As Sri Lanka tackles the post-crisis challenges with new energy under the new leftist government led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), some scars remain consciously overlooked. The question of humanitarian justice for the victims of the Sri Lankan civil war is one such unattended wound that lies deep under the skin of the island country. Recently, Sri Lankan Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala prohibited commemorative public events for the deceased members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). Subsequently, three people were arrested on November 30 under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Given that the LTTE remains a banned organisation, it is no surprise that commemorative events for LTTE members using the LTTE logo would be considered a legal offence. What remains problematic, however, is the lack of effort on the part of the government to reconcile the agonies of the war victims.
The 26-year-long civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE officially ended in May 2009 after claiming around 70,000 lives and displacing four times as many. Both sides committed a variety of war crimes. As the war ended, the entire LTTE leadership, along with scores of soldiers, were executed as punishment for their offences, but the government forces were never held accountable for the rape, torture and extrajudicial killings they committed. Instead, successive governments shielded the war criminals, promoted them sometimes, and tactfully suppressed investigations of war crimes. The victims demanding justice were silenced with the aid of anti-terrorism laws. The Tamil community and the Tamil-dominated former conflict zones were continually marginalised. While the economic cost of the civil war is much discussed, its hefty humanitarian cost remains largely unaccounted for. This intentional lack of reconciliation left a never-closing wound in the country’s socio-cultural psyche.
Sri Lanka has hosted several events over the last 15 years to memorialise the end of the long period of violence. However, there has always been a double standard when it comes to the right to remember. The Sri Lankan state celebrates National War Heroes Day or Ranaviru Day on May 19, when the nation pays homage to the soldiers who lost their lives to protect the state in the civil war. The Tamil communities, on the other hand, regard this day as the memorial day for the lives lost in the final phase of the civil war. More specifically, they commemorate the death of tens of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians who were brutally killed due to the government’s shelling in the declared ‘no fire zones’ of Mullivaikkal. Subsequent investigations by the United Nations (UN) found evidence of a range of war crimes by both parties which violated international human rights law. However, the commemorative events by the Tamil communities have repeatedly been interrupted by state interference. In May 2024, for example, the organisers of a commemorative event were arrested in Trincomalee for distributing a certain food item, which is symbolic of the Mullivaikkal tragedy.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) requires Sri Lanka to promote reconciliation and human rights. The Office of Missing Persons Act of 2016 and the Office of Reparations Act of 2018 were introduced in response to these obligations. Commitment to achieving reconciliation and ensuring justice for victims was emphasised through multiple resolutions. However, most of these resolutions were later rejected. Many commissions and task forces were also set up for similar purposes but hardly any of the recommendations were implemented.
The civil war ended in 2009, but the gradual process of ‘Sinhalisation’ in the North and the East went on. Buddhist temples and Sinhalese monuments have become more common in Tamil-dominated areas. Many Tamils remain displaced to date. A national policy on Durable Solutions for Conflict-affected Displacement was approved in August 2016. Under this policy, pieces of land were released for resettlement of displacement-affected persons. However, the rate of return of displaced families remained low due to the non-suitability of the lands for habitation. The Sri Lankan military continued maintaining some ‘high-security zones’ in predominantly Tamil areas. The Prevention of Terrorism Act targeted mostly Tamils. Government surveillance and tracking of suspected LTTE links also went on, albeit at a much lower extent compared to the war period.
The post-colonial history of the Indian subcontinent is ridden with conflicts rooted in the preferential practices of the British rulers. The conflicts are typically known by the superstructure of ethnic and religious identities, while socio-economic exploitation and discrimination lie at the base. Like the sustained tensions between the Hindus and Muslims that facilitated the partition of Bengal can be attributed to the socio-economic upliftment of the Hindu community subsequent to the 1793 Permanent Settlement Act, the decades-long civil war of Sri Lanka can arguably be traced back to the British favouritism of the minority Tamil population of British Ceylon. Although there were extensive Tamil settlements in Ceylon since the Dravidian conquest of Sri Lanka during the Chola dynasty in the 11th century AD, the British plantation programme caused an inflow of Tamils from British India to British Ceylon. At the time of independence in 1948, the Tamils constituted around 11 per cent of the Sri Lankan population.
The Sinhalese, on the other hand, constituted about 75 per cent of the population. Despite being the majority ethnic group in the Sri Lankan territory, the Sinhalese viewed themselves as a minority in the broader Dravidian region, which included the Tamils in South India. The Tamils were predominantly Hindu and the Sinhalese were predominantly Buddhist. British favouritism of the Tamils came in multiple forms. They enjoyed trading advantages through a wide network of Tamils across multiple British colonies. The establishment of English language schools in predominantly Tamil-dominated areas also offered more professional opportunities to the Tamils compared to their Sinhalese counterparts. Tamils were recruited in large numbers in the civil services. The prosperity of the Tamils in British Ceylon fanned the flames of ethnic division which led to the majority Sinhalese community aggressively reclaiming their power and position after independence.
The Sinhala Only Act of 1956 made Sinhala the sole official language of Sri Lanka. This set an automatic barrier for the Tamil-speaking people seeking employment in government services. In addition, the standardisation policy aimed at providing more educational opportunities to disadvantaged Sinhalese students, and this was affirmed by requiring higher exam scores from Tamil students for university admission. The Sinhala Only Act had already discriminated against the Tamils in terms of professional opportunities. The standardisation policy further limited their academic prospects as well. These policies together worked as strong state-backed discrimination against the Tamil community, which quickly changed the socio-economic power structures in favour of the Sinhalese.
In 1972, the country’s name was changed from Ceylon to Sinhala and Buddhism was declared the nation’s primary religion. In 1976, the LTTE was formed under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran. The idea of Tamil Elam, a separate state for the Tamils, came forth as a separatist solution to the institutional discrimination against the Tamils. The LTTE started campaigning for a Tamil homeland comprising the Tamil-dominated Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka. As the tension intensified, the LTTE became the sole representative of Tamil interests, eliminating some other competing groups. July 1983, known as ‘Black July’ in Sri Lanka’s history, marks the beginning of the civil war. The LTTE bushwhacked an army convoy and killed 13 soldiers, which triggered a day of riots targeting Tamils in Colombo. The civil war went on despite peace-keeping efforts by India and Norway and the 2004 tsunami, which claimed 30,000 lives on the island. The war formally ended after the Sri Lankan government reportedly killed the LTTE leader in May 2009.
The JVP aligned itself with the Sri Lankan military, engaged in war crimes, and supported state repression against the Tamil militant groups. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was the first JVP leader to ever publicly acknowledge the historical mistakes of the JVP and apologise to the Sri Lankan people. His election raised hope for reconciliation as he vowed to protect national harmony and stand against communalism. However, besides the pledges to ensure territorial integrity, Dissanayake had also made it clear during his electoral campaigns that his government would not seek to punish anyone for war crimes. He received notably lower support from the Tamil-dominated Northern and Eastern constituencies. Even after coming to power, Dissanayake’s government has not shown any intention to part ways with the JVP’s traditional practice of left nationalism. Instead, despite his leftist ideology, Dissanayake promised that the foremost place for Buddhism in Sri Lanka’s constitution would remain as it is. In short, the JVP-NPP government has challenged elite corruption but it has not been able to distance itself from the ethnocratic majoritarianism that promotes Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy at the cost of sidelining the Tamil question.
To quote the late Milan Kundera, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetfulness.” The double standards about the commemoration events are merely a reflection of the power structure promoted by the Sri Lankan state. However, economic reforms alone cannot stabilise the country while the state keeps undermining its blood-drenched history of ethnic divisions.
(Views expressed are personal)
Arka Bhaduri is an independent journalist who is interested in the political dynamics of South Asia and Europe
(This appeared in the print as 'A Farewell To Arms')
