Sri Lanka: 5 years on

Abstract

5 years ago, government forces in Sri Lanka over whelmed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), bringing an end to a brutal civil war that wrought a death toll estimated by the UN at 80 000–100 000. But the mayhem-filled final few months of the 26-year-long conflict, and its lingering aftermath of occupation and suppression, continue to cast a shadow over the country, amid accumulating reports of abductions and sexual violence targeting the Tamil population. Tensions between the Tamil minority and successive Sri Lankan Governments that represented the interests of the Sinhalese majority date back to the time the island gained independence from Britain. A separatist movement, agitating for a Tamil homeland in the north and east, began to take shape in the 1960s. Unrest exploded into allout war in 1983, after a Tamil attack on a military checkpoint left 13 soldiers dead. The armed wing of the Tamil movement was soon subsumed under the LTTE. They began a murderous campaign characterised by hundreds of suicide bombings and high-profi le assassinations. By the beginning of 2009, Sri Lankan forces, having quelled the rebellion in the east, were ready to launch a conclusive incursion in the north. The LTTE, along with 300 000 or so civilians they forced to retreat alongside them, were pushed into ever-decreasing parcels of land. Conditions were dire, humanitarian services in short supply. The UN estimates that some 40 000 civilians lost their lives. On May 16, 2009, the Sri Lankan Government declared victory.