Sri Lankan Civil War - Origin and Evolution

Origin and Evolution

The roots of the modern conflict lie in the British colonial rule when the country was known as Ceylon. There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well the Tamils in the national legislative council. In 1919, major Sinhalese and Tamil political organisations united to form the Ceylon National Congress, under the leadership of Arunachalam, to press the colonial masters for more constitutional reforms. However, the British Governor William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo town seat in 1920, which dangled between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.

After their election to the State Council in 1936, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) members N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil. In November 1936, a motion that 'in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular' and that 'entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated' were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary. However, in 1944, J.R. Jayawardene moved in the State Council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language. In 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's passage of the "Sinhala Only Act" led to ethnic riots. The civil war is a direct result of the escalation of the confrontational politics that followed.

In late 1960s, documents relating to a separate Tamil state of 'Tamil Eelam' began to circulate. At this time, Anton Balasingham, an employee of the British High Commission in Colombo, began to participate in separatist activities. He later migrated to Britain, where he whould become the chief theoretician of the LTTE. In the late 1960s, several Tamil youth, among them Velupillai Prabhakaran also became involved in these activities. They carried out several hit-and-run operations against pro-government Tamil politicians, Sri Lanka Police and civil administration. Prabhakaran, together with Chetti Thanabalasingam, a well known criminal from Kalviyankadu, Jaffna formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) in 1972. This was formed around an ideology which looked back to the 1st Millennium Chola Empire – the Tiger was the emblem of that empire.

A further movement, the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), formed in Manchester and London; it became the backbone of the Eelamist movement in the diaspora, arranging passports and employment for immigrants and levying a heavy tax on them. It became the basis of the Eelamist logistical organisation, later taken over entirely by the LTTE. The formation of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) with the Vaddukkodei (Vattukottai) resolution of 1976 led to a hardening of attitudes. The resolution called up for the creation of a secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam, based on the right of self-determination.

The TULF clandestinely supported the armed actions of the young militants who were dubbed "our boys". TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam, even provided letters of reference to the LTTE and to other Tamil insurgent groups to raise funds. Amirthalingam introduced Prabhakaran to N.S. Krishnan, who later became the first international representative of LTTE. It was Krishnan, who introduced Prabhakaran to Anton Balasingham, who later became the chief political strategist and chief negotiator of LTTE. The "boys" were the product of the post-war population explosion. Many partially educated, unemployed Tamil youth fell for revolutionary solutions to their problems. The leftist parties had remained "non-communal" for a long time, but the Federal Party (as well as its off-shoot, the TULF), deeply conservative and dominated by Vellalar casteism, did not attempt to form a national alliance with the leftists in their fight for language rights.

Following the sweeping electoral victory of the United National Party (UNP) in July 1977, the TULF became the leading opposition party, with around one sixth of the total electoral vote winning on a party platform of secession from Sri Lanka. After the 1977 riots, the J. R. Jayewardene government made one concession to the Tamil population; it lifted the policy of standardization for university admission that had driven many Tamil youths into militancy. The concession was regarded by the militants as too little and too late, and violent attacks continued. By this time, TULF started losing its grip over the militant groups. LTTE ordered civilians to boycott the local government elections of 1983 in which even TULF contested. Voter turnout became as low as 10%. Thereafter, Tamil political parties had very little room to represent people's interests as insurgents rose above their position.