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Krigen på Sri Lanka

The civil war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the armed movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighting for an independent state called Tamil Eelam, played out in a 30 year period. The war found a brutal and bloody ending on the beaches outside the town of Mullaithivu in May 2009.

Here, among tens of thousands of densely packed civilians, the LTTE’s soldiers and commanders made their last stand against government forces ten times their number. The loss of lives in the final days was at the time estimated by the UN to be inthe range of an apoclytic 1,000 a day.

It is often said that ‘truth is the first victim of war’. So also in Sri Lanka, in the sense that there is no one truth about the war. By the Government of Sri Lanka the war is said to have been about the eradication of terrorism and the victory in 2009 a ‘liberation’ from fear and terror; for many belonging to Tamil-speaking minority the war was about fighting oppression and the LTTE’s loss the final end to a hope of equal existence in the island.

Colonial background

The war in Sri Lanka is not – at least not primarily – about hatred between people with separate religions, or who speak different languages. The conflict is about political influence and control. Partly it is about the control of the political center over the periphery, especially the northern and eastern periphery where the Tamil population has traditionally lived, but it is also about the influence of elite groups over voters. On both the Sinhalese and the Tamil side nationalism has been used actively to mobilize political support. Sinhala nationalism evolved as a political force during the last phase of the British colonial government when arrangements for self-rule, based on the principle of one person – one vote, were made. This engaged politicians in competing for support from constituencies that often had little education and minimal political experience. Slogans about reclaiming rights lost during colonial rule were well suited for this purpose. The Tamil minority was by many Sinhalese politicians portrayed as a group which had been (favored) privileged by the British, and in this sense, ‘the other’ in relation to the Sinhalese majority. On the Tamil side nationalism grew as the result of a real fear of oppression by a Sinhala-dominated state, but also as a consequence of being used by the Tamil elite to hold on to rights and privileges denied the majority of the Tamil-speaking population.

The two nationalisms

The claims found in Sinhalese and Tamil nationalism(s) are incompatible, but surprisingly parallel. Sinhala nationalist ideology argues that the Sinhalese were the first “civilized” inhabitants in Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese are regarded as descendants of north-Indian immigrants speaking an Indo-European language, which over time developed into Sinhalese. The most important ‘origin-story’ of the Sinhalese is found in the chronicle Mahavamsa. This tells that the Sinhalese, 700 in number and led by the prince Vijaya, came to the island of Lanka on the day of Buddha’s death. On his deathbed Buddha asked the Gods to protect Lanka because there his teaching would flourish. Sri Lankan nationalism therefore has a religious basis, and sees the island as a home for the authentic form of Buddhism. As part of this, Lanka is seen as one country, indivisible. Tamil nationalism sees things differently. Central to it is the understanding of the Tamil population as a separate nation with roots in a specific part of the country – the North-East – reaching back to pre-historic times. Also important is the existence, until the 17th century, of a separate kingdom in Jaffna, documenting a historic precedence of Tamil independence.

Escalating conflicts

After independence from the British in 1948, antagonism between the two language-groups increased. This was a result of political reforms favoring the majority, and of recurrent episodes of violence. An important year in Sri Lankan history is 1956, when the Sri Lanka Freedom Party won the Parliamentary election, and used this victory to implement what is called the ‘Sinhala Only Act’, making Sinhalese the only official language in the country. This had serious consequences, not the least for many Tamil-speaking people working in the public sector. In the new Constitution of 1972, when the country changed its name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Buddhism was accorded ‘the foremost place’ among the religions found in the country. For these and other reasons of the same kind, the main Tamil political party, Tamil United Front, passed the important Vattukottai-Resolution in 1976, committing the party to work for a ‘free, secular, socialist state’ called Tamil Eelam. The party also decided to change its name to Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). One reason why the Vattukottai resolution is important also today, is that it now serves as a political platform for many political groups in the Tamil diaspora.

In the Parliamentary election in 1977, TULF received massive support from the Tamil electorate, making it the largest opposition party in the country. While the United National Party that won the government made certain changes to accommodate Tamil demands, the Prime Minister, J.R. Jayewardene, also promised to ‘eradicate terrorism within six months’. It has also been said that one of his election promises was ‘to give the police force two weeks off, so that his followers could deal with the Tamil terrorists without being stopped’. Large-scale attacks on people of Tamil background took place in August that year, some of the worst in the town of Trincomalee. In 1979, after changing the constitution and becoming President, Jayewardene saw to it that the Prevention of Terrorism Act was implemented, making possible arbitrary and indefinite arrests. This legislation was mainly used against Tamil youth in the North-East.

The war

From the late 1970s, the situation in the Tamil-dominated areas of the North-East was characterized by unrest and skirmishes between different armed rebel groups on the one hand, and police and military on the other. The civil war is often said to have started in 1983 after probably more than 1000 Tamil-speaking people were brutally killed in massacres, many of them in the capital Colombo, and thousands and thousands of houses and shops burnt down. These events are often spoken of as ‘Black July’. The attacks led to people of Tamil background fleeing from the capital, and other areas in the southern part of the country, into the Tamil-speaking parts. They also led to the so far small and scattered armed groups, mainly consisting of young people of Tamil background, receiving increased support. One of these groups was the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers, established in 1972, and led by Vellupillai Prabakaran. After a series of internal fights among the different armed groups, the LTTE from 1986 became the Government of Sri Lanka’s main armed adversary.

The front lines, the counter-insurgency operations, and the terror against civilians went on, by both parties, throughout the decades, with great suffering as a result. From the middle of the 1990s, LTTE established control over the area called Vanni, the territory north of the town Vavuniya and south of Elephant Pass, the bridge to the northern Jaffna peninsula, and made the town of Kilinochchi their capital. For a long period they also controlled large parts the Eastern Province. Within this area they established their own ‘state structures’, with a legal system and their own banks. However, the LTTE was more than anything a military organization built on strict discipline and an ideology of sacrifice. The LTTE were pioneers in the use of suicide bombers. These were used in regular military operations, but also against civilian targets. Even if the government soldiers did not use suicide soldiers, it is well documented that they have also been responsible for abuses against civilians.

The international dimension

One important consequence of the war has been Tamil-speaking people fleeing from the war areas, and many of them from the country. Today probably more than one million people originating from the Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka live outside Sri Lanka, with the largest colonies in Canada, India, France, Germany, and England, but many also living in other European countries and other parts of the world. Today, politically engaged Tamils in these countries are important in directing attention to the political challenges that brought the country into war. They have also been active in demanding the investigation of possible war crimes committed in the last phase of the war. A report delivered in March 2011 by a panel of experts established by the UN General Secretary, suggests that tens of thousands of civilians may have been killed in the last five months of the war alone, many as the result of targeted attacks on hospitals and ‘no fire zones’ established by the armed forces themselves. After the ending of the war, Russia and China have prevented the investigation of war crimes becoming an important issue on the agenda of the UN. These countries also assisted the Government of Sri Lanka during the last years of the war.

Given the island’s strategic position in the Indian Ocean, the conflict in Sri Lanka has always had an international dimension. It is common knowledge that in the early phase, Indian intelligence supported and trained a number of the armed Tamil groups. In South India, especially in the state of Tamil Nadu, there is great concern about the situation of the Tamil-speaking minority in Sri Lanka, and the political center in New Delhi is balancing the mixed perceptions of this issue in the different parts of the country with its own foreign policy interests. After the Indian president Rajiv Gandhi was killed in 1991, and investigations found that the LTTE were responsible, India has supported the Government of Sri Lanka. For the time being, both India and China have a visible presence in the country. Both are involved in upgrading infrastructure and have investors developing business ventures.

From the late 1990s until 2008, Norway was an important player in the political and military game in Sri Lanka. The two parties asked Norway to act as facilitator in a peace process, and a cease-fire agreement was signed in 2002. A monitoring mission of Nordic observers was established to monitor the agreement. Led by Erik Solheim, a series of meetings between the parties were held in 2002 and 2003. In 2003 the LTTE withdrew from the negotiations, and there was an escalation of violence until the government forces started its decisive military campaign in the fall of 2007. The cease-fire agreement was formally abrogated in 2008. Even so, both Norway and Erik Solheim are household names in Sri Lanka, today partly with a negative timbre because of the many controversies that were part of the peace process.

By Øivind Fuglerud
Published Jan. 21, 2021 12:05 PM - Last modified Nov. 24, 2021 2:33 PM

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