The Conflict of Sri Lanka and Tamil Eelam in the island of Ceylon

Why do you suppose CUPE-Ontario doesn't pass a resolution demanding a boycott of Sri Lankan academic institutions and an embargo on trade with Sri Lanka? The only explanation i can think of is that Sid Ryan finds the conflict in Sri Lanka to be too boring to get involved in compared to the Middle East.

Gwynne Dyer:

Sri Lanka After the War
                                                           
        The greatest mistakes are made on the morrow of the greatest
victories.  Sri Lanka is now approaching a decisive victory in its 26-year
war against Tamil separatism, and it is about to make a very big mistake.

        "While separatist terrorism must be eradicated," wrote Lasantha
Wickrematunge, editor of the Sunday Leader, "it is important to address the
root causes of terrorism, and urge government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic
strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of
terrorism. We have agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war
against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only
country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens."

        Wickrematunge left that on his computer, to be published if he was
murdered, which he duly was last month. He knew it was going to happen, and
he believed that he knew who would be responsible: the government. Which is
why he addressed President Mahinda Rajapaksa directly in his post-mortem
article.

. . .

        "In the wake of my death," Wickrematunge wrote, "I know you
(President Rajapaksa) will make all the usual sanctimonious noises...but
like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of
this one. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but
dare not call his name. [Almost certainly Defence Secretary Gotabaya
Rajapaksa, the president's brother.] Not just my life but yours too depends
on it."

        Like the United States under President Bush, Sri Lanka has ceased
to respect the law in its fight against "terrorism". Since the Tamil
minority began fighting for a separate state in 1983, over 70,000 people
have been killed in Sri Lanka, the majority of them civilians -- and since
President Rajapaksa took power in 2004 fourteen journalists have been
murdered by unknown assailants.

        Rajapaksa is now on the brink of destroying the rebel army, the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ("Tamil Tigers"). Even one year ago they
still controlled some 15,000 sq. km (6,000 sq. mi) in the north and
north-east of the island, where they maintained all the institutions of a
sovereign state. But the relentless offensive of the Sri Lankan army has
now reduced them to only a couple of hundred square kilometres (less than a
hundred square miles) of territory.

        Within a week or two, that will be gone too, and what remains of
the Tamil Tigers will no longer control a pseudo-state. Good riddance, for
they were brutal extremists who killed their own Tamil people, in order to
enforce unquestioning obedience, just as readily as their suicide bombers
killed the majority Sinhalese population. But that doesn't mean that Sri
Lanka can just go back to the kind of country it was before the fighting
began in 1983. The Tamils had a reason to revolt.

        Tamil-speaking Hindus have been part of Sri Lanka's complex ethnic
and religious mosaic for centuries, but they are only 12 percent of the
population. They got along well enough with the Sinhalese-speaking,
Buddhist majority when the island was first united under British imperial
rule in the early 19th century, but after that the relationship went
rapidly downhill.

        The British, in typical divide-and-rule style, favoured the Tamil
minority in education and in civil service jobs. Sinhalese resentment grew
rapidly, and the first Sinhalese-Tamil riots were in 1939. As in the
subsequent bouts of killing, most of the victims were Tamils.

        Once independence arrived in 1948, the Sinhalese used their
majority to pass laws giving members of their own community preference for
university entrance and government jobs, and Sinhala was declared the sole
national language. As Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic nationalism grew more
extreme, some of the riots in the 1960s and 1970s verged on anti-Tamil
pogroms.

        By the late 1970s the process of setting up a shadow Tamil state in
the north and north-east had begun. Open war broke out in 1983, with the
Tamil Tigers rapidly eliminating the rival Tamil separatist groups and
establishing totalitarian control over the population under their rule.

        Twenty-six years later, the Tamil Tigers' army has finally been
crushed, and the Sri Lankan state (in practice, the Sinhalese state) is
triumphant. But the 12 percent of the population who are Tamils will still
not accept unequal status, and they are not going away.

        This is the time when a peace that gives the Tamils equal rights
and autonomous local governments in the areas where they are a majority
could secure the country's future, but it is most unlikely to happen.

        Sinhalese nationalism is as intolerant as ever, and now it is
triumphalist to boot. Moreover, the rapid growth of a "national security
state" under President Rajapakse has undermined democracy and largely
silenced criticism of government policies. The forecast, therefore, is for
a reversion to guerilla war in the north, and continuing campaigns of
murder by both the government and Tamil extremists in the rest of the
country.

theorangeliberal wrote:

The ironic part of it all is India has the audacity to ask for permanent membership on the UN security council.

From your post it sounds like they'd fit right in! 

theorangeliberal wrote:

And hey if you want scholarly articles regarding this issue, feel free to ask. I have a whole bunch to link.

It would be great if you want to put up some links, thanks to thirusuj we've got a downright informative thread going... I'm sure its appreciated by some lurkers

Yes, I dont know very much about Sri Lanka except that the British brought Tamils there to Ceylon to pick tea in the late 19th century. I'm not sure where those people came from, except that they were Indians from the mainland? The Dutch claimed it before that. I think this is a after effect or legacy issue of British imperialism in general?

[url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12540][color=red][... plans for military intervention in Sri Lanka[/b][/color][/url]

Wije Dias

Quote:

Sri Lanka's Sunday Times has revealed plans for a US-led military mission into the island's northern war zone in the guise of evacuating civilians trapped by intense fighting between the army and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

According to the newspaper, the task would be carried out by a Marine Expeditionary Brigade attached to the US Pacific Command (PACOM). The US Navy and Air Force would also be involved. The newspaper reported in its initial article on February 22 that a high-level PACOM team was in Colombo to pave the way for the operation.

No announcement has been made by the Obama administration or the US military, but Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, told the Sunday Times that he was aware of the intended US-led "coalition humanitarian task force". Last weekend, the foreign minister told the newspaper that France had also offered assistance to evacuate civilians. India, which had made its own evacuation offer, last week indicated its support for a joint operation.

No agreement has been reached between the government and the LTTE on any evacuation. Both sides are using the trapped civilians as political pawns. The army has been seeking to drive civilians out of the remaining LTTE-held territory, in order to allow for the area's complete levelling. With its back to the wall, the LTTE has called for a ceasefire and talks before any civilians are allowed to leave—a step rejected by the government which is demanding a full, unconditional surrender . . .

Fidel, your definitely right about the British bringing some Indian Tamils to Ceylon for labour but Sri Lankan Tamils have existed in Sri Lanka for thousands of years as did the Sinhalese population. There were three ancient kingdoms, the Jaffna Kingdom (Tamil) and two Sinhala kingdoms (Galle and Kandy). Tamils and Sinhalese actually peacefully co-existed on the island for centuries. It is only after the British came to Sri Lanka, tensions started to mount due to the British trying their best to diverge the two groups to disuay a united front. The British left a huge power vacuum when they left and practically gave absolute power to the Sinhala population. Sri Lanka certainly isn't the first colony who suffered/suffering from this post-colonial trauma; but over the decades the Sinhala majority has oppressed the Tamil population in the north and east. This is a reason why the Brits should be proactive with this situation (and also because of the near 200,000 British Tamils residing in Britain)

RevolutionPlease wrote:

This is disturbing:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/597046

Why?  People are extradiated from Canada to the U.S. all of the time.

They're not facing the death penalty and they'll receive trials just like their co-accused did, not a trip to Guantanamo Bay.  Granted, there are exceptions for political offences, but it looks like the extradition judge felt that they didn't fit them.

Ze wrote:

Quote:

The Indian government is controlled by the Indian Congress Party which is a pro-Brahmin movement.

I appreciate everything else you've brought to the thread, but I think that's a bit unfair to Congress, which has enacted some affirmative action laws for Dalits and so on. In the context of national politics, they are certainly better on these issues than the racist-based BJP.

I think more to the point India will not act on this issue because the last time it did, Tigers assassinated the Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi. With Rajiv's widow Sonia as president of the Congress party, I can't imagine there's much will to intervene. It would have to be something multilateral, since India can't realistically be expected to act as regional policeman in Sri Lanka (even if that would be a a good thing, which perhaps it would not be). 

 Maybe I came off a bit rash with regard to the labelling of the Indian Congress as a pro-Brahmin party, but Ze let's be realistic; given the fact many Congress party members have made controversial comments in so called post-"affirmative action" times , some of the election rigging and interesting results in some Indian states, and their party composition and agenda, it is hard to say they are social egalitarians. They are significant remnants of social hiearchy within that party.

 In regard to your comment about how India can't be expected to intervene in this situation. Hey, it was India who gave birth to the Tamil rebel groups like the Tigers in the days of Indira Gandhi by financing them and training them. In all fairness, Rajiv Gandhi's sudden U-Turn in the Sri Lankan situation did not help but India did create elements of this conflict so it must be held accountable for a solution. It can start by not arming the Sri Lankan government. 

Rajiv Gandhi's Sri Lankan policy was a dismal failure because it was a flawed plan from the beginning. How can you call aggressive occupation of Tamil areas in Sri Lanka by the Indian Army a smart decision, even when Sri Lanka and the LTTE both opposed it at one point. If India pursues a logical iniative in Sri Lanka, than I'm sure it won't turn out bad is it did last time. 

Wow, that is quite an admission from Peter Kent. The full quote according to AFP: 

Quote:

Separately, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter Kent said on Thursday the 37-year conflict raging in Sri Lanka was borne out of “repressive” governments in Colombo.

“I am sure all Canadians share the government’s revulsion at the continuing humanitarian catastrophe in Sri Lanka, a civil conflict born of a succession of repressive Sri Lankan governments, which in turn spawned the terrorist organisation known as the Tamil Tigers,” Kent told the House of Commons.

Perhaps he's been reading the excellent novels of Shyam Selvadurai or something; factual reporting has not made much of a dent in Canadian governments before, so I wonder what changed to prompt Kent's admission?

Good job cherry picking; always good to have a skill to fall back on in a depression eh Doug?

What are some other ways to market this event? My target is non-Tamils.

The Globe reported "hundreds"?  Um, there were "hundreds" at the corner of Dundas and Yonge alone - I took pictures.  There were THOUSANDS who came out.  Thousands AND thousands.

Wouldn't mater if they were there... I watched a CNN reporter live at the Summit of the Americas misrepresent the numbers there tenfold. He was there on the scene and saw the numbers, he knew he was lying... that's their job.

But ************, who attended Monday's rally, told CBC News the flag is a legitimate symbol of the Tamil people.

I am a Tamil. This is not my flag. Tigers are not my leaders. They are the cause of the current assault on the Tamil people. Tigers have done this before in Jaffna. They cut and ran and mingled among the people when the army came for them. Civilians died.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Martin Luther King Jr