The Big Picture gives an update on Sri Lanka
Back in February Taylor Burton gave us a quick rundown on the Sri Lankan Civil War between the coutry’s military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group fighting to create a sovereign Tamil state in the northeastern part of Sri Lanka. Here’s an excerpt from Taylor’s orginial article to explain the motivation […]
Back in February Taylor Burton gave us a quick rundown on the Sri Lankan Civil War between the coutry’s military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group fighting to create a sovereign Tamil state in the northeastern part of Sri Lanka. Here’s an excerpt from Taylor’s orginial article to explain the motivation behind the LTTE’s mission:
“Sri Lanka has an incredibly long history dating back to the 5th Century BC… involving colonization of Indo-Aryans, Dravidians, Portuguese, Dutch, and so on. But the main issue was initially brought about when the British (after conquering the Kingdom of Kandy in 1815) decided to colonize, bringing with them a large group of laborers from Tamil Nadu in South India to work on tea plantations. In 1833 the island was united under British rule, and this is where things start to get interesting. The Sinhala (an Indo-Aryan ethnic group originally from North India) majority, and the Tamil (Dravidian ethnic group from South India) minority coexisted rather peacefully under British rule, despite huge cultural differences, being that the Sinhala are predominantly Buddhist, while the Tamils are predominantly Hindu. After gaining independence in 1948, the Sinhala started a campaign of nationalism and disenfranchised Tamil plantation workers throughout the island, costing many of them their citizenship. Thus begins an ongoing rivalry between the Sinhala and Tamil communities that has led to what has now been deemed the Sri Lankan Civil War – a war that has claimed the lives of nearly 70,000 people…”
During the height of their power, the LTTE became notorious for recruiting child soldiers, suicide bombings, and assassinations of high-ranking Sri Lankan officials.
A few months after the article was written, the Sri Lankan military officially defeated the LTTE. Boston.com‘s The Big Picture has got some great photographic coverage (along with helpful information and links) on what things are like Sri Lankan now that the war is officially over, including the country’s efforts to rebuild its tourist industry and their treatment of Tamil refugees that some are callng “troubling.”
Check out The Big Picture: Scenes from Sri Lanka here.
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Valerie Catrow
Valerie Catrow is editor of RVAFamily, mother to a mop-topped first grader, and always really excited to go to bed.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Ms Catrow’s favorable reference to Mr. Taylor’s remarkably erroneous outline of Sri Lanka history is bewildering. She should have checked with some experts or at least Wikepedia.
Two major errors exist in the brief paragraph quoted.
1) Mr. Taylor makes no distinction between the so-called Indian or Plantation Tamils imported in the 19th century, and the major Tamil community which has existed in Sri Lanka for a couple of millenia or so.
2) The tension/conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese is ancient and did not suddenly arise after independent. It was exacerbated during the British colonial period for numerous reasons.
The whole tone of Mr. Taylor’s quotation gives the impression that he knows little about Sri Lanka, and what he does know is wrong.
This is a completely inaccurate account, and miiunderstood version of events done by a wroter with no knowledge of the conflict and with very poor research. Tamils have livced in Sri Lanka for centuries and in fact the last 4 kings of the sinhalese dominated kingdom of Kandy were TAMIL! This was prior to British rule. After british rule, they did bring in tamil labourers and they constitute only a small percentage of tamils in sri lanka even today. THEY have nothign to do with the conflict. The ethnic conflict was fought with members of the long entrenched Sri Lankan tamil ethnic group, who themselves do not consider the estate tamils as being part of the same ethnic group. Estate tamils NEVER played ANY role in the conflict, despite being the group that were wrongly stripped of their citzenship (since restored btw). Remove such erroneous articles and stop misleading the wider public.
please release the big picture
Update on bigpicutre got wrong on the Sri Lankan issue at the very begining. The war in Sri Lanka was not started just becasue of Tamil plantation workers brought by British in the colonial era. It is a different story. This is where ‘lost in translation’ happens, due to not-well read journlist giving inpreteation to Sri Lankan issue. Before writing, kindly read well.
Thanks for all of your feedback, everyone.
We’d love it if you could share links to other information that could give our readers further insight into this issue.
I apologize for my misinformation. From my own research, which was apparently horribly inaccurate, I have displayed a false account of events leading up to the inception of the conflict at hand. I do realize that the struggle between Tamils and Sinhalas in Sri Lanka is an age old problem, and I was referring more to the exacerbation after the withdrawal of British Colonial powers. I was making an attempt to enlighten people about situation outside of their own immediate world views, which I have apparently failed at. Perhaps I should enlighten myself more, before attempting to enlighten others. I am not a journalist by trade, though that is no excuse for my misinformation. Thank you for the feedback, and again, I apologize for misleading anyone with information which I thought to be accurate.
I also just realized that I a made no distinction between Estate working Tamils and those who had lived there long before British Colonialism. I did mention at the beginning of the article that bothe Sinhalese and Tamils had been settled in Sri Lanka since the 5th Century BC, but I realize that I made no clear distinction, and also referenced labourers being brought from Tamil Nadu, which was of course not a state until after Indian Independence. Again, a thousand apologies to everyone, especially the Sri Lankan community.