A Reporter’s Guide to the Sri Lankan Civil War
The Mullivaikkal Memorial, or Mullivaikkal Muttram, commemorates the Mullivaikkal massacre, where Tamil civilians were killed during the final phase of the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and Sri Lankan armed forces in 2009.
May 18, 2024 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, a 26 year long ethno-religious conflict between the Buddhist Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers), a Tamil insurgent group seeking to establish Tamil Eelam, an independent state for Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka. The war ended in 2009 when the Sri Lankan government killed the LTTE leader and proclaimed victory. Beginning with the Black July riots and ending with the Mullivaikal Massacre, the Sri Lankan Civil War was bookended by massacres of Tamil civilians. The persecution of Sri Lankan Tamils continues to the present day, and the Sri Lankan government has not faced accountability for its actions during the war. Hindus for Human Rights supports the human rights of Sri Lankan Tamils, including the right to self determination.
From the beginning of Sri Lankan independence, the Sinhalese majority seized power and initially denied Tamil Sri Lankans citizenship because of their “Indian ancestry” (Ceylon Citizenship Act). The Sinhala Only Act restricted the use of the Tamil language and resisted growing calls for autonomy and self rule in Tamil communities. This culminated in a constitutional amendment which criminalized subnational independence movements within the country, exacerbating tensions between the communities.
In July of 1983, Tamil rebels ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers. In response, communal violence broke out in Colombo targeting Tamil civilians in what has become known as the Black July massacres. The Sri Lankan government estimates that between 400 and 600 people were killed, but survivors argue the true death toll is much higher. Government forces failed to stop (and in some cases are alleged to have aided) rioters and despite abundant evidence from survivors, no one has been prosecuted for the killings, even decades later. During the next 25 years of war, an estimated 100,000 people were killed and 800,000 people displaced, a majority of which were Tamil civilians. In the final months of the war in 2009, an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Tamil civilians were trapped and killed in Mullivaikal by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces’ indiscriminate bombing in a previously-declared safe zone. Mullivaikal Muttram or Mullivaikal Memorial Day on May 18th memorializes these Tamil civilians killed during the massacre at the end of the war. A 2011 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report found credible allegations of war crimes on both sides, including the LTTE’s recruitment of children and use of suicide bombing to kill civilians as well as the Sri Lankan government’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians and unlawful detention, torture, and forced disappearance of Tamil civilians. The LTTE were also responsible for the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
While the formal fighting has ended, the atrocities of the war have not been prosecuted and the Sri Lankan government’s persecution of Tamils has continued through the present day. Despite ample evidence of these war crimes and the ongoing pain of the families affected, the Sri Lankan government has evaded responsibility. President Wickremesinghe's proposed National Unity and Reconciliation Commission failed to materialize and instead shielded the government from outside investigators. Other government attempts at justice, like the Office on Missing Persons, have also fallen short in bringing about justice or prosecuting war crimes. Tamil journalists face continued harassment and censorship, while crimes against them during the civil war remain unprosecuted. Tamil journalists and activists are still arrested and held without charges, many under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the same antiterrorism law invoked against Tamil civilians during the war.
The Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism that drove Sri Lanka to a Civil War is still the dominant political force in Sri Lanka today. Sri Lankan nationalism is deeply enmeshed with Sinhalese identity and Theravada Buddhism, thereby relegating religious minorities to an outsider status in Sri Lankan national identity and politics. Article 9 of the Sri Lankan constitution states that the government must “protect and foster” the practice of Buddhism and grant it the “foremost place”. This has broad popular support, with a 2016 survey indicating that roughly 70% of Sinhalese Buddhists support this codification of Buddhism within the constitution.
More recently, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism has expanded its persecution beyond Sri Lankan Tamils to also target other religious minorities, including Sri Lankan Christians and Muslims. Religious minorities face growing persecution, surveillance, and censorship. Christians and Muslims have faced increasing incidents of physical violence, discrimination, threats, hate propaganda, or property destruction. In online anti minority content, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists often group these minorities alongside Tamil Hindus in opposition to Sinhalese Buddhist values and ideology.
A note about India’s Citizenship Amendment Act:
India’s Citizenship Amendment Act notably excludes Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from eligibility for fast-tracked citizenship. These Hindu refugees could benefit significantly from a pathway to citizenship in India, and therefore obtain jobs or work permits. Currently, the state of Tamil Nadu provides for the basic needs of Sri Lankan Tamils living in the state. Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), has criticized the exclusion of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus from the CAA. This omission reveals the true intent of the CAA: to villainize Muslim-majority countries, and by extension, villainize Indian Muslims. The CAA’s exclusion of Sri Lankan Tamils exposes the hollowness of Hindu nationalism’s regional policies and undermines the law’s purported promise to safeguard Hindus and other religious minorities throughout South Asia.
Sources/Further Reading
https://hir.harvard.edu/sri-lankan-civil-war/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ASA3752412022ENGLISH.pdf
https://pearlaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/PEARL-factsheet-7.pdf
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/18/sri-lanka-abuses-undercut-proposed-truth-commission
https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/document/poc-rep-on-account-in-sri-lanka.php
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/LK/Sri_LankaReportJan2021.docx
https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/sri-lanka/