End of Civil War

On 16 May 2009, the President Mahindra Rajapaksa addressing the G11 summit in Jordan, declared the victory of Sri Lankan government over LTTE killing 70 rebels by Sri Lankan troops who were trying to escape by boat. The whereabouts of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and other major rebels were not certain. On 17 May, LTTE admitted defeat with the rebel's chief of international relations, Selvarasa Pathmanathan. On 18 May, the Sri Lankan armed forces claimed that the leader of LTTE Prabhakaran was killed while he was trying to flee the conflict zone in an ambulance along with the killing of 250 Tamil Tigers overnight who were hiding and fighting the no fire zone. Again on 19 May, President Mahindra Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to the Parliament and declared the victory of Sri Lanka from terrorism. But after the declaration, it was reported that a body similar to Velupillai Prabhakaran has been found among the mangroves in Nandikada lagoon and later confirmed that it was Prabhakaran's body through DNA test against his son's genetic material.

REACTION

The general public of Sri Lanka took to streets to celebrate the ends of decades long war filled with joyous scenes of jubilation. All the leaders of political, religious, etc hailed the end the end of the bloodshed. International responses for the end of the fighting have also been positive and welcoming, while some countries expressed concern over the civilian casualties and humanitarian impact.

Even though the end of war was declared, from 19 to 27 May,2009 still 28 more cadres were killed during the operation and on 5th July special Task Force (STF) personnel while conducting search and clear operation in Ampara recovered two bodies along with numerous military items. On 5th August, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the new leader was arrested by Sri Lankan military intelligence unit with the help of local authorities in Malaysia.

SPLIT of LTTE

Meanwhile, in March 2004, there was a major fracturing between the northern and eastern wings of LTTE. Colonel Karuna, the eastern commander of LTTE pulled 5000 eastern cadres of LTTE, claiming insufficient resources and power were being given to Tamils of the eastern part of the island resulting in a clash within the LTTE. After the parliamentary elections, brief fighting south of Trincomalee led to a rapid retreat and capitulations of Karuna's group, where leaders going into hiding including Karuna himself who was helped by a politician in the ruling party. However, the 'Karuna's faction ' maintained a significant presence in the east and continued to launch attacks against LTTE. The LTTE accuses the army of covertly backing the breakaway group, which subsequently formed a political party named the Tamil Eelam Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal(TMVP) and hopes to contest election in future.

The ceasefire largely held through all this turmoil, with over 300 infractionsby the LTTE and some 300 by SLA recorded by Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission(SLMM) by 2005.The situation became complicated by alleging that both sides were carrying out covert operation against each other. The government claimed that LTTE was killing political opponents, recruiting children, importing arms, and killing government security and intelligence officers. The rebels accused government for paramilitary groups against them, especially Karuna's group.

EARLY PEACE EFFORTS

Due to the never ending war, by mid-2000, human rights groups estimated that more than one million people were internally displaced persons, living in camps, homeless,and struggling for survival. As a result, significant peace movements were developed in the late 1990s, holding peace camps, conferences, training and many others to bring the two sides at all level.

Written by Amrutha (1215333) PCM

Eelam War II

Eelam War II is the name given to given to the second phase of armed fight between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE which started as a  result of disagreement between the premadasa government and the LTTE. The war was initiated by LTTE which killed almost 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police personal after they were ordered by the premadasa government to surrender to the LTTE. The agreement was broken on June 10, 1990. The LTTE in October sent all the 28,000 Muslims residing in Jaffna.

PALLIYAGODELLA MASSACRES

The Palliyagodella killing is an incident in October 1991 in which LTTE cadres killed 109 Muslim men, women and children in Palliyagodella. The background of this killing was the growing tension between the LTTE and the Muslim community. The Palliyagodella villagers asked Sri Lankan military for protection from LTTE force. So the Sri Lankan military issued guns for Muslim villagers but these were not enough to beat off LTTE attack. The violence continued despite the steps taken  to Tamil sentiments. The chief minister Vartharajaperumal put forward 19- point demand to resolve the ethnic crisis.The provincial council will go ahead with group declaration of northern and eastern provinces. The LTTE used terror attacks to scarce Sinhalese and Muslim farmers away from northen and eastern island which they took control of a significant portion of the island.When the Indian forces withdrew the LTTE establishment, many like fane in its areas under its control. They turn on fighting each other in the establishment of power basis, the government try to retake Jaffna.

This war soon acquired the name Eelam War 2 which killed 600 policemen in the eastern province. The LTTE responded by attacking Sinhalese and Muslim villages. One of the largest civilian war was occurred when the LTTE killed 166 Muslims civilians at Palliyagodella resulting in attacking the Tamil villages by Muslims as revenge killing significant number of Tamil civilian.

Notable International jurist Neelam Thiruchelvam, in a speech at the ICES-Colombo indicated that the appropriate investigations into massacres and disappearances civilians including children in Sathurukondan, Eastern University, Mylanthanai and the mass murders and burials of school children at Sooryakanda. Along the roadside of north and east, burning bodies became a common sight. The largest battle of the war was in July 1991 where army's elephant pass base, more than 2000 died on both sides. The LTTE scored a major victory when one of their suicide bombers killed Sri Lankan president Ranasingh Premadasa in May 1993. In 1993 LTTE succeeded in the battle of Pooneryn.

Written by Dona C. Mohan (1215335) PCM

Origin and Evolution of Civil War

Prior to the colonial occupation ,Tamils control the northern part of Ceylon (renamed Sri Lanka in 1972), while the Sinhalese ruled the southern regions of the land. In 1505, the Portuguese took control of the country and began its history as a colonial settlement. Throughout its relationship with the west, Sri Lanka has been dominated by world powers that have their prevented self ruled. Finally, in 1948 Sri Lanka  gained independence thus, Sovereignty over its land. Prior to this momentous occasion, Tamil and Sinhalese forces combined to fight for their common freedom. However, this alliance did not last long.

The main roots for this conflict lied in the British colonial rule when the country was known as Ceylon. There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lankan to largest ethnic groups. The Sinhalese and the Tamils, when a Tamil was pointed as a represented as a representative of Sinhalese as well as Tamils in the national legislative council in order to pressed the colonial masters and form a new constitutional reforms. The British maintained communal representation is and effective method of discerning the views and needs of different communities. so, the replacement of communal representation by a territorial representation by election became a serious issues from 1908 onwards and was centralised to the reforms of legislative council in 1921 and 1924.

The Tamils stood loose from this, but hoped to maintain their position if the franchise were extended only to English educated people. a disproportionate no. of Tamils had become proficient in the English language because the christian missionaries had concentrated their activities in the Tamil heartland of the Jaffna peninsula and set up a large no of English secondary schools. Nonetheless the Sinhalese obtain numerical superiority in the council because territorial representation automatically gave the majority constituencies to the Sinhalese area..

Then in 1944, J.R Jayawardene moved in the state council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language. In 1948, another controversial law was passed by the Ceylon parliament of Indian Tamils, called the Ceylon citizenship act which took away the citizenship of Indian Tamils making 700000 Tamils stateless and over 300000 people were sent back to India. During 1970s the Policy of Standardization an act of institutional racism was initiated which were meant to correct the disproportionate higher number of Sri Lankan Tamils students entering universities. Banning of  the import of Tamils language media, state sponsored colonisation of traditional Tamil areas by Sinhalese peasants etc. were the other forms of official discrimination against the Tamil people.

The discriminations against continued by passing ' Sinhala Only Act' in 1956 under the leadership of Bandaranaike in which Sinhala became the official language of the country. As a result of this law, many Tamil speaking civil servants were forced to resign since they weren't fluent in Sinhala which lead to 1956 Gal Oya Riots and 1958 widespread riots. Lots of separate activities were going on demanding a separate Tamil state of Tamil Eelam led by Anton Balasingham, among the Tamil youths who had joined the organisation , Velupillai Prabhakaran was one of them who later became an active leader of LTTE.

After July 1977 riots, United National Party won the election and Tamil United Liberation Front [TULF] became the leading opposition part which act as an interface between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. But soon after , TULF started losing its grip over militant groups. LTTE ordered civilians to boycott the government election of 1983 in which even TULF contested. The voters turnout became as low as 10 percent. Thereafter Tamil political parties had very little room to represent people's interests as insurgent rose above their position. And the civil unrest could no longer be contained and the war broke out.

Civil War Outbreak

Sri Lankan Civil War  was a conflict on the island of Sri Lanka where was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [also known as Tamil Tigers ], an independent militant organisation which fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north and east of island starting from 23rd July 1983 till May 2009 when the Sri Lankan military defeated Tamil Tigers.

For over 27 years, the war caused insignificant hardships for the population, environment and the economy of the country with an estimated 80,000-100,000 people killed during its its course. The tactics employed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE] against the government forces resulted in their listing as a terrorist organisation in 32 countries including USA,Canada, India and the member nations of the European union.

After two decades of fighting an failures in peace talks a cease fire was declared in December 2001, until 2nd January 2008 when a limited hostilities renewed in the late 2005 and the conflict began to escalate until the govt. launched a number of major military offensive against the LTTE, alleging that it violated the agreement over 10,000 times.On 17th May 2009, the govt. to control of the entire area previously controlled by the LTTE and defeated them finally.

Among the politicised militant groups of Tamil youths in the north and east part of Sri Lanka, LTTE was the most prominent militant group. Their first major operation was assassination of t he mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah in 1975 by Prabhakaran. In May 1981, Burning of Jaffna Library by politicians of ruling party using police and paramilitary forces resulting in the destruction of 90,000 books including historic valued "palm leaves scrolls" which convinced Tamil people that the government could no longer protect them and many of them fled away to India. after that the LTTE assassinated any Tamil MPs who tried to negotiate with the government. In July 1983, the LTTE launched a deadly ambush on a Sri Lankan Army killing an officer and 12 soldiers. This was answered Jayawardene organising massacres and pogrom in Colombo killing 400 and 3000 Tamils [ also known as Black July] which was the beginning of civil war.

During the war, the LTTE organised cruel massacres like ' the Kent and Dollar Farm massacre', ' the Anuradhapura massacres' within Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi Buddhist Shrine. As tit for tat to this, the government organised massacres in Kumudini Boat where more than 23 Tamils died. The bloody operations of LTTE goes on increasing, more than 378 suicide attacks were there taking thousands of lives. So the people started opposing against their vision of independant state.  

Written by 

Olivia (1215357) PCM and Ruth D'soza (1215345) PCM

Indian Involvement

India was involved in the conflict in 1980s for many reasons. Indian leaders, many projects and worries were about Tamil seeking independence. Latter was strong in Tamil Nadu. As the ethnic Kingship was the main thing that had a strong for independance for Sri Lankan Tamilians. Throughout the conflict, Indian central and state governments supported both sides. Since 1883-1887, Indian Government of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) provided training and monetary support to 6 Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups.

India became active in late 1980s and on 5th June 1987, Indian Air force adopted food parcels to Jaffna while it was under siege by Sri Lankan faces. India dropped 25 tonnes of food and medicine by parachute into areas held by the LTTE in a district support towards the rebels. Negotiations were held and the Indo-Sri Lankan Peace Award was signed on 29th July 1987 by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Jayawardene.

India agreed to establish order in North and East through a force dubbed the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF), and to cease assisting Tamil insurgents and militants. Groups including LTTE, agreed to surrender their arms to the IPKF which over saw a cease fire and a disarmament of the militant groups.

Jayawardene declared that he would fight the Indians to the last bullet. This led to unrest in south. The arrival of IPKE to take control of most of the areas in the North of the country enabled the Sri Lankan Government to shift its forces to the South. This led to an uprising by Janaha Vimukthi Peramuna in the South which was put down bloodily over the next two years.

While most Tamil militant groups laid down their weapons and agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict .The 3 year long conflict was also marked by the IPKF being accused of committing various abuse of human rights. The IPKF also net opposition from the Tamils Nationalist sentiment led many Sinhalese to oppose the island and entered into or secret deal with LTTE. But premadasa government ordered the Sri Lanka army to hand over arms consignment to IPKF mounted, and called for the withdrawal of IPKF from the both sides of the the Sri Lanka conflict grew. Gandhi refused to remove the IPKF from Sri Lanka. The new Prime Minister V. P. Singh ordered the withdrawal of the IPKF. Their last ship left Sri Lanka on 24th March 1990.

The 32 months of IPKF resulted in deaths of 1200 Indian soldiers and over 5000 Sri Lankans. The cost for Indian Government was at over 10.3 billion rupees.

Written by Chiranth Kumar S. (1215253) PME

Eelam War III

In the 1994 parliamentary elections, the UNP lost the election and people's alliance came to power on a peaceful platform, led by chandrika kumaratunga. During the presidential election campaign, LTTE disrupt the rally held at thotalanga. By a bomb attack many high official and also presidential candidate gamini dissanayake were removed from their post. Kumaratunga became the president with the majority of 62% votes and agreed  ceasefire in 1995. The Agreement didn't last long as the LTTE blew up two Sri Lanka navy gun boats and began the next phase of the war.

A new government was formed and pursued the policy of "war for peace". Determined to retake key rebel strong hold of Jaffna, which was occupied by 2000 rebels. Thousands of civilian, troops and  rebel  killed in the conflict and had to leave Jaffna. But most of the refugees returned later the next year.

The LTTE responded by launching operation unceasing waves and won the bale of mullaitivu on 18 July 1996, leaving 1,173 army troops dead. The government tried to hit back in August 1996. Another 200,000 civilian fled the violence. On 13 May 1997, 20,000 troops tried o open a supply line through the LTTE conrolled vanni but failed.

As violence continued in the north, populated city areas and public transport in the south were bombed by LTTE, killing hundreds of civilians. Sri Lankan world trade centre was bombed by LTTE and blew up one of the holiest Buddhist shrines in the world. In response to those bombing, Sri Lanka Government officialy announced LTTE as outlaw and pressed other government of around the world to do the same.

On 22 April 2000, Military led separated Jaffna from the vannni mainland for 17 years, completely under the control of LTTE. The army launched new operation to take back southern Jaffna peninsula, but sustained losses. The LTTE continue to fight toward Jaffna, and many was able to maintain control of the city.

Written by Tenzin (1215206) PME