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Cyberspace, War & Sri Lanka
23 September 1996
Students Weekly Magazine, Massey University, New Zealand.
The war in Sri Lanka, being fought on the ground and in cyberspace, needs
international mediation to be resolved peacefully, according to a Massey
University researcher.
Social Anthropology professor Margaret Trawick has spent the past two years
researching the Sri Lankan war, both in Sri Lanka and through Internet
sources, to help find a path to peace.
The government of Sri Lanka is at war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE). The Tigers are fighting for an independent Tamil state in the
north and the east of Sri Lanka. Tamils from the largest minority in Sri
Lanka, with Singhalese the majority. The two groups speak different
languages and have distinct histories.
"They (LTTE) have gained a reputation of being uncompromising and
committed to combat. However, the government has failed to address some
real grievances and the war will not stop until both sides enter peace
negotiations with international mediators present," she said.
Professor Trawick was trained under the National Defence Education Act,
in the US, to become fluent in Tamil. Scholars were trained to be fluent in
languages of countries which have potential to be trouble spots.
The war in Sri Lanka, which has been building up since the mid- 1970's,
escalated in 1983 when island-wide anti-Tamil fighting broke- out. It
escalated again in 1995 after unmediated peace talks failed. Many civilians
fled to the west.
Professor Trawick says that in the past few years the war in Sri Lanka has
been fought both on the Internet and on the ground. "You can now get
day-to-day accounts of what is happening in the war, from many points of
view. Just as the Vietnam war was the first television war, the war in Sri
Lanka may be the first Internet war," she said.
Tamils have traditionally placed high value upon education and literacy.
Tamils in northern Sri Lanka raised their children to enter professions such
as engineering and medicine, in part because the poor soil of their land
discouraged any agrarian economy.
"When Sri Lankan Tamils fled to the West they quickly acquired computer
skills in order to continue their professions. Both the Internet and the war
were growing at this time. Expatriate Tamils formed Internet discussion
groups and the war in their homeland was one of the topics discussed,", she
said.
Tamils who favoured the formation of an independent Tamil nation were
probably the first national liberation movement to have their own homepage.
Professor Trawick says the Sri Lanka government and supporters soon replied
with their views. "This is a terrible, terrible war on the ground,
paralleled by a war in cyberspace. International recognition is the goal of
the cyberspace struggle," she said.
Through her research via the Internet, and by visiting Sri Lanka and talking
to Tamils and Singhalese, Professor Trawick is working with others to bring
a just end to the war.
"We want to reduce human rights abuses by making it clear that the
international community will not put up with this. Our second aim is to get
peace negotiations going again between the government and the LTTE," she
said.
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