Sri Lankan Civil War For Power Sharing And Human Rights
-By JAI PRAKASH YADAV
Sri Lanka is 74 percent Sinhalese and 11 percent Sri Lankan Tamil. In this two group Sinhalese are dominantly Buddhist and Tamils are mostly Hindus. Hence there are linguistic problem between two groups. However, the strife between the grounds is said to have begun much back in ancient Sri Lanka history.
During British rule, the tension between two groups worsened. The Sinhalese group felt threatened by the Tamil’s group prosperity partly due to the British favoritism of Tamil’s during the British rule in Sri Lanka.
Tamils are mostly found in north and east of the country while Sinhalese found in southern and central Sri Lanka. Since Tamils are more educated, so Tamil’s covered all the lower and higher civil service government jobs. So, the Tamil’s are very much dominant on the Sinhalese people during the British rule, because of wider gap of education between them.
Sri Lanka got independence in 1948 and they adopted the parliamentary democracy just like India. And we know that in democracy majoritarian party run the government, since Sinhalese are major in Sri Lanka, so all-time Sinhalians make the government and they have got the power to frame the law, so they make the law whatever they want. Tamils are only 15 percent in Sri Lanka, so they never got majority in parliament.
Sinhala parties tried to bridge difference in education and jobs by bringing policies favoring Sinhalese.
They made the policies like​: -
# Sinhala language made the only official language in 1956, that is why Tamil’s made to resign the government jobs.
# college education –restricted entry for Tamil’s,(Tamil’s have only 15 percent, instead of it they have present in high percentage in university and college in comparison to Sinhala’s people because Tamil’s have cracked the entrance exam of college, that’s why Sinhala people restricted Tamil’s in college and university).
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Due to all the discriminatory policies, many armed groups started to form in the Tamil’s people .Among all one of them is LTTE(Liberation tiger of Tamil Eelam)founded in 1976.It fought against the other Tamil’s group and dessimated all other groups and later by 1987 it become the most dominant one. Tamil Parties like TAMIL NATIONAL ALLIANCE (TNA) also wanted autonomy for Tamil areas. In every part of world, people supported and funded Tamil political and armed groups.
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Now, LTTE is one of the strongest parties of Tamil’s people and it was driven by Vellupillai Prabhakaran and by the 1987 it ran the shadow government in north and east region by its own navy and air force in Sri Lanka. They assassinated two major head of state one was Sri Lanka president Ramasinghe premdasa and another is Rajiv Gandhi and many cabinet ministers of Sri Lanka also.
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Indian government supported trained various Tamil group. Tamil Nadu political parties were favor of ethnic Tamils (long standing cultural ties ) and often helped (covertly) the cause of Tamil groups.
In 1887,Sri Lankan government asked India to stop helping LTTE and sign a peace agreement .And finally Indian government agreement piece and India sent peace keeping force(Operation pawan). By 1990 by public uproar in south forced SL government, India withdraw its forces. And it was the end of Indian intervention in Sri Lanka.
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After that second and third Eelam war were fought in 1990 and in that, attempt of life of PM Chandriaka kumartunga and many government officers. And 2002, LTTE is named as terror group by USA, in 2004 major split in LTTE by Tsunami wreaks havoc killed around 35000 people in Sri Lanka. LTTE assassinated the foreign minister and in 2009 SL army corners last of LTTE around Kilinochchi, Prabhaker was killed in fighting.
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After the war, Sri Lankan government appointed the Lesson and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC)constituted by the government to look into claims of civilians' atrocities and other war crimes by army in the war. War crimes and atrocities by both sides 1 lakh civilian deaths.
By all this policies Sinhala’s people created very frightened atmosphere in the Tamil’s people. In such circumstances Tamil’s people stated to satyagraha against the Sinhala’s policies and confrontational politics begun, due to these multiple riots took place in 1956,58,77,83.
REVEL LEADER KILLED AND LTTE END WITH THE WAR