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International Intervention in Sri Lanka
1. Introduction
The Sri Lankan Civil War was finally over in 2009 after nearly three decades of conflict
with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The war maybe over but
unfortunately there is still no peace and the situation seems be worsening. There are many
cases of humanitarian violations that are ongoing in Sri Lanka today, especially due to
ethnic tensions. After the defeat of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government took the liberty
of abusing the Tamil people. There has been few to no actions by the Sri Lankan
government to improve its human rights record despite heavy criticism by foreign states,
international organizations, non-governmental organizations and etc. Even if there are
programs for reconciliation, they are actually methods to further repress the Tamil people.
This leads to the point that the international community’s rhetoric is not enough to improve
the situation in Sri Lanka. The focus of this paper is Post-Sri Lankan Civil War. This is
because during the war both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE were taking actions that
were difficult to justify any international action. This is because the Sri Lankan
government was violating human rights, such as abusing and killing citizens, while
combatting the LTTE and, on the other side the LTTE was a terrorist group which the
international community doesn’t negotiate with. However these reasons do not merit
international non-action today. The international community is also responsible for
ongoing discrimination in Sri Lanka and should take action to prevent the Sri Lankan
government from further discriminatory action against the Tamil.
2. Background
Ever since Sri Lanka (known as Ceylon until 1972) became independent from Great
Britain in 1948, there was a conflict between the Sinhalese population (82%) and the Tamil
population (10%). This was because the Sinhalese resented the Tamil since during British
rule, the British favored the Tamil. So the Tamil were given extra privileges and were over
represented compared to the Sinhalese. As Great Britain pulled out, the Sinhalese came to
power and started to discriminate against the Tamil as a form of revenge. A few examples
of discrimination were that many Tamil plantation workers were disenfranchised and/or
many were deprived of their citizenship. However, it was not until Solomon Bandaranaike
and Srimavo Bandaranaike came to power as prime ministers, when the tension escalated
into disaster. These prime ministers were extreme Sinhalese nationalists, and they
implemented many programs that were actively discriminatory against the Tamil.
Sinhalese became the official language which the Tamil didn’t speak, Buddhism became
the official religion which the Tamil didn’t believe in, Tamil education was limited, and
Tamil employment grew increasingly impossible. In more serious cases Tamil people were
killed. Starting from the 1970s the Tamil grew increasingly intolerant of the Sinhalese
methods and eventually a band of Tamil people, led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, created a
violent terrorist organization called the LTTE in 1976. The LTTE launched its first attack
on a Sri Lankan army convoy in 1983. The first peace talks took place in 1985 because of
Indian peacekeeping forces. This was because India was worried that the Tamil population
in India would rise up after being inspired by the Tamil in Sri Lanka. However, India
decided to pull out its forces as the LTTE grew increasingly violent and even managed to
kill Indian Prime Minister Gandhi (Bajoria, 2009). The LTTE continued to cause serious
damage to the Sri Lankan government and hurt Sri Lankan people as it managed to destroy
Sri Lanka’s holiest Buddhist site and destroyed an entire Sri Lankan airline fleet which
hurt Sri Lanka’s economy. They even managed to kill President Ranasinghe Premadasa
and hurt the peace advocating next Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. After
these incidents, the international community started to take notice of the seriousness of the
situation in Sri Lanka. Norway decided to intervene and mediate between the Sri Lankan
government and the LTTE by the “Cease-Fire Agreement" in 2002. This cease fire had the
attention of the world and many had high expectations. Unfortunately, the peace talk soon
fell apart as the LTTE soon retaliated against the Sri Lankan government and continued to
do so whenever it had a chance. The tide turned as President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to
power. He took a much more aggressive approach and used military force to deal with the
LTTE, rather than attempting to use peace talks like the previous presidents. Since,
President Rajapaksa’s military offense in 2007, the Sri Lankan government quickly
conquered LTTE territory. The LTTE finally admitted defeat in May 18th, 2009 when the
Sri Lankan military eventually managed to take over the LTTE headquarter Kilinochchi
and killed LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Even though Selvarasa Pathmanathan was
quickly established as the new LTTE leader, he was soon caught afterwards which marked
the end of the LTTE (BBC, 2013). There are occasional claims of new risings of LTTE but
their influence is almost nonexistent.
3. Today and Humanitarian Concern
After the defeat of the LTTE, the Sri Lanka seemed to be heading in the right direction on
the outside. Its economy is slowly recovering, especially due to its tourism industry. The
Sri Lankan government implemented the National Action Plan for Re-integration of
Ex-combatants (NAPRE) in order to incorporate LTTE members back into Sri Lankan
society (Valkyrie, 2010). The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LRRC) was
established to search for peaceful methods of resolving future conflicts. Furthermore the
Sri Lankan government is spending millions of dollars in order to restore the war ridden
