Sri Lankan Civil War 1983–2009: The Tamil Tigers and the State

The Sri Lankan Civil War was an armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and Tamil separatist groups, above all the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), from 1983 to 2009. Fought mainly in the north and east of the island, it cost an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 or more lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The war began with the anti-Tamil riots of Black July in 1983 and ended with the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. It is remembered for its suicide bombings, for an Indian intervention that went badly wrong and for a final campaign whose civilian toll is still disputed.

Background and causes

Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was called until 1972, became independent from Britain in 1948. About three-quarters of the population were Sinhalese, mostly Buddhist, while Sri Lankan Tamils, mostly Hindu, formed the largest minority and lived mainly in the north and east. Tamils had been well represented in education and government service under British rule.

After independence, governments elected by Sinhalese majorities passed measures that many Tamils saw as discriminatory. The Official Language Act of 1956, known as the Sinhala Only Act, made Sinhala the sole official language. Anti-Tamil riots broke out in 1956 and 1958. In the 1970s new admission rules for universities required Tamil students to score higher than Sinhalese students for some courses, and the 1972 constitution gave Buddhism the “foremost place”.

In 1976 the main Tamil parties adopted the Vaddukoddai Resolution calling for an independent state of Tamil Eelam. The same year Velupillai Prabhakaran founded the LTTE. The burning of the Jaffna Public Library in 1981, with tens of thousands of books and manuscripts, deepened the alienation of Tamils in the north.

Black July and the first phase

On 23 July 1983 the LTTE ambushed an army patrol at Thirunelveli near Jaffna, killing 13 soldiers. When the bodies were brought to Colombo, anti-Tamil violence erupted in the capital and spread across the country. Mobs, sometimes using voter lists to find Tamil homes, burned houses and shops and killed Tamils; at Welikada prison 53 Tamil detainees were murdered. Estimates of the dead range from about 400 to 3,000.

Black July is usually taken as the start of the civil war, known to Tamils as Eelam War I. Tens of thousands of Tamils fled abroad, forming a large diaspora in India, Canada, Britain and elsewhere. Several Tamil militant groups, some trained in India, attacked government forces, and the LTTE gradually eliminated its rivals.

Indian intervention

India, under pressure from the Tamil population of Tamil Nadu, was drawn into the conflict. On 29 July 1987 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President J. R. Jayewardene signed the Indo–Sri Lanka Accord, which promised devolution of power to provincial councils. India sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to disarm the militants.

The LTTE refused to disarm, and the IPKF found itself fighting a guerrilla war in the north. At its peak the force numbered around 100,000 troops, and more than 1,000 Indian soldiers were killed. It withdrew in March 1990. At the same time the south of Sri Lanka was shaken by a separate, Sinhalese Marxist insurrection by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which was crushed with many thousands of deaths between 1987 and 1989.

Eelam Wars II and III

Fighting resumed in June 1990. The LTTE carried out a series of high-profile assassinations: Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991, and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in Colombo on 1 May 1993. In 1990 the LTTE also expelled the Muslim population of the Northern Province.

After a brief truce under President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994–1995, the army captured Jaffna in December 1995. The LTTE answered with attacks such as the bombing of the Central Bank in Colombo in January 1996, which killed around 90 people, and later overran the strategic base of Elephant Pass in April 2000. In 1999 Kumaratunga herself was injured in an LTTE suicide attack.

Ceasefire and final war

A ceasefire brokered by Norway was signed in February 2002, and peace talks followed. The LTTE then controlled a large area in the north, centred on Kilinochchi, with its own police, courts and tax system. The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 devastated the coasts of both government and LTTE areas, and arguments over aid added to the tension. The ceasefire broke down in practice from 2006, after Mahinda Rajapaksa became president.

The war resumed in earnest after a dispute over the Mavil Aru irrigation sluice in the east in July 2006. The LTTE had already been weakened in 2004, when its eastern commander, known as Colonel Karuna, broke away with several thousand fighters and later sided with the government. The army first cleared the LTTE from the east in 2007, then advanced in the north. It captured Kilinochchi on 2 January 2009. The LTTE and some 300,000 civilians were pushed into a shrinking strip of land on the north-east coast around Mullivaikkal. The government declared “no-fire zones”, but these were repeatedly shelled, while the LTTE prevented civilians from leaving and used them as a shield. The government declared victory on 18 May 2009; Prabhakaran was killed in the last fighting, and his body was shown on 19 May.

By the numbers

Consequences and legacy

After the war, around 280,000 displaced Tamils were held for months in camps such as Menik Farm before most were allowed to return home. Former LTTE fighters went through rehabilitation programmes. A UN panel of experts reported in 2011 that both sides were credibly alleged to have committed serious violations of international law, and the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolutions calling for accountability. The Sri Lankan government rejected many of these findings and set up its own commission, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.

Questions of missing persons, land held by the military, political devolution and accountability remain unresolved. The war also shaped the large Tamil diaspora and Sri Lanka’s relations with India and the West. It is often compared with other long separatist conflicts of the late twentieth century, and with earlier communal violence in South Asia such as the Partition of India.

Timeline

• 1956: The Sinhala Only Act makes Sinhala the sole official language.
• 1976: The Vaddukoddai Resolution; Prabhakaran founds the LTTE.
• 1983, 23 July: LTTE ambush at Thirunelveli; Black July riots begin the next day.
• 1987, 29 July: Indo–Sri Lanka Accord; Indian troops arrive.
• 1990, March: The Indian Peace Keeping Force withdraws.
• 1991, 21 May: Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber.
• 2002, February: Norwegian-brokered ceasefire.
• 2004, 26 December: The Indian Ocean tsunami strikes Sri Lanka.
• 2009, 2 January: The army captures Kilinochchi.
• 2009, 18 May: The government declares the war over.

Why it matters

The Sri Lankan Civil War showed how disputes over language, education and identity can turn into decades of armed conflict. It was one of the few modern insurgencies ended by outright military victory, but at a heavy human cost and without a political settlement. For an earlier stage of India’s involvement in the region, see the assassination of Indira Gandhi, whose government first supported Tamil militant groups.