22-May-2012 • Chris C.
The Sri Lankan Civil War began in July of 1983, and was marked by a protracted Tamil insurgency perpetrated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, against the Sinhalese majority-held government. The military defeat of the LTTE on May 18, 2009 brought an end to nearly 26 years of bloody ethno-political civil conflict in Sri Lanka (Price 529). The end to the conflict was neither predicted nor expected. Indeed, “even the [Sri Lankan] government was surprised at the sudden collapse of the LTTE” (De Silva 237). This is primarily due to the size and resources that the Tamil Tigers commanded at their height, but also because of the LTTE’s previous ability to undermine the efforts of the Sri Lankan and Indian governments to combat it. Historically, the LTTE was quite unique in terms of secessionist-nationalist organizations.
It proved to be resilient, able to adapt, and forged tactics, techniques, and procedures that were innovative. As noted by Kaplan, the Tamil Tigers were the world’s first secessionist-nationalist organization to have its own air force, consisting of Czechoslovakian single-prop Zlin aircraft, and a navy which included fishing trawlers and a small fleet of submarines (5). Additionally, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point asserted that the Tamil Tigers had not only developed the first suicide belts and perfected the “use of suicide bombers,” they were also pioneering in the use of women as suicide bombers (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1021). And while “the gradual push for gender equality” may have been related to the LTTE’s “need for cadres,” as much as 40% of the LTTE’s force may have been women at the time of its demise (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1032, 1036).
The LTTE was also unique in its use of ruthless violence to further its cause. For example, the Tamil Tigers killed around 4,000 people from 2006 to 2007 alone (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1021). The Tamil Tigers also claim notoriety because they are the only dubbed ‘terrorist organization’ “to have assassinated two world leaders, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in May 1993” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1021-1022). Additionally, they “held a record for suicide bombings” up until the 1990’s (Kaplan 5).
The LTTE’s use of violence, threats, coercion, and brutal tactics was not just limited to the Sri Lankan government however. Tamil infighting was significant throughout the Sri Lankan Civil War. The LTTE did not hesitate to eliminate opposing “militant organizations” or community members that stepped out-of-line (Somasundaram 574). Many Tamil leaders and upstanding members of the Tamil community were killed or forced to leave Sri Lanka because the Tamil Tigers desired to eliminate intra-community opposition. Those with “leadership qualities, those willing to challenge and argue, the intellectuals, the dissenters and those with social motivation” were especially targeted by the LTTE (Somasundaram 574). The Tamil Tigers also “ruthlessly taxed the civilian population, required each family residing in its areas of control to supply a member for its fighting units, and drafted civilians for manual labor” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1032).
From a statistical standpoint, the LTTE insurgency is less unique because it failed to achieve its separatist goals and was militarily defeated. It is important to note that “most insurgencies fail, since states, no matter how weak or feckless, are typically stronger, better organized, and more professional than non state forces,” and the LTTE’s insurgency was no exception (Connable and Libicki 40). DeVotta points out that states are particularly sensitive to losing territory and are generally capable of rapid mobilization, “usually counter with massive violence, and can typically rely on fellow states in the international system to proscribe and undermine separatist groups” (“The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1031). However, despite the best efforts of the Sri Lankan government, the LTTE maintained its existence past the ten year median lifespan for insurgencies and generally caught scholars and politicians off guard upon its rapid and decisive defeat some 26 years after its birth (Cannable and Libicki 14). Thus, the fourth and final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War is instructive from a counterinsurgency standpoint since the previous phases were laborious and drawn out without military or political resolution. As such, this paper will briefly discuss the origins of the LTTE and examine the circumstances and tactics of the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
First, it is important to say that both the ethnic minority Tamils and the ethnic majority Sinhalese “coexisted peacefully for nearly two millennia [sic]” before the eruption of modern tensions (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 85). The beginning of Sinhalese anxiety dates back to “the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.” when Indians from India’s Hindu south conquered Buddhists in the “city-state of Anuradhapura” (Kaplan 4). “These invasions resulted in the” creation of a Tamil Kingdom in the fourteenth century, which in turn “helped lay the groundwork for Tamil majorities in the north and east” of Sri Lanka over the subsequent years (Kaplan 4-5).
The Sinhalese, which today make up around “three quarters of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million” still live “in fear of being overwhelmed by the Hindu Tamils, who, although they were only 18 percent of the [Sri Lankan] population, can theoretically call upon their 60 million ethnic and religious compatriots” in the Hindu majority region of Tamil Nadu in India (Kaplan 4). Moreover, the Sinhalese view it as their “historical destiny” to preserve “Theravada Buddhism from a Hindu revivalist assault” which as mentioned, is feared to be coming from southern India” (Kaplan 4). As such, the Sinhalese feel like they have been “pushed to their final sanctuary, the southern two-thirds of Sri Lanka, by the demographic immensity of majority- Hindu India” (Kaplan 4). Kaplan astutely notes that the “Sinhalese are a demographic majority with a dangerous minority complex of persecution” which has carried over the centuries and into modern conflict (4).
With regards to the Hindu Tamils, they believe that they have been “engaged in a two- pronged revolution” over the years, one of “liberating Tamils from a racist Sinhalese Buddhist state while concurrently also battling a historically castist, classist, and oppressive Tamil culture” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1036). Also, the Tamils “have had to deal with coercion, discrimination, and the utter failure of Sinhalese government institutions to protect their communal rights” (Kaplan 5).
Despite the presence of different religions between the two ethnic groups, “the main impetus for Sri Lanka’s” conflict has been over ethno-linguistic issues “not religious differences” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1025). This source of tension began in the 1920’s “when Tamil politicians first began to fear what universal-suffrage elections might mean in a society where Sinhalese outnumbered them six to one” (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 85). Still present to this day is the problem of “ethnic outbidding” within the Sri Lankan government which results in an “auction-like process whereby Sinhalese politicians strive to outdo one another by playing on their majority community’s fears and ambitions” (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 84).
With history having been the primary catalyst for both Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic anxieties, probably the most damaging historical factor was the European colonization of Sri Lanka.
As DeVotta best describes:
“For nearly 450 years, the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonized the island [of Ceylon—now Sri Lanka]. The latter resorted to divide and rule policies that favored Tamils. Schools set up by missionaries especially in the Northern Province provided Tamils an excellent English-style education. This led to their becoming disproportionately overrepresented in the government sector and also universities at a time when the state was the largest and most desired employer. Colonialism thus accentuated both groups’ ethnic distinctions (“The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1025).”
This “over representation of Tamils in the British administration fuelled [sic] ethnic competition” which has ever since poisoned the ethnic relations between the Tamils and the Sinhalese (Price, “Integrating ‘Return’ With ‘Recovery’” 533). Up until the Ceylon Independence, “Tamil elites considered themselves ethnic equals with Sinhalese elites,” and for the most part, they were “treated as such by their non-Tamil counterparts” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1025).
The island gained its independence in 1948 from the British. In the immediate years following the garner of independence, the “Sri Lankan state went through a process of ‘Sinhelisation’ [sic], which affectively [sic] marginalised [sic] Tamils from the political system” (Price 534). “Within eight years of independence,” Sinhalese “politicians belonging to the United National Party (UNP)and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) began competing over who could better guarantee Sinhalese Buddhist preferences” in what can best be described as a process of “ethnic-outbidding” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1022). This process systematically “marginalized moderate Tamil politicians and goaded Tamil youth” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1022). As a part of this overall marginalization of the Tamils, there was the “introduction of a first-past-the-post system” which not only favored the Sinhalese, but “allowed government positions to become dominated by Sinhalese elites” (Price 534).
The Sinhala Only Act of 1956 and later the 1972 creation of a new constitution are two such examples of Sinhalization in Sri Lanka. With regards to Sinhala becoming the official language of Sri Lanka, this was implemented under what was known as the Sinhala Only Act of 1956. This “created animus between Sinhalese and Tamils, and also sparked the first ever anti- Tamil riots” which was “followed by the 1958 riots and spawned policies that promoted Sinhalese Buddhist hegemony” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1025). As DeVotta notes:
“Tamil civil servants were forced to learn Sinhala to be promoted; Sinhalese civil servants were stationed in Tamil areas; and Tamils were forced to interact with them in Sinhala. Sinhala only was instituted into the courts system, including in the predominantly Tamil northeast region, which Tamils consider to be their historical homeland. Tamil areas were provided with little development assistance despite foreign aid earmarked for these regions. Publications promoting Tamil culture from nearby Tamil Nadu state in India were also banned. Furthermore, Tamil students were required to score higher than Sinhalese to enter university, and a quota system was developed to ensure that rural Sinhalese students got in much more easily. Tamil students who wanted to go to India to study were refused the necessary foreign exchange. Finally, Sinhalese from the south were transplanted to the northeast to promote Sinhalese colonization and alter the region’s demographics (“The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1025-1026).”
Eventually the Tamils were ever so slightly appeased through the inclusion of Tamil as official language in a 1958 act that passed through parliament. However, by that time, the damage had already been done and the resulting political disenfranchisement of the “Tamil minority fuelled [sic] a discourse of ethnic grievance, particularly among the youth population” (Price 534). These grievances led to a series of non-violent protests by Tamils in the northeast beginning as early as 1961. This resulted in the Sri Lankan Army being “stationed in the northeast” of Sri Lanka to “suppress” these peaceful protests, known as “satyagraha” which aimed to end the “state-sponsored discrimination” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1026)
The Sinhalese controlled government made changes to the constitution which “prioritised [sic] Sinhala as the primary language of the state and saw Buddhism named as the official state religion” in 1972 (Price 534). Indeed, the 1972 Constitution was “engineered without any input from Tamils, gave foremost status to Buddhism” and promoted “secularism by downgrading Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1026)
Feeding into the feeling of oppression by the Sinhalese majority government, “11 people were killed in January 1974 when police personnel, for no apparent reason, attacked the Fourth International Tamil Conference in Jaffna” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1026-1027). This led to the further radicalization of Tamils whom felt they had little alternative, but to fight and seek independence from the ruthless Sri Lankan government. The LTTE was founded by Velupillai Prabhakaran 1976 as one such movement against the Sri Lankan government (Kaplan 5).
Not more than two years later, the Sri Lankan government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). This act specifically targeted Tamils and “allowed the security forces to arrest and hold anyone suspected of subversive activities incommunicado and without trial for up to 18 months” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028). The passing of the act resulted in many innocent Tamils being tortured which again, only furthered the growing Tamil radicalization. The resulting “culture of impunity that the PTA foisted among the armed forces and government’s supporters” led to the burning of the Jaffna library in 1981 (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028). Nearly 100,000 books and rare manuscripts were destroyed and many Tamils felt “that the Sinhalese Buddhist state was determined to destroy their culture” in addition to to torturing, killing, and imprisoning their kin (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028).
This feeling ultimately led the LTTE to establish “a de facto government” in northeastern Sri Lanka that would eventually include its own “police, army, navy, air force” in addition to “legal codes, courts, prisons, taxes, customs, immigration, administration” and “local government, planning, development programmes [sic], social services, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), financial system, trades, shops, commercial ventures, and medical services, educational services” (Somasundaram, “Parallel Governments” 570).
July 13, 1983 marked the beginning of what would become the Sri Lankan Civil War (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028). On July 13, 1983, the LTTE “ambushed an army patrol…and killed 13 soldiers” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028). The result was widespread “anti-Tamil rioting” which left “thousands of Tamil businesses and homes…destroyed, numerous Tamil women raped, and over 2,000 Tamils killed (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028). These riots led to a mass exodus of Tamils from Sri Lanka and those that stayed “fled to their towns and villages in the northeast, convinced that creating a separate Tamil state was their only alternative” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1028).
The Tamils had faced more than 20 years of marginalization and had been under the thumb of a full-blown Sinhalese “ethnocracy” by the time hostilities broke out on a wide-scale (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 89). When the civil war broke out, the LTTE had fewer than 50 ardent members (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1022). Within a matter of months, this number sky-rocketed into the thousands. The bottom line was, for the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, they felt as if they were no longer participants in the government, and they believed that their only alternative was to fight for their independence in the north and north-east where the minority Tamils had a majority presence.
Early in the war, India supported the Tamil Tigers through its intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. This support was predominantly material and consisted of arming the Tamils and providing limited training (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1029). However, it was not long before the LTTE realized that India did not really have the organization’s best interests in mind. Rather, the Indian government was “merely using Tamil rebels to undermine an exceedingly pro-Western Sri Lankan government wholly insensitive to India’s security considerations and regional hegemonic status” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1029).
Four years into the war, the Indian government turned its support away from the LTTE, and instead offered the Sri Lankan government support in disarming the various rebel groups in northern Sri Lanka. This was in the form of what was coined the Indo-Lanka Peace Agreement which saw the deployment of an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1029). The Tamils waged a brutal guerrilla war against the IPKF and exacted a couples thousand Indian casualties over the course of the IPKF’s involvement in the Sri Lankan Civil War. Within the first three years of the deployment of the IPKF, the Sri Lankan government had grown suspicious of the goals of Indian forces and opted to arm the very Tamil fighters that were also waging an insurgency against their government to hasten the defeat of the IPKF (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 90). It is not known to what extent this impacted the eventual withdrawal of Indian forces, but by 1990, the Tamil Tigers had effectively defeated the “world’s third-largest army” and thwarted its efforts to bring an end to the Sri Lankan rebellion (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1029).
The defeat of the Indian military emboldened the Tamil Tigers and aggrandized their leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, whom had become somewhat of a demigod amongst Tamils (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1029). In fact, the organization had become so emboldened that it successfully assassinated India’s former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in May of 1991 for his involvement in the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka. Moreover, the LTTE also grew in strength and influence following India’s departure. From the “mid-1990s until 2006, the LTTE controlled nearly one-quarter of Sri Lanka’s territory,” about “15,000 square kilometers,” expanded itsarmy to 20,000 persons, and began to develop “conventional capabilities” that no insurgent force had ever accomplished before(DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1023).
As of 2006, the internal political situation had morphed within the Sri Lankan government. Governments of the past had been more willing to see a political resolution to the civil conflict, but a culture of militarism in the face of Tamil insurrection was beginning to take hold amongst prominent government officials. As such, 2006 marked the end of the third phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War and the beginning of the fourth phase. Catalyzing the resurgence in violence was the LTTE’s unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the head of the Sri Lankan Army in April, and again unsuccessfully, its attempt to assassinate the Sri Lankan Defense Secretary in December (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1038). This led to a massive military retaliation when the LTTE “closed the sluice gates to the Mavil Aru anicut (dam) in the Eastern Province and cut off water to over 50,000 farmers and civilians in July 2006” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1038).
There were many factors that led to the ultimate defeat of the Tamil Tigers. It is easy to look back and see that the LTTE was crumbling organizationally and making strategic mistakes, but at the time, few thought that a swift military defeat of the Tamil Tigers was a real possibility. There are three primary factors that led to the defeat of the LTTE. First, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi not only led to India designating the LTTE a terrorist organization, which had serious implications, but it also led India to eliminate the LTTE’s important base in Tamil Nadu within its borders (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1041). Second, the organizational cleavages within the LTTE were decisive in the bringing down of the LTTE. Once Colonel Karuna broke away from the LTTE and Prabhakaran, he divided the LTTE’s northeastern support base and things became dismal for the LTTE (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1041). The third and final factor was the election of Rajapaksa in 2005. The LTTE inadvertently set themselves up for failure by preventing Tamils from turning out to vote for the more moderate Wickremesinghe (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1037, 1041).
It is clear that the LTTE did not take seriously the rhetoric of Rajapaksa and his willingness to “pursue a purely military solution to the conflict” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1041). The organizational arrogance and brutal actions of the LTTE against its own ethnic brethren were definitely determining factors in the demise of the LTTE. The cult-like “nature of the organization and its leader” combined with the contradiction of lofty ethno-nationalist goals and “fascistic rule and terrorist practices” certainly undermined the LTTE’s “legitimacy and inevitably made Eelam an evanescent goal” (Connable and Libicki 45; DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1023).
Upon being elected president, Mahinda Rajapaksa went about implementing radical changes to the existing Sri Lankan policies toward the LTTE. He quickly re-framed the Sri Lankan conflict from that of civil conflict or counterinsurgency to counterterrorism. The counterterrorism approach afforded Rajapaksa’s government international support as well as a justification for his ruthless approaches to pacifying, debasing, controlling, and eliminating the Tamil Tigers, and arguably, the Tamil population as a whole. Moreover, the Sri Lankan government utilized propaganda and intelligence in ways that the government had not in years past. Together, the new policies implemented by the Sri Lankan government turned the government from its position of compromise and desire for a political solution in 2005 to a position of a military only solution to the LTTE (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1037). In doing so, Rajapaksa’s government brought a swift defeat to the notorious Tamil Tigers.
The counterinsurgency policy of the Sri Lankan government seemingly became a policy of fighting fire with fire. Specifically, the Sri Lankan government sought to use terrorism and extreme violence in order to pacify the Tamil population (Somasundaram 580). This strategy certainly impacted the Tamil population and the LTTE. Importantly, it resulted in the mass displacement of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Strategically, this removed Tamils from their “support bases,” denied familiar forms of “sustenance,” and eliminated the “information and assistance” provided by the population at large to the LTTE (Somasundaram 577). This process of pacification also had the effect of “inducing weariness, hopelessness, helplessness, rootlessness and despair” amongst the Tamil population which had the effect of allowing the already war- weary Tamils to “accept any conditions and break their cohesion and fighting spirit” (Somasundaram 577).
The no-holds-barred approach to counterinsurgency was a part of what the Sinhalese leaders were coining counterterrorism measures. Indeed, the government refused to even acknowledge the LTTE as anything other than a terrorist organization (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1022). By denying the LTTE any semblance of legitimacy, the Sri Lankan government was able to disconnect the Tamils from their legitimate grievances and wider civil struggle against their government (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1022). Additionally, this allowed the Sinhalese leadership to “trivialize the need to craft a political solution rooted in meaningful devolution of power within Sri Lanka” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1022). Thus, a military only solution was therein feasible.
The Sri Lankan government was also clever to pursue the LTTE under the broader global agenda of eliminating terrorism through the U.S. led Global War On Terror. The U.S. had labeled the LTTE a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, but in the post-9/11 world, this took a whole new meaning (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1021). Essentially, this allowed the Sinhalese government “free reign over decision-making” and the ability to go “to any lengths possible to defeat the LTTE” with little to no protest from the international community (Price 536). This fact was not lost on the LTTE and they went to extreme lengths to try and lobby Western countries to be de-designated as a terrorist organization. So even as the Sri Lankan government was subjecting the Tamil population to “massacres, arrests, detentions, abductions, torture, extra-judicial killings, forced displacements, conventional and guerrilla style warfare, restrictions and embargos on travel” the international community largely turned a blind eye because of “increasing disdain for the LTTE” and its use of terrorism and its broader human rights violations (Somasundaram 580; DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1041; Hariharan 3). The improvement of intelligence and the utilization of propaganda also gave the Sri Lankan government a distinct advantage in the fourth phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The government sought out Tamils that were unhappy with the conditions that the LTTE had them in and exploited them for intelligence. “Tamils began tipping off government intelligence agencies about LTTE strategic locations, which allowed Sri Lanka’s air force and special operations forces to destroy the group’s safe houses and supply bases during the last phase of the conflict” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1032). The Sri Lankan government also took advantage of the defection of Colonel Karuna whom “broke away from the group [LTTE] and soon thereafter joined government forces” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1041). Using this organizational fissure against the LTTE allowed Sri Lankan forces to further divide the LTTE and became a source of anti-LTTE propaganda.
The Sinhalese government also utilized propaganda against the LTTE to good effect. In order to impact the morale of the rebel fighters, the government inflated Tamil casualty and death statistics that were publicly released, while and not reporting government losses. The propaganda hub was the Media Center for National Security which was responsible for the “effective propaganda campaign that grossly inflated LTTE battle deaths and under reported military casualties so as to maintain soldiers’ morale and public support for the war” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043). Additional propaganda tactics included the offering of surrender to LTTE members, falsely portraying the LTTE as a confidant to al-Qa’ida, and emphasizing the LTTE’s criminality in Western countries. “Alleged links with other terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, and purported drug smuggling further undermined the LTTE’s tattered reputation” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1040).
Also noteworthy is the extent to which the Sri Lankan government went to make sure that it as the only message being received, not only within Sri Lanka, but also within the international community. From the time Rajapaksa became president until June of 2008 “over 100 journalists were attacked and over two dozen forced to flee abroad.” while some “14 media persons” had been “killed since 2006 (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043).
As the Sri Lankan government’s use of extreme force became more evident internationally, the government began to transition away from Western support and more towards their regional neighbors which would be more sympathetic to its policies. China in particular was an important ally that Sri Lanka picked up towards the end of its campaign against the LTTE. China provided Sri Lanka with “diplomatic and financial” support, as well as much needed “military equipment” (Lewis 656). This realignment also allowed the Rajapaksa government to avoid potential measures being taken by the UN Security Council since China could block such motions (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043).
Aside from using extreme violence to pacify the LTTE/Tamil population, the Sri Lankan government also engaged in leader and support-base targeting and communal militarization as decisive tactics to defeat the LTTE. Using intelligence and the identified organizational cleavages within the LTTE, the government systematically “wiped out” the LTTE’s “entire leadership” and “depopulated” the Tamil community while intimidating Tamils to the point of silent, passive, compliance (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1046; Somasundaram 581). Price notes that this tactic created a “culture of dependency” in the Tamils, which as Somasundaram explains, “Without leadership and organization, vital networks and functioning relationships have collapsed, leaving the community easy prey to competing propaganda, authoritarian control and suppression” (538; 575).
Communal militarization occurred as the Sri Lankan government gradually gained ground against the LTTE in the northeast of Sri Lanka. The government would erect checkpoints all over the Tamil communities which “cowed the Tamil populace into a routinized and circumscribed existence conducive to government surveillance” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043). DeVotta further explains that this “also affected the LTTE’s mobility, which explains the absence of suicide bombings in the south during the latter stage of the conflict (“The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043). Moreover, “operating within the populace discouraged LTTE leaders from escaping into surrounding jungles and reverting to guerrilla warfare, which, in turn, eventually allowed the military to corral its leadership” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1024). By May of 2009, the Sri Lankan Army had “the LTTE and 100,000 civilians were trapped in a narrow strip of land along the eastern coastline” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1046). In the spirit of its ruthless campaign to eliminate the LTTE, the “the military relentlessly bombed an area it had designated a no-fire zone while claiming otherwise, maiming” perhaps “60,000” people and “killing over 20,000 Tamil civilians” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1046; Somasundaram 570). By the time the war had come to an end May 18, 2009, 300,000 Tamils had been “displaced” and many were “confined in internment camps” (Somasundaram 570).
While defeating the LTTE ended two and a half decades of terrorism and harsh self-rule over the ethnic minority Tamils in Sri Lanka, it came at an incredible cost. The cost which is still being borne to this day by Tamils in Sri Lanka. Somasundaram raises that “it is the Lankan state that is most guilty of the misuse of power and the privileges that accrue to it as a state” (569). The LTTE’s use of “child soldiers, illegal arrests and kidnapping” as well as “assassinations and suicide bombings” is certainly deplorable, but the continuation of former tactics against the remaining Tamils in Sri Lanka all but guarantees that no devolution of power or the address of Tamil grievances will be had anytime soon (Hariharan 3).
To date, over a million Sri Lankans, mostly ethnic Tamils, have been displaced by the Sri Lankan Civil War (Somasundaram 575). This has resulted in massive diaspora communities cropping up in “India, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and other countries” while the population of the Jaffna peninsula, the former Tamil home, has decreased by two-thirds since 2004 (Somasundaram 575). In Canada alone, over 400,000 Sri Lankans have claimed asylum since 1983 (La 379). With the mass exodus, many of Sri Lanka’s most able citizens left. This has “stanched development, exacerbated the “brain drain” from the country, contributed to a nomie [sic] and political decay” and left the country “militarized and brutalized” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1046-1047). Prior to the outbreak of war in Sri Lanka, the ethnic breakdown was as follows: “Sinhalese 73.95%, Sri Lankan Tamils 12.7%, Indian Tamils 5.52%, Moors (Muslims) 7.05%, and Others 0.77%” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1024). DeVotta notes that “it is hard to see how the [Tamil] community’s current population could exceed 9%” due to the number of Tamils displaced internationally or killed in the war (“The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1024). This means that the Tamil population in Sri Lanka has effectively been halved since the early 1980’s.
Those that are displaced aside, the number of people that lost their lives in the Sri Lankan Civil War is quite large. According to the Sri Lankan government, “over 100,000 people” were killed “including 23,000 government troops” and some “22,000 LTTE cadres” throughout the civil war (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1046). Citing a study conducted by the Harvard Medical School and the University of Washing, DeVotta asserts that as many as “220,000 people perished in Sri Lanka’s civil war from 1975 to 2002” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1047). These high numbers are a direct result of the Sri Lankan military’s refusal “to differentiate strictly between LTTE cadres and civilians in rebel-controlled areas” and specifically using “indiscriminate bombing in certain LTTE-controlled areas, thereby treating every Tamil as a real or potential terrorist.” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1042). What is worse, the war is still continuing for the remaining Tamils in Sri Lanka. As if being exposed to a “brutal” conflict which saw the use of human shields and indiscriminate government shelling, over 200,000 Tamils remain in government run internment camps (Price 529). These persons are being held indefinitely with disregard for their “plight and preferences” and are completely “at the military’s mercy” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1044). “This obtuse stance also permits Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists to equate the diaspora with the LTTE and continue their agitprop against accommodating Tamil grievances, even in a post-LTTE phase” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1044). Aside from blatant disregard for the Tamil prisoners, those that are interned are held in deplorable conditions and “behind barbed wire” while being “under the constant guard of soldiers” (Thottam 32). The forced displacement and use of ‘refugee camps’ according to the Sri Lankan government is to prevent the uncontrolled clustering of Tamils and vet those that are controlled in order to be “certain LTTE cadres are not masquerading as civilians” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1048). The delay in releasing the ‘refugees’ is claimed to be because of the need to “de-mine villages before the refugees can be resettled” (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1048). However, as DeVotta states, more likely it is in order to cover up military atrocities and allow for the Sinhalese consolidation of former LTTE held land and resources (33; “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043).
Despite the Sir Lankan government’s insistence that “its human-rights record is excellent” and excusing any existing violations as a regrettable aspect of ‘war,’ the Sri Lankan forces are continuing their regime of “extorting, raping, disappearing, and murdering” Tamils (DeVotta, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” 1043). “Sri Lanka’s political, civic, and religious leaders have failed—or refused—to see that their actions have poisoned inter ethnic relations and engendered a stubborn and cruel civil war” (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 84).Economically, Sri Lanka has also suffered greatly as a result of its civil war. Aside from nearly destroying its tourist economy, a chief economic area for Sri Lanka historically, and depleting its human capital, Sri Lanka continues to spend money on further militarizing itself (De Silva 239). So “instead of any substantial economic growth” in Sri Lanka, today one sees “a slowing down as economic resources” have been “consumed by the conflict” (De Silva 238).
While the scorched-earth approach to counterinsurgency is counter-intuitive given the preponderance of the notion that governments must win the hearts and minds of the populous to defeat insurgencies; this approach combined with astute diplomacy and well developed intelligence and propaganda led the Sri Lankan government to defeat the world’s most advanced insurgency. The re-framing of the conflict to a counterterrorism effort denied the LTTE international support while justifying, at least in part, its use of indiscriminate violence. This allowed the Sri Lankan government to obtain support from the U.S. and other Western countries under the guise of fighting the ‘War on Terror.’ When this wore thin, the government moved closer to China which boosted the government militarily and prevented any international motions against Sri Lanka as a result of their human rights violations. Moreover, the use of effective intelligence and propaganda in support of its military-only approach allowed the Sri Lankan government to surround and eventually drive the LTTE and its leadership right into its hands.
Ultimately, the brutal and comprehensive strategy to weaken and pacify the Tamil population led to the defeat of the LTTE. However, the 26 years of civil war in Sri Lanka devastated the island country. While the Sinhalese government claims victory and says it is presiding over a new era of peace, few internally or externally displaced Tamils would likely agree. This is due to the fact that tens of thousands of Tamils remain in squalid internment camps, and most of those that are not interned see a continuation of Sinhalese oppression. Indeed, “security forces continue to operate with impunity, periodically raping, torturing, assaulting, and “disappearing” Tamil civilians” (DeVotta, “Illiberalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka” 96). What is being seen is best described as a negative peace. While there has been an end to conflict formally, none of the underlying issues that brought about the conflict in the first place have been addressed. As such, Tamil grievances continue to fester and though the likelihood of a new Tamil insurgency is not great in the immediate future, when the Sri Lankan government eventually allows for the reintegration of Tamils into its society, a real threat exists from the formerly humiliated Tamils if their grievances are not addressed in a meaningful way. As such it is important that the Sri Lankan government, reverse its wartime policies that remain in effect, and develop a post-war recovery policy that is “rooted in non-discriminatory participation and local ownership, supported rather than defined by the international community” (Price 531-532).
While the atrocities of the Sri Lankan Civil War will not soon be forgotten, a devolution of control by the Sri Lankan government, real and enumerated protections for the Tamils, as well as giving a direct stake in society to the Tamils will go a long way towards healing the wounds of the past struggles while decreasing the chance of a resurgent Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka.
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