Islam, Buddhism remained strong in Sri Lanka.

Ptolemy’s world map of Ceylon, first century CE, in a 1535 publication

Over the next 2,000 years, Tamil and Sinhalese identities slowly evolved into their current forms, and the two groups lived side by side on Sri Lanka. During the British colonial period, the number of Tamil people on the island grew as many migrated from the mainland to work on the plantations on the island. The British favoured English speakers for positions in the colonial bureaucracy, which was more common amongst Tamils. This de-facto helped Tamils to get ahead in the island’s government while it was under British Rule (1817-1948).

British appointed Kandyan chief headmen in 1905

In the early 20th century, Tamils and Sinhalese formed different organisations to oppose British colonial rule, but in 1919 united to form the Ceylon National Congress to promote independence.

Sinhalese nationalists at this time agitated against Christian and Muslim minorities on the island as evidence of foreign influence. Tamil Hindus were mostly not demonised in the pre-independence world.

Initially the independence advocates argued chiefly for English to be replaced by both Tamil and Sinhalese. Some Sinhalese nationalists however pushed for Sinhalese alone to become the official language of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka became independent from the British in 1948 and the newly independent government was dominated by Sinhalese politicians.

The formal ceremony marking the start of self-rule, with the opening of the first parliament at Independence Square

Within the first year of independence, the new government passed the Ceylon Citizenship Act which made it so that anyone who wanted to get Sri Lankan citizenship had to prove that their father was born in Sri Lanka. Many of the Tamils on the island were more recent immigrants and many Tamils who lived primarily in Sri Lanka had, prior to independence, travelled to Tamil country in south India to give birth among their extended families. In effect this meant that most of the country’s Tamils, 11% of the population, would not be able to claim citizenship. Only 5,000 Indian Tamils qualified for citizenship and 700 000 people were now stateless.

A law passed in 1949 allowed Indian-born Tamils to gain citizenship if they had not left the country for 10 years and earned above a certain amount. Due to the habit of most Tamils to travel to India regularly, this meant once again most Tamils did not qualify.

Over the next few decades, 300,000 Tamils were deported from Sri Lanka to India.

In 1956 the Sri Lankan government passed a law making Sinhalese the only official language, and many Tamils were then purged from the government on account of their lack of proficiency in Sinhalese.

In 1956 and 1958 there were pogroms against Tamils by Sinhalese mobs.

The Sri Lankan government would continue to pass legislation discriminating against the Tamil population, providing affirmative action for Sinhalese peoples, giving Buddhism special status over other religions and banning imports of Tamil media.

Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka continued to push unsuccessfully for more autonomy and equal status of Tamil and Sinhala languages.

In the late 1960s, facing continuing discrimination, young Tamils began to carry out occasional terror attacks on Sri Lankan government targets and Tamils who favoured dialogue over violence.

In 1976, a group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was formed which sought to create a wholly independent Tamil state in north and east Sri Lanka.

This group was secretly supported by the leader of the largest Tamil party in Sri Lanka, the Tamil United Liberation Front.  

With the growing unrest and increasing guerrilla attacks by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government began in the 1980s to seek some accommodation with the Tamils. Despite some devolution of powers to some local communities, the LTTE stepped up its campaigns.

A pre-planned pogrom known as the Black July pogrom against Tamils was carried out by Sinhalese radicals in 1983 using clashes between Sri Lankan troops and the LTTE as the pretext. From this point the Indian government began to secretly support the LTTE. The pogrom also turbo-charged recruitment for the LTTE.

The LTTE was very brutal in its crushing of rival groups, often wiping out other Tamil groups who did not join it. One group was even wiped out for being too close to the Indian government. LTTE forces often attacked “moderate” Tamils who were painted as collaborators by the Tamil radicals.

In 1987 the LTTE established a united called the Black Tigers who specialised in suicide attacks. Over the course of the war, the LTTE would carry out nearly 400 suicide attacks.

In 1987 after years of conflict, India and Sri Lanka signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord which would see Sri Lankan government troops confined to barracks in the north, the rebels give up their arms, autonomy being given to the provinces of Sri Lanka and an Indian Peace-Keeping Force assigned to the region to prevent conflict.

The smaller rebel groups mostly signed the agreement, the LTTE did not.

The war continued, with the Indian army now also fighting the LTTE. The Indian peacekeepers were withdrawn in 1990 during a ceasefire between the government and LTTE. The ceasefire ended in June 1990 after the LTTE massacred 600 policemen who had surrendered with promises of safe conduct.

In 1991 an LTTE suicide bomber killed Rajiv Gandhi, an ex-prime minister of India.

Seven pillars surround the site of the blast, at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial in Sriperumbudur

This was in response to Indian crackdowns on LTTE activities in south India. After this attack Indian Tamils largely turned on the LTTE. Due to the connections between Sri Lanka’s Tamils and India’s Tamils, there had long been much sympathy for the LTTE in India until the assassination.

The phase of the war between June 1990 and 1995 was extremely brutal, with both sides killing many civilians. In 1990 the LTTE expelled all Muslims in the north of Sri Lanka, allowing them only to take the clothes on their back. This phase of the war became more like a conventional conflict with the LTTE controlling significant territory.

Improvised armoured bulldozer used by the LTTE in the operation Aakaya Kadal Veli, also known as the First Battle of Elephant Pass (1991), one of the major battles

Towards the end of 1995 the government looked to retake the rebel stronghold of Jaffna forcing the LTTE to retreat and reconsolidate.

In 1996 the LTTE would score a major victory winning the Battle of Mullaitivu. The town of Mullaitivu would remain a main LTTE base until 2009 when the civil war ended.

The war would rage on, causing huge damage to the whole of Sri Lanka.

In 2002 as popular Sri Lankan opinion became more in favour of a peace agreement, the government and LTTE signed a ceasefire.

Over the next four years, significant parts of the country remained under LTTE control as terms of a peace agreement were negotiated. This saw the LTTE drop demands for a separate state and both sides move towards a federal system for Sri Lanka.

However, violence began to break out in 2005 and the ceasefire weakened.

On 20 April 2006, the LTTE pulled out of the peace talks. This time much of the international community was far more supportive of the Sri Lankan government, and the LTTE were widely condemned globally.

In July of 2006, full-scale fighting began again after the LTTE cut water supplies to a government-controlled area.

Fighting went back and forth but the government was proving more successful than previously.

In 2008 the Sri Lanka government made significant gains and the LTTE began to collapse.

On 17 May 2009 the LTTE finally gave up, saying: “We have decided to silence our guns. Our only regrets are for the lives lost and that we could not hold out for longer.”

The brutal civil war came to its end, ultimately claiming 100,000 people’s lives between 1983 and 2009.

Photo release of January 2009 by the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation depicting civilians being displaced as a result of the Sri Lanka Army’s military offensive

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contributor

Nicholas Lorimer, a politician-turned-think tank thinker, is the IRR's Geopolitics Researcher and is host of the Daily Friend Show. His interests include geopolitics, and history (particularly medieval and ancient history). He is an unashamed Americaphile, whether it be food, culture or film. His other pursuits include video games and armchair critique of action films from the 1980s.