In July 1983, people throughout the world were shocked by news reports of
communal violence in Sri Lanka. Not only were hundreds of innocent people
physically abused and killed, and their houses burned and looted, but this was
done systematically. The attacking gangs were reported carrying electoral rolls
and their targets were Tamil houses only; the police and security forces did not
attempt to stop the carnage; there were accusations of complicity by members of
the government. Thousands of Tam its fled Colombo for the safety of Jaffna in
the north, where Tamils form a majority of the population.
Since that time many people have become aware that there are serious problems
tearing Sri Lankan society apart. The image of a tropical island paradise has
been shattered by continuing reports of violence, and there is a growing concern
that the situation there is one of civil war.
This article attempts to clarify the situation in Sri Lanka by briefly giving
a historical perspective of the relationship between the two main communities,
the Sinhalese and the Tamils. These two communities have not always been in
conflict with each other. In fact over the more than two thousand years of
shared history there has been a great amount of interaction, of sharing, of
amicable cohabitation on the island. The current conflict between the two
communities originated in the colonial period, with the rise of nationalism and
consequent sharpening of distinctions between communities. This article
discusses this development and the deterioration of the relationship between
Tamils and Sinhalese up to 1986.
Historians of Sri Lanka often start books by observing that a central fact of
the history of the island is its connection with India, separated from it only
by a narrow stretch of water (Ludowyk p. 19; Mendis p.1; Wriggins p. 12). Right
throughout its history India has left a deep impression on Ceylon - the India of
the Buddha, Asokan India, the India of the Guptas, and much nearer home British
India too’ (Ludowyk p. 19). For thousands of years there have been movements
of people between India and Sri Lanka and there has been in Sri Lanka an
awareness of India’s proximity. This is worth bearing in mind.
It is not known whether the original inhabitants of the island came from
India, but the fifth-century AD Buddhist chronicle, the Mahavamsa, records the
legend of the first arrival of Sinhalese people. It is uncertain which part of
India these people originated from - some accounts suggest Kalinga, or Orissa,
others suggest Bengal; however, it is certain they came from an Indo-Aryan area
of north India. Seven hundred Sinhalese arrived, led by Vijaya, who has become
known as the father of the Sinhalese race. Vtjaya took as his wife one of the
indigenous Sri Lankan women, described as a yakkhin~ who assisted him in
founding a kingdom by “betraying the people of her father’s city”. (Ludowyk,
p.37). She bore Vile pa two children, but he did not regard her as worthy enough
to be his queen, and so he sent for a bride from a royal family in India. When
his Indian bride arrived he sent away his local wife, and their children ‘fled
to the mountainous central region from them, according to the chronicle, the
wild jungle tribes of Ceylon trace their descent’. (Ludowyk, p.38)
There are two points worth emphasising in this story: firstly, when the
Sinhalese arrived in Sri Lanka there were other people living there. The
Sinhalese looked down on these people, and referred to them as yakkhas and
yakkhinis, of demons, but there was inter-marriage between the two groups.
Secondly, from the earliest times, the Sinhalese leaders preferred to marry a
bride from an Indian royal family, and this was a way of enhancing their status.
This practice of obtaining a bride from India continued over the centuries, with
most of the women coming from south Indian kingdoms. These points clearly
illustrate that the Sinhalese ‘race’ is not a separate race at all, but a
mixture of various peoples, some originally from India and some the aboriginal
people of Sri Lanka. What distinguishes them is not racial features, but their
Sinhalese language, which over the centuries many other people have adopted.
The earliest Sinhalese speakers probably came to Ceylon about 500 BC from
the west and the east coasts of India in merchant vessels that travelled along
the Indian coast (Mendis p.8). They established agricultural settlements, in the
northern, south-eastern and eastern plains of the island. Their language is of
the Indo-Aryan family spoken throughout north India.
The languages of south India, the Dravidian linguistic group, are completely
different; of the Dravidian languages the oldest is Tamil. Tamil-speaking people
have lived on Sri Lanka from early times, although it is impossible to give a
precise date of their arrival. Ludowyk says it is likely Tamils had settlements
in Sri Lanka before the second century BC (Ludowyk p.57).
Tamils traded with Sri Lanka, and Tamil women were married into Sinhalese
families. Many Tamils adopted the Sinhalese language and many Sinhalese must
have spoken Tamil also.
In the second century BC adventurers from South India are said to have
invaded Ceylon twice and ruled for some time over the island. The second of
these invasions was made by a Tamil named Elara (145-101 BC) who ruled over the
northern region till he was put to death by Dutugemunu (Mendis p.30). Dutugemunu
is remembered by the Sinhalese as a great hero who freed the island from Tamil
rule and this legend is important to remember/n explaining Sinhalese perceptions
of Tamils.
Early in the history of Sri Lanka, Buddhism was brought from India and
established there. During the third century BC, when Asokan was emperor in north
India, he sent as a missionary his relative Mahinda to the court of Devanampiya
Tissa, ruler of Anuradhapura. Mahinda taught the teachings of the Buddha to king
Tissa, ‘court officials, and common people’ (Ludowyk p.45). The king gave
the Buddhists park land to establish themselves; sacred relics and a branch of
the sacred Bodhi tree were brought from India; thus Buddhism was instituted as
the state religion.
Though the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in recent years has been seen as
partially religious, religious differences have not always existed between the
two groups. In the early centuries of the Christian era the Tamils from south
India who settled in Sri Lanka were not necessarily Hindu. At that time Buddhism
and Jainism were widespread in south India and many Tamil rulers were patrons of
Buddhism. “Brahmins were officials in the court of Sinhala kings, and the gods
of the Hindu pantheon were respected by Hindu and Buddhist alike (Ludowyk p.58).
There was a mixing, a cross- fertilisation of religions, as there was with other
social institutions, like language and caste.
From about the sixth century AD onwards, in south India there rose to power
the Pailava dynasty who ruled there for several centuries. During their reign
occurred an important development in the history of Hinduism - the growth of the
bhakti or devotional religious movement. This personal/sod form of religion
revived Hinduism at the expense of other religions, and Buddhism in south India
more or less disappeared. With the spread of bhakti devotional/sm there was a
surge of temple building in south India, which also spread to Sri Lanka. Temples
for the worship of S/va were set up at Manthai and Trincomalee probably by Tamil
settlers (Mendis p.75)
In the nineth century another south Indian power, the Pandyas, invaded Sri
Lanka and according to the Chulavamsa, ‘local Tamils ... the invaders to
capture the capital, Anuradhapura’ and plunder its treasures (Spencer p.48).
In retaliation the next Sri Lankan ruler invaded south India, and with the
assistance of the Pallavas captured the Pandyan capital Madurai~ and in turn
plundered its treasure.
With the rise to power of the Chola empire in south India, the history of
invasion and counter invasion, and mutual involvement in each other’s affairs,
continued. Up until the ‘mid-tenth century, south Indian military expeditions
to Sri Lanka had been brief, ad hoc affairs, designed to facilitate short-term
gains with minimal involvement and followed by withdrawal to the mainland’
(Spencer p.50) . However, the Chola ruler Rajaraja I was more ambitious, and
hearing that the Sri Lankan king was facing a revolt by his Indian mercenary
troops, he decided to invade. The Chola army ransacked Anuradhapura, the site of
both the royal treasury and the religious treasures at the monastic centre.
Chola forces stayed in Sri Lanka, establishing their capital at Polonnaruwa and
in the wake of their incursions, Indian merchants extended their commercial
activities across northern Sri Lanka (Spencer pp.53-58). The Cholas attempted to
consolidate their rule in Sri Lanka, and built temples and collected taxes, but
they never ruled the southern parts of the island. In the mid-eleventh century
an ambitious Sinhalese prince, Vijayabahu I, established himself in the south
and tried to defeat the Cholas. After a prolonged struggle of raids and
counter-raids, Vijayabahu captured Polonnaruwa, and the Cholas withdrew to
India.
This is a very brief sketchy account of Sri Lankan history, but it
illustrates a point. For centuries before the coming of Europeans to Sri Lanka,
there had been close contact between Tamils and Sinhalese. The recorded history
tends to list only battles and conflicts which were certainly numerous. However,
there was contact at other levels also. Tamils and Sinhalese lived together as
neighbours, at least in the coastal trading areas. There was inter-marriage
between the two groups and many shared religious beliefs and customs. The
Dravidian kinship system of preferred cross-cousin marriages is common amongst
Sinhalese as well as Tamils. Many Tamils spoke Sinhalese and many Sinhalese
spoke Tamil. Tamils fought in Sri Lankan armies and Sinhalese fought in south
Indian armies. Although in some areas the one group was predominant, in areas
where both groups lived, Tamils and Sinhalese were hardly distinguishable.
With the sixteenth century came European colonisation to Sri Lanka. In 1505
the Portuguese made a treaty with the king of Kotte, granting ‘protection’
in return for cinnamon and thus began 150 years of Portuguese involvement in the
island. In their search for trade and wealth they extended their control over
the western provinces and Jaffna; traders were followed by missionaries who
started schools and won converts. Today there are still many Portuguese sounding
Sri Lankan names which originate from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
when converts to Christianity adopted Christian (Portuguese) names.
The Portuguese rulers were hated and resisted by many Sri Lankans, Sinhalese
and Tamil, and when the opportunity arose, the Kandyan king entered into a
treaty with another European sea power, the Dutch, ‘giving them certain
trading rights in return for help in ridding Ceylon of the Portuguese’ (Ludowyk
p. 127) After many baffles, the Dutch finally captured the last Portuguese
stronghold in 1658 and Dutch colonial rule replaced Portuguese. As a Sinhalese
proverb says, “We gave pepper and in exchange got ginger. There was little
difference between them; both eaten raw are hot in the mouth (Ludowyk p. 102).
During the Dutch rule of one hundred and thirty-eight years, they brought
Tamils from south India to Sri Lanka, labourers to work as slaves and weavers to
establish a weaving industry (Ludowyk p.127). Dutch immigrants married both
Sinhalese and Tamils, and their descendants became known as Burghers.
The Kandyan kingdom remained beyond European control and from 1739 the
Kandyan kings belonged to a south Indian dynasty from Madurai (Ludowyk p.130).
The Dutch in turn were replaced by the English, who took over the Dutch
possessions in 1796 and/n 1802 they were made an English colony. Within a
quarter of a century the English had annexed the Kandyan kingdom, and Sri Lanka
was unified under colonial rule.
British rule brought many changes to Sri Lanka, but one of the most
important, in the history of relations between Tamils and Sinhalese, was the
introduction of a plantation economy. The economy was transferred in the 1830s
by large-scale coffee plantations, and when the coffee industry was destroyed by
disease in the 1870s, it was replaced by tea. The plantations needed labour, and
the ‘labour problems were solved in much the same way as the kings of ancient
Ceylon had solved theirs, when in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there
was cinnomon to be in the royal domains. They had settled their difficulties by
the importation of a labour corps from India’ (Ludowyk p. 195).
According to official records, between 1843 and 1903, almost five million
Tamil labourers crossed the sea from India to Sri Lanka, to work on the
plantations. Almost three and half million of them returned to India, but one
and a half million Indian Tamils remained in Sri Lanka (Hjejle p.103). Many of
them died soon after arrival~ from one of the many prevalent diseases - cholera,
small-pox, dysentery and malaria. “Hardly any attention was paid to the sick
coolies and they were generally turned off the plantations and died on the
roads. A great many also died on the journey in Ceylon where they had to walk
about 150 miles from the coast to the plantations. One of the most frequent
routes led through desolate and malaria-ridden country’ (Hjejle p.104).
However, many also survived - a grim survival, certainly - a police
superintendent for Kandy wrote that the Tamil labourers lived ‘in a much worse
condition than the Negro slaves were described to be in the West Indies’ (Hjejle
p.105) - but they survived and their descendants today still live in the Sri
Lankan central highlands.
Most of these Tamil labourers were of low caste, many had been slaves in
south India before they left. “The hardships and dangers to which the
immigrant labourers had to submit in the early years of plantation cultivation
make it extremely unlikely that anyone other than untouchables would be prepared
to undertake the risks” (Hje/le p. 106). This group of people, driven by
desperate poverty to take employment in a strange land across the sea, provided
the labour for Sri Lanka’s prime industry, economic growth and foreign
exchange earnings.
High in the mountains, far from areas where Sri Lankan Tamils lived, speaking
a different language from the surrounding population, they remained unintegrated
aliens in Sri Lankan society. They are known as plantation, estate, or Indian
Tamils, and are separate, and in many ways different from the earlier Tamil
settlers in Sri Lanka, known (to differentiate them) as Sri Lankan or Jaffna
Tamils. They speak the same language and follow the same religions (majority
Hindu, minority Christian), but there are many differences. They are
concentrated in the mountains around Kandy, the plantation areas; whereas the
Sri Lankan Tamils, scattered throughout the country, are concentrated in the
northern and eastern provinces. They are low-caste, and generally poorly
educated; the Sri Lankan Tamils are predominantly high-caste and generally well-
educated, as a result of the spread of schools established by missionaries in
the colonial period. The estate Tamils are generally poor; many Sri Lankan
Tamils are comfortable or wealthy in comparison. The Sri Lankan Tamils are
natives of the country, having lived there for centuries; the estate Tamils are
relative new-corners, having lived there only a few generations. With
independence in 1948, the estate Tamils were increasingly perceived as an
unwanted problem.
Another result of European colonial rule was the introduction of an education
system and a bureaucracy. The British needed educated Sri Lankans to work in the
bureaucracy; missionaries established schools and colleges. Through a
combination of historical accidents, a greater proportion of Tamils than
Sinhalese obtained an English education, and joined the government bureaucracy.
Most schools were built in Colombo and Jaffna, which favoured Tamils, but denied
access to the rural population, predominantly Sinhalese. The Tamils generally
were not large landowners, so entering government service or a profession was
seen as the ‘only avenue for economic survival and social advancement’.
(Emergency Sri Lanka p.12). After independence the fact that there was a
disproportionate number of Tamils In the civil service and education industry
was seen by some as evidence that Tamils were a privileged minority. Privileged
minorities (or minorities perceived as privileged) often arouse resentment.
Independence and the Growth of Nationalism
In the nineteenth century there had been revival movements amongst both
Sinhalese and Tamils, looking back at their history, rediscovering their culture
and attempting to define themselves against the colonial European rulers. These
movements influenced the thought of many people this century, and helped form a
bas/s for the development of nationalism. However, it was not a unified
nationalism; amongst the Sinhalese it was a patriotism that stressed Buddhism
and Sinhala identity. Tamils both in south India and in Sri Lanka proudly
re-discovered Hinduism and Tamil culture. This development heightened the sense
of ‘differentness’ of the other community and furthered mistrust and
suspicion between them.
The mistrust between the communities was also strengthened by the
constitutional and political events leading to independence. The Tamils and
other minorities - Muslims and Burghers - were apprehensive of being governed by
a Sinhalese majority and pressed for representation according to community.
However, in 1931 the principle of communal representation was rejected in favour
of universal adult franchise.
independence came very easily in 1948 for Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). Unlike
many other colonies there was no struggle for independence, no nationalist
movement that had to unity the people and forge national solidarity against
repression. There was a constitutional process that peacefully transferred power
from the English to the English-educated elite. This elite comprised both
Sinhalese and Tamils, for whom western education provided an identity that
crossed ethnic and linguistic boundaries.
The governing United National Party (UNP) led by D.S.Senanayake, included
Tamils in the Cabinet, and in the early years of independence it seemed that
this party would support Tamil interests as well as Sinhalese. This impression
was shaken in 1949 when legislation deprived of citizenship and disenfranchised
the estate Tamils. The government made it extremely difficult for them to
register as Sri Lankan citizens, and India was reluctant to receive them back.
They became stateless and voteless, and although later an agreement was reached
for some of them to be repatriated to India, and over 400,000 of them have
obtained Sri Lankan citizenship since the 1950s, several hundred thousand are
still stateless.
In the early 1950s there was an increase in the development of patriotism;
Sri Lanka was a newly independent nation, and the people were increasingly
feeling pride in their culture, their history, their language and their place in
the world. Unfortunately amongst the Sinhalese this feeling was such that it
excluded the Tamils and other minorities. Their place in the world they felt was
unique as the Dharma Dee pa, the island of Buddhist teaching, doctrine, or
morality. Their culture and language was Sinhalese. The shared history of
Sinhalese and Tamils was forgotten in the enthusiasm of a Buddhist Sinhalese
nationalism. At that time the official language was English, and the nationalist
movement took up the catchery ‘Swabasha’ or ‘one’s own language’.
Language separated the two main communities, and this campaign widened the gap
between them. The campaign’s emphasis changed, from promoting ‘Swabasha’
to demanding ‘Sinhalese only’.
In 1951, a cabinet minister in the UNP government, S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike,
resigned and formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Over the next five years
the SLFP campaigned for the establishment of Sinhalese as the official language.
It grew in strength in the provinces, gaining support from the Sinhalese
educated teachers, ayurvedic (medical) practitioners and Bhikkus (Buddhist
monks). As this campaign grew in strength, Tamils reacted against it, and
communal feelings were roused. The unfortunate irony was that both communities
saw themselves as a minority. The Tarnils saw themselves as a minority
Tamil-speaking community in Sri Lanka who would be disadvantaged if Sinhalese
was the only official language. The Sinhalese saw themselves as a minority in
the shadow of India; India had (in the early SOs) roughly 30 million Tamils,
compared to only 7 million Sinhalese-speakers in the whole world, concentrated
in Sri Lanka. The ‘Sinhala only’ campaign in the south led many Tamils in
the north to support the Federal Party, which aimed for a Federal Union of
States.
This campaign culminated in the 1956 general election. Up until this time
many Tamils and Sinhalese had collaborated together in the UNP, but on the eve
of the election the UNP ‘broke its tradition of inter communal cooperation
and, by yielding to pressures from the southern part of the island, adopted a
policy of advocating Sinhalese as the only state language’ (Wriggins p. 147).
Thus arose the ridiculous and tragic situation of the two major parties both
fighting the election on the ‘Sinhala only’ platform. This contributed
significantly to the alienation of the Tamil community from the democratic
process.
The 1956 election was an overwhelming victory for a coalition of the SLFP and
other smaller parties, led by Mr. Bandaranaike, and resulted in a transfer of
power from the English educated, middle class elite, to the Sinhalese educated
representatives of the masses. The Coalition won 51 seats, the Federal Party won
10, the UNP only won 8. it was a far-reaching transfer, and the new parliament
reflected the nationalist values - Sinhalese music opened parliament ‘instead
of the western fanfare. Yellow- robed Buddhist priests occupied seats in the
visitors’ gallery, symbolising their important role in the recent campaign.
Large numbers of village and lower-class people thronged the public galleries as
they had never done before’ (Wriggins p.328). For the first time since
independence, Tamils were not included in the cabinet.
The first legislation of the new government was to make Sinhala the sole
official language. Tamils felt insulted, and that the government was denying
them their cultural identity. They also realised that the Act would deprive
thousands of Tamils of employment in the public service. Tamils held a peaceful
demonstration against the legislation near parliament, which was violently
disrupted. The violence spread, and rioting broke out in other areas; ‘between
20- 200 people were killed depending on which side was doing the tallying’ (Wriggins
p.36 1). This was the first serious communal riot between Tarnils and Sinhalese.
It arose out of specific historic circumstances - the post-independence growth
of Sinhalese patriotism and the consequent alienation and sense of becoming a
persecuted minority amongst the Tamils. It was a new development in the
relations between the two main Sri Lankan communities.
Under the new government led by Mr.Bandaranaike moves also began to change
the language of instruction in schools from English to Sinhalese. in response
the Federal Party confirmed their objective of establishing an ‘autonomous
Tamil linguistic state within a Federal Union of Ceylon as the only way of
protecting the ‘cultural freedom and identity of the Tamil- speaking people’.
They also urged all Tamils to refuse to learn or to speak Sinhalese (Wriggins
p.264). They warned the government that unless a Federal Union was formed by
August 1957 they would undertake a ‘Satyagraha’ - a Gandhian-style
non-violent direct action campaign. The Prime Minister was willing to ensure a
proper place for the Tamil language, and entered into discussions with the
Federal Party leaders. The agreement reached, known as the Bandaranaike -
Chelvanayakam Pact, recognised Tamil as a national minority language, and
provided for Tamil to be used in administration in the Northern and Eastern
Provinces, where Tamils are in a majority. Legislation was also proposed to
establish regional councils, which might have met the Tamil demand for regional
autonomy. The Satyagraha campaign was called off, but extremists, both Sinhalese
and Tamils, were unhappy with the pact. Buddhist monks in the south of the
island organised a campaign to boycott Tamil shops; Tamils in the north defaced
Sinhala lettering on government buses, replacing it with Tamil script. Many
Buddhist monks ‘participated in a mass sit-down demonstration in front of the
prime minister’s residence (Wriggins p.267) and under pressure Bandaranaike
abrogated his agreement with Chelvanayakam.
There was also tension in the country resulting from other causes - serious
floods and strikes - and ‘an atmosphere of imminent public disorder developed
as police and then the army patrolled Colombo’ (Wriggins p.267). The tension
erupted in June 1958, with an outbreak of communal violence. Tamils were
attacked, humiliated, killed, their homes were ransacked and burned, ‘there
were lootings, burnings and savagery on such a scale as had not been known
before’ (Ludowyk p.295). Thousands of Tamils fled their homes in the south to
find safety in the north; about 300-400 people were killed. The government
responded by declaring a state of emergency. During the emergency legislation
was passed allowing Tamils to continue to educate and correspond with the
government in Tamil, but if fell short of the Federal Party’s requirements. In
September 1959 the Prime Minister, Mr.Bandaranaike, was assassinated by a
Buddhist monk, and after elections in 1960 his wife, Mrs. Bandaranaike, became
the first woman Prime Minister of a country, leading a government formed by the
SLFP.
Relations between the two communities have continued to deteriorate. The
Tamils felt increasingly frustrated as their attempts at negotiation never
reached a satisfactory conclusion. The extremist Buddhist-Sinhala groups in the
country, including some Buddhist monks, have been a continual pressure group on
the government, urging that no concessions should be made to Tamils. Each of the
two major parties - the UNP and the SLFP - have used this extremist
Buddhist-Sinhala pressure group for their own political advantage. When in
opposition they have attacked the government for betraying the Sinhalese people,
using emotional scare tactics, and made it extremely difficult for the
government to negotiate with Tamil leaders. Government policies have
discriminated in favour of Sinhalese entering colleges and government service,
making these avenues of employment increasingly difficult for Tamils to enter. The government claims it is attempting to redress the disproportionate
number of Tamils in these areas; the effect has been to increase the number of
educated, unemployed, frustrated young Tamils.
The Rise of Tamil Militancy
In the 1970s these frustrated young Tamils began to conclude that the only
means by which Tamils could attain justice and equality in Sri Lanka was to
fight for it - militarily. Militant groups formed in the north, with the aim of
establishing a separate Tamil state - Eelam. Attempts at negotiation for
regional autonomy had been going on for decades, and achieved nothing. The Sri
Lankan government had increasingly shown itself willing to use armed force
against minorities - the response to the 1971 uprising by the left-wing (mainly
Sinhalese) party, the JVP in which several thousands were killed was yet another
example of this. Tamil youth increasingly realised they had to fight armed
repression with arms, and began their campaign by sporadically attacking state
institutions, army and police.
This rise of Tamil militancy continued the polarisation of the two
communities. Buddhist-Sinhala extremists used Tamil militancy to argue that no
concessions should be made to the Tamils. The militancy aroused fear in the
Sinhalese already suffering a persecuted minority complex.
By 1976, the Federal Party had been replaced by the Tamil United Liberation
Front (TULF) as the representative of the moderate Tamils, who were trying to
improve the Tamils’ position through the democratic process. In the 1977
elections the TULF campaigned for a separate state for Tamils and won the
support of large sections of the Tamil population in the Northern and Eastern
provinces (Tamils are a majority in the Northern province, and form about half
the population in the Eastern province, the other half comprising Muslims and
Sinhalese). This election was won by the UNP, led by Mr.J.R.Jayewardene, who has
been the country’s leader since then. The TULF became the main opposition
party.
For some time it seemed the Jayewardene government was going to deal justly
with the Tamils - a new constitution in 1978 recognised Tamil as a ‘minority
language’. However, this impression did not last. The promise to give some
regional autonomy and transfer power to district councils was broken. Responding
to increasing acts of violence by the militant Tamils in the north against the
government, the UNP government brought in the Prevention of Terrorism Act in
1979.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) gives far-reaching powers to the
government and armed forces, to imprison people without charging or trying them,
or even to notify their families. Many Tamils have disappeared in this way. The
PTA has been likened to the 1967 Terrorism Act of South Africa, and has been
condemned by the International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International.
Amnesty has reported that torture is widely used by the army and the police,
against Tamils and also against Sinhalese members of opposition parties,
particularly the JVP and the SLFP (Emergency Sri Lanka pp.34-35). Under the PTA,
police and army officers, are immune from any legal action. Brought in as a
temporary measure, the PTA has become permanent.
As government actions became more repressive towards Tamils, and there was no
progress in addressing Tamil grievances through negotiation, the militant Tamil
groups grew in numbers. In 1981, serious communal rioting broke out again, and
army and police participated in burning down the Jaffna public library, the
repository of many thousands of irreplaceable Tamil manuscripts. The army and
police, predominantly Sinhalese, had assumed the character of an occupying enemy
force in Jaffna. For them to participate in anti-Tamil riots meant that Tamil
civilians could no longer be guaranteed safety by the government.
In 1983, communal violence erupted
again, the worst the island had
experienced. It was sparked off by Tamil militants ambushing and killing 13
Sinhalese soldiers in the north. Violence exploded in Colombo, where entire
Tamil business and residential districts were set on fire and looted. Violence
spread to provincial towns and plantation areas, and everywhere the same pattern
was repeated - only Tamil shops and houses were attacked. it was a systematic
attack on the Tamils carried out by organised gangs in government vehicles,
sometimes accompanied by Members of Parliament and members of JSS, the trade
union arm of the government party. In many cases they carried electoral rolls,
to distinguish Tamil houses. Tamil civilians were assaulted, raped, robbed and
killed; the police did nothing to protect them. (Manor 84, p.164). Thousands of
Tamils fled their homes in Colombo and other parts of the south, and went to the
north, where in a Tamil majority area they would be safer. They camped in
temples, schools and make-shift refugee camps. Thousands of them have not
returned to their former homes.
The one hope for the situation is that the Sri Lankan government and the
Tamil militant leaders and the Indian government will realise that they have to
negotiate with each other. They have to make more effort to find a political
solution to the conflict.
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Nineteenth Century’ in Scandinavian Economic history review Vol. 15, 1967.
International Emergency Committee on Sri Lanka - Emergency Sri Lanka, 1986.
Ludowyk, E.F.C. - A Short History of Ceylon, New York, 1967.
Manor, James (Ed.) Sri Lanka in Charge and Crisis, London, 1984
Manor, James & Segal, Gerald Causes of Conflict: Sri Lanka and Indian
Ocean Strategy: in Asian Survey, Vol.25 No.12 - December 1985
Mendis, G.C. - The Early History of Ceylon, Calcutta, 1940.
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