Sri Lanka History

History

Prehistory

Legend and history are deeply intertwined in the early accounts of Sri Lanka: did the Buddha leave his footprint on Adam’s Peak (Sri Pada) while visiting the island that lay halfway to paradise? Or was it Adam who left his footprint embedded in the rock while taking a last look at Eden? Was the chain of islands linking Sri Lanka to India the same chain that Rama crossed to rescue his wife Sita from the clutches of Rawana, king of Lanka, in the epic Ramayana?

It is probable that the Ramayana has some fragile basis in reality, for Sri Lanka’s history recounts many invasions from southern India. Perhaps some early invasion provided the elements of the story of Rama and Sita, recounted throughout Asia.

Whatever the legends, the reality is that Sri Lanka’s original inhabitants, the Veddahs (Wanniyala-aetto), were hunter-gatherers who subsisted on the island’s natural bounty. Much about their origins is unclear. However, anthropologists generally believe that Sri Lanka’s original inhabitants are descendants from the people of the late Stone Age and may have existed on the island since 16, 000 BC. The first Sinhalese, originally from North India, arrived in Sri Lanka around the 5th or 6th century BC. Traders and fisherfolk from South India who visited Sri Lanka during the late centuries BC also made the island their permanent home. The intermingling of the new arrivals produced a harmonious multicultural society – a state that, unfortunately, did not continue in the centuries that followed.

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The rise & fall of Anuradhapura

According to Sinhalese accounts it was crime and banishment that led to their settlement in Sri Lanka in the 5th or 6th century BC. Vijaya, son of a North Indian king, was ousted from his title and kingdom due to his acts of assault and robbery. With a contingent of 700 men, the sinha (lion) prince was set adrift on the high seas in dilapidated ships, to face his destiny – punishment by death. But destiny took a different turn and as they travelled south, Vijaya and his men were blessed by the Buddha and (as accounts would have it) came to land on the west coast of Sri Lanka on the very day that the Buddha attained enlightenment. Vijaya and his men settled around Anuradhapura, forming the basis of a Sinhalese kingdom that developed there in the 4th century BC. Later, the Sinhalese kingdom of Ruhunu was established in the southwest but Anuradhapura remained the stronger kingdom. Early settlement took place mainly along rivers, as the aridity of the north was not conducive to human settlement and the cultivation of crops. No doubt banishment and the need for survival can be great motivators: Vijaya and his descendants demonstrated impressive resourcefulness. To overcome the challenges of climate they constructed water channels and reservoirs (known locally as tanks) – great feats of engineering and mathematics. Such inventiveness enabled the early settlements to develop and prosper.

In the 3rd century BC the Indian emperor Ashoka sent his son Mahinda and his daughter Sangamitta to the island to spread the Buddha’s teachings. Mahinda soon converted the Anuradhapuran king Devanampiya Tissa, an event that is tremendously significant to the Sinhalese as it deeply influenced their customs, created a sense of national identity and, by developing scriptures and commentary, instituted a literary tradition. The mountain at Mihintale marks the spot where the conversion is said to have occurred. Today 1840 steps lead up the mountain to the site – it’s a popular pilgrimage place, especially on the June poya (full moon), the reputed anniversary of the king’s conversion.

Sangamitta brought to Sri Lanka a cutting of the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. She planted this in Anuradhapura, where it still survives today, garlanded with prayer flags and lights. Other bodhi trees, grown from cuttings of the Anuradhapuran tree, now spread their branches beside many of the island’s temples.

With the conversion of the king to Buddhism strong ties were established between Sri Lankan royalty and Buddhist religious orders. Later, these ties strengthened as kings, grateful for monastic support, provided living quarters, tanks and produce to the monasteries. A symbiotic political economy between religion and state became consolidated. When the Sinhalese king Valagambahu fled from South Indian invaders he was given safe haven by monks who resided in the cave structures at Dambulla. When he regained his position in about 90 BC he expressed his gratitude by developing a huge cave-temple complex. Since that time it has been a centre of Buddhist practice.

Buddhism underwent a major development when the teachings, previously conveyed orally, were documented in writing. Sri Lankan monks played a significant role in the documentation process, when, at the Aluvihara monastery in the 1st century BC, they began in-depth commentaries on the teachings. Their work forms the major part of the classical literature of the Theravada (doctrine of the elders) school of Buddhism. It was in Sri Lanka that the Theravada school developed, later spreading to Buddhist countries in Southeast Asia. Even today, Buddhists of the Theravada school in Myanmar, Thailand and other countries look to Sri Lanka for spiritual leadership and interpretation of the scriptures.

Another event that served to intensify Buddhism in Sri Lanka was the arrival of the tooth relic (of the Buddha) at Anuradhapura in AD 371. It gained prominence not only as a religious symbol but also as a symbol of sovereignty – it was believed that whoever held custody of the relic had the right to rule the island. Modern-day presidents, prime ministers and governments see it as their duty to protect the relic and the rituals that surround it. It now lies in the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (Sri Dalada Maligawa) in Kandy.

In AD 473, King Kasyapa assumed the throne by engineering the death of his father and the exile of his elder brother, Mugalan. Kasyapa’s skills were not limited to eliminating relatives – he also recognised a good piece of real estate and was a dab hand at property development. His reign saw the construction of the spectacular rock fortress of Sigiriya, with its intricate water systems, ornate gardens and frescoed palaces. However, the exiled Mugalan, incensed by his ousting, returned to Sri Lanka with an army of Indian mercenaries. Mugalan defeated Kasyapa and reclaimed the throne, but he established a perilous precedent. To retain power, future Sinhalese kings found themselves beholden to Indian mercenaries. Centuries of interference and disorder followed with repeated invasions and takeovers of Anuradhapura by South Indian kingdoms, and self-defeating entanglements in South Indian affairs by Anuradhapura’s rulers.

Anuradhapura was pummelled many times but rebuilding was possible through rajakariya, the system of free labour for the king. This free labour provided the resources to restore buildings, tanks and irrigation systems, as well as to plant, cultivate and harvest crops.

Finally in 11th century AD, Vijayabahu I, weary of the continual cycle of conflict, destruction and renovation, abandoned Anuradhapura to make Polonnaruwa, further southeast, his capital.

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The Kingdom of Polonnaruwa

Polonnaruwa survived as a Sinhalese capital for more than two centuries – a period that provided a further two kings of note. Parakramabahu I (r 1153–86), nephew of Vijayabahu I, was not content simply to expel the South Indian Tamil Chola empire from Sri Lanka, but carried the fight to South India and even made a raid on Myanmar. Domestically he indulged in an orgy of building in the capital, and constructed many new tanks around the country. But his warring and architectural extravagances wore down the country’s resources, and probably shortened Polonnaruwa’s lifespan.

His successor, Nissanka Malla (r 1187–96), was the last king of Polonnaruwa to show interest in the wellbeing of the people and in the construction and maintenance of buildings and irrigation systems.

He was followed by a series of weak rulers who allowed the city to fall into disrepair. With the decay of the irrigation system, disease spread and, like Anuradhapura before it, Polonnaruwa was abandoned. The jungle reclaimed it within a few decades.

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Tamil kingdoms

During Polonnaruwa’s decline the first Tamil kingdom established itself in Jaffna. Movements of people between India and Sri Lanka had been happening for centuries but from the 5th and 6th centuries AD resurgent Hindu Tamil empires such as the Chola, Pallava and Pandya repeatedly threatened the Buddhist Sinhalese rulers.

With the decline of the Sinhalese northern capitals and the ensuing Sinhalese migration south, a wide jungle buffer zone separated the northern, mostly coastal Tamil settlements and the southern, interior Sinhalese settlements. This jungle zone, called the Vanni, was sparsely inhabited by mixed Tamil-Sinhalese clans called the Vanniyars.

Initially the ‘rulers’ of Jaffna were possibly diplomatic missions from the early South Indian kingdoms. At other times Jaffna came under the sovereignty of the major South Indian centres of Madurai and Thanjavur. However, developing rivalry between Indian empires allowed Jaffna to gain autonomy. It became a trade centre, especially in spices and elephants from the Vanni region, and established weaving, dyeing and pearl-fishing industries. An important centre for art and literature developed at Nallur (near Jaffna) in the 15th century, and studies combining astrology and medicine provided health services to the population. But things changed with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505.

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Early Muslim links

Muslim settlement in Sri Lanka developed from centuries of Arab trade. In Arabic the island was called Serendib, from seren (jewel) and dwip (island). Gems were a valued item of commerce, as were cinnamon, ivory and elephants. With the advent of Islam in the 7th century AD Arab traders arrived with their new faith. Some stayed and settled on the island and many Sri Lankan Muslims are proud that their ancestry can be dated from the time of the Prophet.

Muslim traders found favour with Sri Lankan kings, and relations were generally cordial. Early Muslim settlements took hold in the north at Jaffna and southwest at Galle, as well as on the eastern side of the island. However, with the arrival of the Portuguese many Muslims fled inland to flee persecution.

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The Portuguese period

After Polonnaruwa, the centre of Sinhalese power shifted to the southwest of the island, and between 1253 and 1400 there were five different Sinhalese capitals. During this period Sri Lanka suffered attacks by Chinese and Malayans, as well as periodic incursions from South India. Finally, the Portuguese arrived in 1505.

By this time Sri Lanka had three main kingdoms: the Tamil kingdom of Jaffna, and Sinhalese kingdoms in Kandy and Kotte (near Colombo). Of the two Sinhalese kingdoms, Kotte was the more powerful. When Portuguese Lorenço de Almeida arrived in Colombo, he established friendly relations with King Bhuvanekabahu of Kotte and gained a Portuguese monopoly on the spice trade, which soon became very important in Europe.

Tamil-Portuguese relations were less cordial, especially when the colonial missionaries attempted to convert the local population to Catholicism. Infuriated by this, the Tamil king Sangily organised a massacre of the missionaries and their converts.

The different responses to the Portuguese – alliance from Kotte and hostility from Jaffna – made no difference to the end result: Portugal took over the entire coastal belt. However, the Portuguese were unable to conquer the central highlands, and the kingdom at Kandy resisted several later Portuguese attempts at capture.

With the Portuguese came religious orders such as the Dominicans and Jesuits. Many of the Karava fishing communities on the west coast converted, but reluctance to assume the new faith was often met with massacres and the destruction of local temples. Buddhist priests and others fled to Kandy, whose role as a stronghold and haven endowed it with a special status on the island – one that was consolidated by later colonial failures to capture it. This status is still cherished today by many Sri Lankans, especially those from the high country.

The Portuguese tried to entice their compatriots to settle in Sri Lanka. Some did, intermarrying with locals, and their descendants form part of the small group known as European Burghers. The Portuguese also brought slaves from Africa who are today almost totally assimilated. Known as the Kaffirs, their contribution to Sri Lankan culture is evident in the bailas – folk tunes based on African rhythms.

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The Dutch period

In 1602 the first Dutch ships arrived in Sri Lanka. Like the Arabs and Portuguese, the Dutch were keen to acquire trade, and they vied with the Portuguese for the lucrative Indian Ocean spices. For the Kandyan king, Rajasinha II, the Dutch presence provided an opportunity to rid Sri Lanka of the Portuguese. A treaty was duly signed, giving the Dutch a monopoly on the spice trade in return for Sri Lankan autonomy. This, however, only succeeded in substituting one European power for another. By 1658, 153 years after the first Portuguese contact, the Dutch had taken control of the coastal areas of the island. During their 140-year rule, the Dutch, like the Portuguese, made repeated unsuccessful attempts to bring Kandy under their control. And, just as the Portuguese had done, the Dutch encouraged their fellow citizens to reside in Sri Lanka. Their descendants, the Dutch Burghers, comprise a minority group in Sri Lanka today.

The Dutch were much more interested in trade and profits than were the Portuguese, and developed a canal system along the west coast to transport cinnamon and other crops. Roman-Dutch law, the legal system of the Dutch era, still forms part of Sri Lanka’s legal canon.

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The British period

The British, concerned that they may be defeated in conflicts with the French in South India, and requiring a safe port in the area, began to consider the eastern Sri Lankan harbour of Trincomalee. The British ejected the Dutch in 1796, and in 1802 Sri Lanka became a crown colony. In 1815 the British won control of Kandy, thus becoming the first European power to rule the whole island. Three years later a unified administration for the island was set up.

The British conquest deeply unsettled many Sinhalese, who had long held the view that only the tooth relic custodians had the right to rule the land. Their apprehension was somewhat relieved when a senior monk removed the tooth relic from the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, thereby securing it (and the island’s symbolic sovereignty) for the Sinhalese people.

In 1832 sweeping changes in property laws opened the doors to British settlers – at the expense of the Sinhalese, who in the eyes of the British did not have title to the land. Coffee was the main cash crop but when leaf blight virtually wiped it out in the 1870s the plantations were quickly switched over to tea or rubber.

The British, unable to persuade the Sinhalese to labour on the plantations, imported large numbers of Tamil workers from South India. Today these workers’ descendants, totalling about 850, 000 people (5% of the population), form the larger of the two main Tamil communities. About 700, 000 of them still live and work on the estates.

The British influence lingers: the elite private schools with cricket grounds, the army cantonments and train stations, and the tea-estate bungalows, not to mention the English language. English was demoted from being the official language after independence, but the requirements of a globalised economy have helped bring it back into vogue.

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Independence

In the wake of Indian independence, Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was then known, became an independent member of the British Commonwealth in February 1948. The first independent government was formed by the United National Party (UNP), led by DS Senanayake. His main opponents were the northern and plantation Tamil parties, and the communists.

At first everything went smoothly. The economy remained strong and the government concentrated on strengthening social services and weakening the opposition. It certainly achieved the latter, as it disenfranchised the Hill Country Tamils by depriving them of citizenship. Eventually, deals in the 1960s and 1980s between Sri Lanka and India allowed some of the Hill Country Tamils to be ‘repatriated’ to India, while others were granted Sri Lankan citizenship.

DS Senanayake died in 1952 and was succeeded by his son, Dudley. An attempt a year later to raise the price of rice led to mass riots and Dudley’s resignation. Sir John Kotelawala, his uncle, replaced him, and the UNP earned the nickname ‘Uncle Nephew Party’. The UNP was easily defeated in the 1956 general election by the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna coalition, led by SWRD Bandaranaike.

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The Bandaranaikes

The Bandaranaikes were a family of noble Kandyan descent who had converted to Anglicanism for a time in the 19th century, but who had returned to the Buddhist fold. The 1956 election coincided with the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment and an upsurge in Sinhalese pride, and SWRD Bandaranaike defeated the UNP primarily on nationalistic issues.

Nearly 10 years after independence, English remained the national language and the country continued to be ruled by an English-speaking, mainly Christian, elite. Many Sinhalese thought the elevation of their language to ‘official’ status would increase their power and job prospects.

Caught in the middle of this disagreement (English versus Sinhala, and Christian versus Buddhist) were the Tamils, whose mother tongue is Tamil. When Bandaranaike enacted the ‘Sinhala only’ law, Tamil protests were followed by violence and deaths on both sides.

The contemporary Sinhalese-Tamil difficulties date from this time. From the mid-1950s, when the economy slowed, competition for wealth and work – intensified by the expectations created by Sri Lanka’s fine education system – exacerbated Sinhalese-Tamil jealousies. The main political parties, particularly when in opposition, played on the Sinhalese paranoia that their religion, language and culture could be swamped by Indians, who were thought to be the natural allies of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Tamils began to see themselves as a threatened minority, and pressed for a federal system of government with greater local autonomy in the North and the East, the main Tamil-populated areas.

Despite coming to power on Sinhalese chauvinism, Bandaranaike later began negotiating with Tamil leaders for a kind of federation – a decision that resulted in his assassination by a Buddhist monk in 1959. Despite this, Bandaranaike is still seen by many as a national hero who brought the government back to the common people.

In the 1960 general election the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), led by SWRD Bandaranaike’s widow, Sirimavo, swept to power. She was the first female prime minister in the world. Sirimavo pressed on with her husband’s nationalisation policies, souring relations with the USA by taking over the Sri Lankan oil companies. Most of the remaining British tea planters left during this time. The economy weakened, and in the 1965 election Dudley Senanayake and the UNP scraped back into power. However, Senanyake’s reluctance to turn back the clock on the SLFP’s nationalisation program lost him much support and the UNP was massively defeated by the SLFP in the 1970 elections.

Soon after, Sirimavo Bandaranaike took the reins for the second time, a wave of unrest swept the Sinhalese heartland, feeding on a population boom and a generation of disaffected young men facing unemployment. In 1971 a Sinhalese Marxist insurrection broke out, led by a dropout from Moscow’s Lumumba University, Rohana Wijeweera, under the banner of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP; People’s Liberation Army). Its members, mostly students and young men, were quickly and ruthlessly eradicated by the army. Around 25, 000 people died, but the JVP was later to regroup.

The revolt allowed the government to make sweeping changes, write a new constitution and create a new name for the country – Sri Lanka. The bureaucracy became politicised, and some say corruption became entrenched. Meanwhile, the economy continued to deteriorate and in the 1977 elections Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the SLFP (in its new guise as the United Left Front) went down in a stunning defeat at the hands of the UNP.

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Tamil unrest

Meanwhile, two pieces of legislation increased Tamil concern. The first piece, passed in 1970, cut Tamil numbers in universities; previously, Tamils had won a relatively high proportion of university places. The second was the constitutional declaration that Buddhism had ‘foremost place’ in Sri Lanka and that it was the state’s duty to ‘protect and foster’ Buddhism.

Unrest grew among northern Tamils, and a state of emergency was imposed on their home regions for several years from 1971. The police and army that enforced the state of emergency included few Tamils (partly because of the ‘Sinhala only’ law) and therefore came to be seen by the Tamils as an enemy force.

In the mid-1970s some young Tamils began fighting for an independent Tamil state called Eelam (Precious Land). They included Vellupillai Prabhakaran, who founded and still leads the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), often referred to as the Tamil Tigers.

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Open economy

Elected in 1977, the new UNP prime minister, JR Jayawardene, made an all-out effort to lure back foreign investment. He attempted to emulate Singapore’s successful ‘open economy’, and his policies yielded some successes: unemployment was halved by 1983, Sri Lanka became self-sufficient in rice production in 1985, and expat Sri Lankans and tourists began bringing in foreign currency.

Jayawardene introduced a new constitution – Sri Lanka’s third – in 1978, which conferred greatest power on the new post of president, to which he was elected by parliament.

In 1982 he was re-elected president in national polls (after amending his own constitution to bring the voting forward by two years) and then, in the same year, won a referendum to bypass the 1983 general election and leave the existing parliament in office until 1989. As usual there were allegations of electoral skulduggery.

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Ethnic violence

Jayawardene promoted Tamil to the status of ‘national language’ for official work, but only in Tamil-majority areas. Clashes between Tamils and security forces developed into a pattern of killings, reprisals, reprisals for reprisals and so on. All too often the victims were civilians. The powder keg finally exploded in 1983, when an army patrol in the Jaffna region was ambushed and massacred by militant Tamils. For several days after, mobs of enraged Sinhalese set about killing Tamils and destroying their property. Between 400 and 2000 Tamils were killed and some areas with large Tamil populations – such as Colombo’s Pettah district – were virtually levelled.

The government, the police and the army were either unable or unwilling to stop the violence. There had been small-scale ethnic riots in 1958, 1977 and 1981, but this was the worst and for many it marked the point of no return. Tens of thousands of Tamils fled to safer, Tamil-majority areas, while others left the country altogether; many Sinhalese moved from Jaffna and other Tamil-dominated areas.

Revenge and counter-revenge attacks grew into atrocities and large-scale massacres. The government was condemned for disappearances and acts of torture.

The area claimed by the Tamil militants for the independent state of Eelam covered Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern Provinces – equal to about one-third of Sri Lanka’s land area. Tamils comprised the majority in the Northern Province, but in eastern Sri Lanka Muslims, Sinhalese and Tamils were nearly equal in numbers.

The violence cost the economy dearly. Tourism slumped, the government spent crippling amounts on the defence forces, and foreign and local investment dried up.

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Indian intervention

In 1987 government forces pushed the LTTE back into Jaffna. In an attempt to disarm the Tamil rebels and keep the peace in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, Jayawardene struck a deal with India for an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). A single provincial council would be elected to govern the region with substantial autonomy for a trial period.

Soon it became clear that the deal suited no-one. The LTTE complied initially before the Indians tried to isolate it by promoting and arming other Tamil rebel groups. Opposition to the Indians also came from the Sinhalese, the reviving JVP and sections of the Sangha (the community of Buddhist monks). This led to sometimes-violent demonstrations.

Jayawardene was replaced as leader of the UNP by Ranasinghe Premadasa, the first leader from a common background. He promised to remove the Indian peacekeepers; when they withdrew in March 1990, they had lost more than 1000 lives in just three years. In June, however, the war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government began again. By the end of 1990, the LTTE held Jaffna and much of the North, although the East was largely back under government control.

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Return of the JVP

The presence of the IPKF pushed the mood of young Sinhalese past boiling point. In 1987 the JVP launched its revolution with political murders and strikes, which were enforced through the use of death threats. With 16 years to study the failed 1971 revolt, the JVP, still led by Rohana Wijeweera, had prepared brilliantly. They were tightly organised, with recruits from students, monks, the unemployed, the police and the army. It attempted a Khmer Rouge–style takeover, aiming to capture the countryside and then isolate and pick off the cities.

By late 1988 the country was terrorised, the economy crippled and the government paralysed. The army struck back with a ruthless counterinsurgency campaign that still scars the country. Shadowy militias and army groups matched the JVP’s underground warfare in brutality. They tracked down the JVP leadership one by one until Rohana Wijeweera was killed in November 1989. The rebellion subsided, but 30, 000 to 60, 000 people had died in the three-year insurrection.

Within a few years a new leadership brought the JVP into the political mainstream, and it now has seats in parliament and supports the current government and the president, Mahinda Rajapaske.

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War in the 1990s

In May 1991 Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber. It was generally assumed that Gandhi’s assassination was in retaliation for his consent to Jayawardene’s 1987 request for the IPKF. Soon after this, war between the Tamils and the Sinhalese intensified.

Although a high proportion of Tamils and Sinhalese longed for peace, extremists on both sides pressed on with war. President Premadasa was assassinated at a May Day rally in 1993; the LTTE was suspected, but never claimed responsibility.

The following year, the People’s Alliance (PA), a coalition of the main opposition SLFP and smaller parties, won the parliamentary elections. Its leader, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the daughter of former leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike, won the presidential election and appointed her mother prime minister.

Although the PA had promised to end the civil war, the conflict continued in earnest, and Kumaratunga was targeted by a suicide bomber just days before the December 1999 presidential election. She was injured, losing sight in her right eye, but won the election. Curiously enough, the economy was showing signs of life during this period. Garment exports grew, growth ticked along at 5% to 6% a year between 1995 and 2000, and the ongoing war partly solved unemployment in the rural south.

In the October 2000 parliamentary elections President Kumaratunga’s PA won a narrow victory. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the president’s mother and three-time prime minister of Sri Lanka, died shortly after casting her vote.

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Elusive peace

In 2000 a Norwegian peace mission, led by Erik Solheim, brought the LTTE and the government to the negotiating table, but a cease-fire had to wait until after the elections of December 2001 – won by the UNP after the collapse of the short-lived PA government.

Ranil Wickremasinghe became prime minister. He and President Kumaratunga (both from different parties) circled each other warily. Under Wickremasinghe economic growth was strong at 6% per annum and peace talks appeared to progress. But in late 2003, while Wickremasinghe was in Washington meeting with George W Bush, Kumaratunga dissolved parliament (although it had a mandate to govern until 2007) and called for elections. By combining with the JVP, Kumaratunga formed a new party, the United People’s Freedom Alliance, and in the subsequent elections defeated Wickremasinghe and his UNP.

Peace talks stumbled. Time and talk passed, and the situation became ever more fraught. Accusations of bias and injustice were hurled from all sides. In October 2003, the US listed the LTTE as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO). Some believed this to be a positive move; others saw it as an action that would isolate the LTTE, thereby causing further strain and conflict. In early 2004 a split in LTTE ranks pitched a new dynamic into the mix. Among killings, insecurity, accusations and ambiguities, the Norwegians went home in September 2004.

Almost all of Sri Lanka, including most of the Jaffna Peninsula, is now controlled by the Sri Lankan government. The LTTE controls a small area south of the peninsula and pockets in the east, but it still has claims on land in the Jaffna Peninsula and in the northwest and northeast of the island.

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Tsunami & beyond

An event beyond all predictions struck the island on 26 December 2004, affecting not only the peace process but the entire social fabric of Sri Lanka. As people celebrated the monthly poya festivities, the mighty waves of the tsunami cast their fury, killing 30, 000 people and leaving many more injured, homeless and orphaned. Initially there was optimism that the nation would come together in the face of catastrophe, but the optimism soon faded into argument over aid distribution, reconstruction, and land tenure and ownership.

Meanwhile Kumaratunga, seeking to extend her presidential term, sought to have the constitution altered. However, her plans were thwarted by a Supreme Court ruling, which directed that presidential elections occur in 2005. Among the numerous contenders, two candidates were the most likely victors – the then prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaske, and the opposition leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe. With an LTTE boycott on voting, Rajapaske, supported by the JVP and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (a party of Buddhist monks), won by a narrow margin. The LTTE’s motives for the boycott were unclear but their actions cost Wickremasinghe an expected 180, 000 votes and the presidency, and, perhaps, the country a better chance at peace.

As president, Rajapaske pledged to replace the Norwegian peace negotiators with those from the UN and India; to renegotiate a cease-fire with the LTTE; to reject Tamil autonomy; and to refuse to share tsunami aid with the LTTE. Such policies did not auger well for future peace. Meanwhile, LTTE leader Prabhakaran insisted on a political settlement during 2006, and threatened to ‘intensify’ action if this did not occur. Within days of coming to power, Rajapaske reneged on his first undertaking and invited the Norwegians to continue their negotiations. But tensions were high and once again Sri Lanka was perched on a precipice. Killings, assaults, kidnappings and disappearances occurred on both sides, and commentators predicted the worst. As the first anniversary of the tsunami approached, world leaders, aid agencies and the global community pleaded with the government and the LTTE to stop the violence and return to the peace talks. Both parties agreed, and in February 2006 the Norwegians were able to help negotiate a statement that included commitments to a cease-fire and to further talks.

Cracks were already showing in the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire when it was signed in February 2006, and by March the Sri Lankan Navy and the LTTE were again trading deadly salvos off the east coast near Trincomalee. Massive Sri Lankan Airforce airstrikes were delivered against the LTTE after an escalation in suicide and mine attacks, some targeting civilian populations. More than 60 people died when a bus travelling from Anuradhapura struck a land mine. By August the fighting in the northeast was the most intense since the 2002 ceasefire, and peace talks in Geneva in October failed again. In June 2007 Sinhalese-Tamil tension further increased when police forced hundreds of Tamils from Colombo citing security concerns. A court ordered an end to the expulsions, but the actions set the scene for a period characterised by attacks and counter-reprisals from both sides. The optimistic days of negotiation and ceasefire seemed more distant than ever.

In January 2008 the Sri Lankan government officially pulled out of the ceasefire agreement, signalling a single-minded dedication to ending the 25-year-old civil conflict by military means. It was a dedication reinforced by its response to the LTTE offer of a unilateral ceasefire in support of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Colombo. The Sri Lankan response was emphatic. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (the younger brother of the president) dismissed the offer outright by claiming: "The ceasefire announcement is a ploy by the LTTE when it is being militarily weakened…to strengthen it militarily under the guise of holding negotiations. There is no need for the government to enter into a ceasefire agreement with the LTTE."

A change in military strategy saw the Sri Lankan security forces fight fire with fire with an increase in guerrilla-style attacks. By July 2008 the important LTTE naval base of Vidattaltivu had been captured, and by August the Sri Lanka Army had entered the LTTE’s final stronghold, the jungle area of the Vanni. The Sri Lankan government stated that the army was on track to capture the LTTE capital Kilinochchi by the end of 2008. Faced with a series of battleground defeats, the LTTE struck back with another suicide bomb in Anuradhapura, this time killing 27 people, including a former general in the Sri Lanka Army.

The government’s prediction of the capture of Kilinochchi by the end of 2008 was only a few days out, and on 2 January 2009 Sri Lankan forces entered the town that had been the de facto capital of the unofficial Tamil Eelam state since 1990. On 8 January 2009 the LTTE abandoned the Jaffna peninsula and retreated for a final stand in the Vanni jungle. Amid growing claims of civilian casualties and humanitarian concerns for the 250,000 noncombatants hemmed in by the fighting, foreign governments and the UN called for an immediate ceasefire in February 2009. The Sri Lanka Army pushed on and on 6 February, just two days after Sri Lanka’s independence day, the LTTE naval base at Chalai was captured, effectively cutting off fuel, munitions and arms smuggled from other countries. Compared with just 12 months earlier, the LTTE had lost 99% of the territory it once controlled.

Across the following three months, the ongoing success of the Sri Lankan military restricted the LTTE to an increasingly narrow coastal strip on the country’s northeast coast. While international concern grew for the welfare of the tens of thousands of Tamil civilians trapped by the fighting, the LTTE achieved a final defiant air strike into the heart of the Sri Lankan capital. Two light aircraft flown by the ‘Black Air Tigers’ conducted suicide missions into two Sri Lankan air force installations, killing two people and injuring 45.

In March 2009 the Sri Lankan government confirmed former LTTE military commander Karuna as the Minister of National Integration and Reconciliation, completing his transition since defecting from the LTTE in 2004. Amid claims that the Sri Lankan military was bombing Tamil civilians in supposedly ‘safe areas’, and counter claims that the LTTE was using Tamil civilians as human shields and stopping them from leaving the conflict zone, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accused both sides of war crimes.

Amid intense humanitarian concerns for the plight of an estimated 50,000 Tamil civilians confined to a single stretch of beach, the LTTE offered the Sri Lankan government a unilateral ceasefire. Given the Sri Lankan military’s objectives were so close to being fulfilled it was naturally dismissed as ‘a joke’ by the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary. Other efforts by Swedish, French and British diplomats to inspire a truce were also dismissed by a Sri Lankan government with ultimate battleground success in its sights after three decades. The reported April 2009 defection of two senior LTTE figures only increased their resolve for a decisive military solution.

The end came in May 2009 when the Sri Lankan military announced it had captured the last sliver of coastal land and had surrounded a few hundred last remaining LTTE fighters. The LTTE responded by announcing they had ‘silenced their weapons’ and that the ‘battle had reached its bitter end’. Several senior LTTE figures were reported killed, including LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran. It is estimated up to 50,000 Tamil civilians escaped the fighting in the last 72 hours of the conflict.

Significant support for the battleground victory exists with the majority Sinhalese population, but the conditions of Tamil economic and ethnic exclusion that inspired the LTTE for so long still remain as challenges to be acknowledged and addressed. Amid United Nations’ concerns that up to 7000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final five months of the war, international pressure grew to produce a political solution for the future of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. What is certain is that the future may reveal the truth about the final days of the conflict, a truth potentially concealed by progaganda from both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE.

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