historical background

“the right is more precious than peace.”

-woodrow wilson

when a country is being ravaged by war, an account of the events and reasons
which caused it is topical and calls for no apology or explanation.

there appears to be a general misinformation concerning the civil war in this

island. it is often repeated, particularly in the information media that the
tamils are fighting for a separate state because they are discriminated against
in education and employment opportunities by the majority sinhalese. it is not
true. no people ever have recourse to such a serious remedy as armed warfare
against the state to correct discrimination in education and employment. while
it is true that such discrimination provoked discontent and unrest among the
tamil youth, the real causes which led to their taking up arms and fighting a
war for their separate state lie far deeper in the political and social history of
the island more particularly in the tamil-sinhalese conflicts which surfaced
during the last few decades of british rule and intensified after its withdrawal.

the dawn of the 17th century saw the ships of the seafaring nations of europe
appear in the indian ocean waters. they were attracted to the island by the
cinnamon trade of ceylon. they found a prosperous tamil kingdom in the north
and east of ceylon which has existed for more than five centuries. according to
prof. g.c. mendis, a sinhalese historian, “it survived the conquests of the
pandiya, the sinhalese and the vijaya nagara rulers, and came to an end only in
1621 when it was conquered by the portuguese. the same invasion compelled
the sinhalese to move southwards leaving the ancient centers of anuradhapura
and polonnaruwa as no-mans land.”

the portuguese rule over the jaffna and kotte kingdoms was short lived. the
dutch conquered them from the portuguese and established their rule until the
close of the 18th century when the british ousted the dutch. for the entire
duration of the portuguese and dutch occupation of the jaffna and kotte
kingdoms’ territories the occupying powers had maintained separate
administrations in the respective territories. the people were contained in
their respective territories and the tamil –sinhalese animosity had no chance to
show up. the british continued that system in the beginning even with regard to
the newly annexed kandyan kingdom territory.

soon after the colebrook unification of the conquered territories in 1833, the
british divided the island into 9 provinces for their administrative convenience.
in so doing, they recognised the tamil ethnic character of the territory and
population of the old jaffna kingdom and ensured its continuity by carving out
2 separate provinces out of the territory where the population would not be
mixed but entirely tamil speaking. they are the northern and eastern
provinces, now recognised as the northeast province consequent to the indo-sri
lanka pact of 1987, which among other things, took cognizance of the historical
contiguity of the tamil habitat and paved the way for the current provincial
councils set up. ironically, the provincial council system which was principally
introduced to provide an asymmetrical devolution to the tamil habitat, is now
effectively functioning in all parts of the island with elected representatives
save the northeast which is defunct.

from the time british contemplated full independence to ceylon commencing

from mid 19th century until the mid of the 20th century there always were
haggling between the tamil leaders and their sinhala counterparts in arriving at
a consensus in sharing power in the new formation.

in the 1920s sir. pon. arunachalam laboured hard to bring all the splintered
sinhalese political groupings and the tamil associations under the umbrella of
one common national organisation called the ceylon national congress(cnc) to
press for constitutional reforms from the british government on the
understanding that the benefits of the reforms would be shared by both the
peoples in an equal partnership. when the time came to formulate demands,
the sinhalese leaders went back on their undertaking and used their majority in
numbers to force the tamils and the congress president sir. p. arunachalam to
leave the congress.

a sinhalese delegation of prominent leaders went all the way to jaffna to meet
with tamil leaders and negotiate for an agreed common demand to be
presented to the british concerning the basis of legislative representation. the
resulting agreement was called the “mahendra pact”. it was repudiated in due
time by the sinhalese leaders on the ground that the name of their organisation
has since been changed.

important leaders representing the pan- sinhalese cnc entered into a similar
agreement with sir. pon. ramanathan, leader of the tamils, to be placed before
the royal commission under the chairmanship of lord donoughmore which was
due to visit ceylon. while giving evidence before the commission, however,
noting that the commissioners were inclined against the principle of communal
representation advocated by the then tamil leaders, the sinhalese leaders went
back on their agreement and told the commission that they should not be held
bound by that agreement.
in the 1940s, after the conclusion of ww11 when the soulbury proposals for a
new dominion status type of constitution were being opposed by the tamils,
and the british were insisting as a pre-condition that all the communities in the
island must accept the new scheme, sinhalese leaders in their speeches in the
legislature promised the tamils to work the new scheme fairly and not to the
detriment of the tamils and pleaded with a credulous set of tamil leaders to
trust their word of honour and help them to take advantage of the british offer.
the tamil leaders trusted and voted for the acceptance of the soulbury scheme.
when the first prime minister under the new scheme was negotiating with the
british to advance the dominion status into complete independence and the
british again insisted on a consensus of all the communities. d.s. senannayake
made the same promise on behalf of the sinhalese and persuaded a friendly
and trusting minister in the cabinet(c. suntharalingam) to join in the unanimous
request to the british. suntharalingam trusted his friend and ceylon became
fully independent. after independence all these promises were thrown to the
four winds and laws after laws were pushed through by the sinhalese
dominated governments hitting the tamils.

soon after the transfer of political power to the sinhalese majority, national
chauvinism reigned supreme and fuelled a vicious and violent form of state
oppression against the tamil people. it assumed a multi –dimensional thrust,
attacking simultaneously on different levels of the conditions of existence of
the tamil people. it imperilled their linguistic rights, the right to education and
employment; it deprived their right to ownership of their traditional lands,
endangered their religious and cultural life and as a consequence posed a
serious threat to their very right to existence. as an integral part of the
genocidal program, the state organised periodical communal holocausts, which
plagued the island, resulting in mass extermination of tamils and massive
destruction of their property.

the first victims of the sinhala racist onslaught were the tamil plantation
workers. a million of this working people, who toiled for the prosperity of the
island for more than a century, were disenfranchised by the most infamous
citizenship legislation in sri lankan political history, which robbed these people
of their basic human rights and reduced them to an appalling condition of
statelessness.

the most vicious form of oppression calculated to destroy the ethnic identity of
the tamils was the aggressive state aided colonisation, which began soon after
independence, and has now swallowed nearly 3000 square miles of tamil
territory. the worst affected areas are in the eastern province. the eastern
province became a hot-bed of communal strife because of this.
the state oppression soon penetrated into the sphere of language, education
and employment. the ‘sinhala only’ movement spearheaded by mr. s.w.r.d.
banadaranaike brought him to political power in 1956. his first act in
parliament made sinhala the only official language of the country. this act
demanded proficiency in sinhala in the civil service. tamil public servants,
deprived of the rights of increments and promotions, were forced to learn the
sinhala language or leave employment. employment opportunities in the public
service were practically closed to tamils.

in the sphere of education a notorious discriminatory selective device called

‘standardisation’ was introduced in 1970, which demanded higher marks from
the tamil students for university admissions whereas the sinhalese students
were admitted with lower grades. state oppression also showed its intensity in
the economic strangulation of the tamil nation. tamil areas were totally
isolated from all national development projects for nearly 50 years. major
racial conflagrations that erupted violently against the tamil people were
inspired and master minded by the sinhala regimes as part of a genocidal
program (1956, 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977, 1979, 1981 and july 1983).

the cumulative effect of this multi-dimensional oppression threatened the very

survival of the tamil people, aggravated the ethnic conflict and made
reconciliation and co-existence between the two nations extremely difficult. it
stiffened the tamil militancy and created conditions for the emergence of the
tamil armed resistance movement. it paved the way for the invocation of the
tamil right to self determination and secession.

the following turn of events, inter alia, contributed largely to the hardening of
attitudes in the tamil thinking.
• the tamil federal party protested against the sinhala only act, demonstrated
passively and performed a gandhian non-violent satygraha on 5 june 1956
opposite the parliament on the galle face green. sinhala hooligans stoned
and assaulted the peaceful picketers and the rioting soon spread to several
parts of the island.

• responding to the tamil demand for federal form of autonomy mr.

banadaranaike entered into an agreement with the federal party leader mr.
s.j.v. chelvanayakam(b-c pact). j.r. jeyawardana of the unp and buddhist
monks protested and the pact was abrogated.

• anti tamil riots of 1958 resulted in thousands of tamils being killed and the
rest who were made refugees had to be shipped to the northern and eastern
 provinces for safety.

• the federal party organised mass civil disobedience movement (satyagraha)

in 1961 which paralysed government activities in all the tamil districts. the
government moved in the military and repressed the agitation which went on
for 3 months.

• in 1965 the unp assumed political power and the federal party entered into
an agreement (d-c pact). unp too abrogated the pact when confronted with
the pressure of sinhala opposition.

• sinhalese youths rose up in rebellion against the government of srimavo

bandaranaike in 1971. sri lankan armed forces launched a brutal counter
offensive and brought the situation under control killing more than 10,000
sinhala youths.

• the constituent assembly of 1972 amended the 1948 constitution, repealing

the minority protection clause 29 which brought an end to tamil participation
in the sharing of state power and created a condition of political alienation
of the tamil people.

• killing of 8 tamil youths in police violence during the fourth international

conference of tamil research held in jaffna on 10th january 1974.

• burning by police of the jaffna library.

the political structure of the federal party and its successor the tamil united
front, founded on a conservative ideology, could not provide the basis for the
articulation of revolutionary politics. it became very clear to the tamil people
and particularly to the militant youths that the tamil national leaders, though
they fiercely championed the cause of the tamils, had failed to formulate any
concrete practical program of political action to liberate the oppressed tamil
nation.

the resistance campaign of the tamil militant youth against the repressive
sinhala state, which manifested in the form of disparate outbursts of political
violence in the early 70s, sought concrete political expression in an
organisational structure built on a radical political theory and practice. neither
the tamil leadership nor the left movement offered any concrete political
venue to the aspirations of the rebellious youth.

the reactive violence of the tamil youths against the terrorist violence of the
racist sinhala state assumed the character of an organised form of armed
resistance movement with the birth and growth of the liberation tigers of tamil
eelam.

the emergence of the tamil tiger guerrilla movement, liberation tigers of tamil
eelam(ltte) marked a new historical epoch in the nature and structure of the
tamil national struggle extending the dimension of the agitation to popular
armed resistance. the ltte under the leadership of its leader mr veluppillai
prabaharan soon developed a political and military structure that provided
organisational expressions to the aspirations of the rebellious tamil militant
who had become disenchanted with non-violent political agitation and resolved
to fight back the repressive state through armed struggle. demonstrating extra
ordinary talent in planning military strategy and tactics and executing them to
the amazement of the enemy, prabaharan soon became a symbol of tamil
resistant and the ltte he founded evolved into a revolutionary movement to
spearhead the tamil national liberation struggle.

having been able to successfully evict the occupying sinhala military from
major parts of the tamil homeland through well organised military offensives
the ltte while doing so, did organise a well structured administrative pattern
that would meet the needs of the people almost parallel to the civil
administration in other parts of the country. thus came up the present
administrative structures including the judiciary, the police and discipline
military and naval units which functions as the bulwark of the tamil people
against state discrimination and oppression. the special feature one sees in the
ltte administered territories is the freedom and ease with which people go
about in their day-today life without military subjugation and coercion.