A FLASHBACK TO SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR

“All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers”

Sri Lanka, the pearl of the Indian Ocean is a tiny island in the blue ocean just underneath the Indian sub-continent. Sri Lanka got her sovereignty from the British supremacy in 1948 after many freedom rebels of unified Sinhalese and Tamil freedom fighters who devoted their lives for the mother land, with the noble nationalistic feelings.

But as the time proceeded, this same nationalism in Sinhalese and Tamils, which once made them cry for liberating their one country Sri Lanka against foreign imperialism, then paved its way to a passive cry that fired into a rivalry against each other. Bringing in of a legislation leading to the increased marginalization of the Tamil minority, mainly including the 1956 Official Language Act which made Sinhala language the official state language can be considered as a milestones of these conflicts. Also the narrow viewpoints and selfish actions of some power hungry racists worsened the condition. Eventually, these unfortunate incidents led to strain the centuries preserved brotherhood and amicable feelings of the two races nourishing under the blessings of the same mother Lanka.

Numerous violent riots broke in various parts of the island, finally leaving its first heavy mark as a civil war in July 1983, which is considered as one of the darkest and abhorring incidents till date by each and every Sri Lankan, regardless of the nationality; “the Black July”. Both the ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’ (LTTE) & the JVP, a Marxist Sinhalese nationalist political party, though rose intending to be fully devoted towards the national welfare, ran into corruption with time, proving to be more power thirsty than nationalistic. Hence, ‘Tigers’ aimed their attacks on civil Sinhalese while the Sri Lankan Forces continued to control the Eelam rebellions. Further the situation got worsen by the 2004 Tsunami tragedy which also massacred thousands of victims who were fed up of the war running for decades.

However, in the meantime, numerous attempts of peace negotiations and ceasefires were also interspersed, which ultimately proved to be failures since LTTE continued to declare that they need to “resume their struggle to achieve statehood”. Therefore, in 2008, under the rule of the president Mahinda Rajapakse, began the final military mission, not at all aimed at destroying the “Tamil enemy”, but to defend the terrorism in order to bring forth peace for everybody by putting an end to the suffocative war.

Finally, in May 2009, the victory was marked by Sri Lankan Defense forces capturing the last of the LTTE controlled areas. And by now, all the Sri Lankans, regardless of their racial differences, live peacefully and united under the same flag where all the three languages, Sinhala, Tamil and English are considered the official languages, which at the first place led to this futile war.

It is noteworthy that this victory is not at all a true achievement of the nation until and unless every Sri Lankan, regardless of their mean notions of racial differences understand the futility of the so called massive massacre of “war” which did cost around 100,000 precious lives and the displacement of a similar number. A war is completely a lost in every way, which ultimately disrupts the country’s journey towards development as well. Hence being a country that suffocated with this curse of war for thirty long years, it is all Sri Lankans’ prime duty to be very cautious in every way not to let germinate any seeds of narrow racism as “Sinhalese” or ”Tamils”, instead wow to be purely and heartily “Sri Lankan to the last breath!”

-Privini D. Sandanayake

P.S.

“There is no victory in any wars, only the defeat.”

“War does not decide who is right, it decides who is left.”