Sri Lanka: Ethnic Melting Pot On The Boil
Agence France Presse
Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist conflict is rooted in the nation's history, but the past three decades have been the bloodiest on an island colonised by Europeans and invaded by Indians.
At least 60,000 people have been killed since minority Tamils took up arms in 1972, about 24 years after the Indian Ocean island won independence from Britain.
The British, the last in a long line of imperialists, dominated the island for 133 years with a policy of "divide and rule" among the majority Sinhalese and ethnic Tamils.
Moves by the Sinhalese to retake key state jobs that had been controlled by the better-educated Tamils brought communal tensions into the open. But folk stories have long been told of ancient wars between Tamil and Sinhala kings.
Many believe the state policy of adopting Sinhalese as the official national language while, at the same time, dropping both English and Tamil as a turning point in the chequered history of the island.
"The conflict possibly started in 1956 when we adopted the Sinhala-only policy," said retired airforce chief Harry Gunatillake. "From there onwards, we have gone down hill."
In 1972 a disgruntled Tamil school dropout, Velupillai Prabhakaran, formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, who were to become one of the world's most ruthlessly efficient guerrilla organisations, known for trademark suicide bombings.
Tamils have long claimed that they were discriminated against in education and jobs. Equal opportunity legislation has been put in place, but its implementation has been slow and inadequate.
Tamil discontent, which had traditionally been expressed in small-scale unrest, turned into a full-scale guerrilla war after a 1983 anti-Tamil riot left 400 to 600 people, mostly Tamils, dead on the streets.
Unofficial figures suggest up to 60,000 people may have been killed in ethnic clashes over the past three decades.
The Sinhalese are mostly Buddhists while the Tamils are Hindus but religion has not played a role in the long conflict.
The majority Sinhalese trace their origins back to a North Indian prince, Vijaya, whose father banished him for disobedience. Vijaya is said to have taken a native princess of the yaksha or demon tribe as his wife and together they gave birth to the Sinhalese race.
After being colonised by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and later the British, many Sinhalese have mixed European blood.
Arabs, who controlled the old trade routes between the east and west, also came to Sri Lanka in search of cinnamon and ended up marrying local women.
Their descendants, known as Sri Lanka Muslims, make up 7.5 percent of the 19.5 million population. They are the second largest minority after Tamils who make up 12.5 percent of the population.
In the 5th and 6th centuries Tamils arrived in Sri Lanka from neighbouring India, but they fought many wars with the kings who ruled the island's different provinces.
The "Sri Lankan Tamils" are distinct from the Tamil labourers imported much later from the subcontinent by the British in the 19th century to work on their plantations.
The British left Ceylon, the name they gave the island, in 1948 but their divide and rule policies left a legacy of ethnic conflict.
In December 2002 a peace deal brokered by Norway, a country with no role in the island's colonial past, was agreed. The two sides said they would settle for a federal state but that agreement has never moved forward.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse
Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist conflict is rooted in the nation's history, but the past three decades have been the bloodiest on an island colonised by Europeans and invaded by Indians.
At least 60,000 people have been killed since minority Tamils took up arms in 1972, about 24 years after the Indian Ocean island won independence from Britain.
The British, the last in a long line of imperialists, dominated the island for 133 years with a policy of "divide and rule" among the majority Sinhalese and ethnic Tamils.
Moves by the Sinhalese to retake key state jobs that had been controlled by the better-educated Tamils brought communal tensions into the open. But folk stories have long been told of ancient wars between Tamil and Sinhala kings.
Many believe the state policy of adopting Sinhalese as the official national language while, at the same time, dropping both English and Tamil as a turning point in the chequered history of the island.
"The conflict possibly started in 1956 when we adopted the Sinhala-only policy," said retired airforce chief Harry Gunatillake. "From there onwards, we have gone down hill."
In 1972 a disgruntled Tamil school dropout, Velupillai Prabhakaran, formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, who were to become one of the world's most ruthlessly efficient guerrilla organisations, known for trademark suicide bombings.
Tamils have long claimed that they were discriminated against in education and jobs. Equal opportunity legislation has been put in place, but its implementation has been slow and inadequate.
Tamil discontent, which had traditionally been expressed in small-scale unrest, turned into a full-scale guerrilla war after a 1983 anti-Tamil riot left 400 to 600 people, mostly Tamils, dead on the streets.
Unofficial figures suggest up to 60,000 people may have been killed in ethnic clashes over the past three decades.
The Sinhalese are mostly Buddhists while the Tamils are Hindus but religion has not played a role in the long conflict.
The majority Sinhalese trace their origins back to a North Indian prince, Vijaya, whose father banished him for disobedience. Vijaya is said to have taken a native princess of the yaksha or demon tribe as his wife and together they gave birth to the Sinhalese race.
After being colonised by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and later the British, many Sinhalese have mixed European blood.
Arabs, who controlled the old trade routes between the east and west, also came to Sri Lanka in search of cinnamon and ended up marrying local women.
Their descendants, known as Sri Lanka Muslims, make up 7.5 percent of the 19.5 million population. They are the second largest minority after Tamils who make up 12.5 percent of the population.
In the 5th and 6th centuries Tamils arrived in Sri Lanka from neighbouring India, but they fought many wars with the kings who ruled the island's different provinces.
The "Sri Lankan Tamils" are distinct from the Tamil labourers imported much later from the subcontinent by the British in the 19th century to work on their plantations.
The British left Ceylon, the name they gave the island, in 1948 but their divide and rule policies left a legacy of ethnic conflict.
In December 2002 a peace deal brokered by Norway, a country with no role in the island's colonial past, was agreed. The two sides said they would settle for a federal state but that agreement has never moved forward.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse
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