DDiscrimination, repression and now bankruptcy – Sri Lanka has seen all kinds of trials and tribulations. While 2022 ‘Aragalaya’ – Sinhalese for ‘struggle’ – may seem unprecedented for today’s generation, a look at the past six decades reveals that the Indian Ocean island nation has been the epicenter of massive tensions.
On 4 February 1948, the island nation was granted independence as the Dominion of Ceylon and became the Republic of Sri Lanka on 22 May 1972. Exactly 50 years later, it is the republic that has pulled the Rajapaksa dynasty down from their golden throne, redefining the true meaning of the republic through a continuous and peaceful means. argalaya which continued for more than three months.
While former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, once hailed as a “hero” for the Sinhala-Buddhist-majority country, was forced to quell the Tamil rebels. run for his lifeAsylum seekers country by country, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe sworn in as Sri Lanka interim president A successor is found by Friday.
Earlier this week, Gotabaya became the last of the once influential Rajapaksa clan to seize power with his wife and bodyguards before fleeing to safety, first on a military jet to the Maldives and then to Singapore. . But he couldn’t even manage to take refuge in Singapore, while the shrill slogan “Gota go home” that had been going on since March refused to die.
from one”model developing countries“Regaining Yourself” Centrality in the Indian Ocean After the civil war, Sri Lanka has become one today”bankrupt country“With the ongoing socio-economic tensions deepening for several decades. This is why Sri Lanka is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
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serendibOnce upon a time there was heaven, it was deeply rooted
While the island nation, which was called ‘serendibIn ancient times, it was revered as a “paradise” for its tropical beauty surrounded by the Indian Ocean, due to which their tourism industry was booming, underlying tensions with the passage of the Official Languages Act – or the ‘Sinhala Only Act’ Roots were starting to form. ‘ – in 1956.
At the center of the tension was the Tamil-Sinhalese rivalry. As competition for education and jobs intensified, Sinhalese middle-class youth began voicing their support for the Act, aimed at reducing the chances of competition from Tamils for government jobs.
“This was achieved to some extent by the passage of the Sinhalese Only Act in 1956. Discrimination against Tamils increased, and their recruitment in the army, police and administrative services declined,” noted Hardeep Puri, former diplomat and now a Union minister, in his book. Dangerous Intervention: The Security Council and the Politics of Anarchy.
As tensions escalated, eventually in 1976, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was formed, demanding a separate homeland or ‘Elam’. And thus began Sri Lanka’s long and bloody civil war, a conflict primarily between the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the LTTE.
In July 1983, the war officially began when riots broke out in Colombo targeting Tamils. It was later called ‘black july, The violent war ended in May 2009, but not before the LTTE, which was labeled as a terrorist group, killed two world leaders – former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and former Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
It was under an agreement signed on 29 July 1987 with the then Sri Lankan government that Gandhi sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to the Tamil fighters to lay down their arms and make a peaceful settlement.
From 2005-2009, Gotabaya, the then Defense Secretary headed by his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, undertook several campaigns to eliminate the LTTE, while hewar hero, In one such operation, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the head of the Tamil Tiger Movement, was shot by security forces on 18 May 2009, officially ending the war.
Gotabaya, who secretly admired Prabhakaran for his “ruthless dedication”, wasvery happy“When he was killed.
But the episode also resulted in the killing of 100,000 people, while millions, especially minority Tamils, were displaced as refugees.
“Although the civil war ended in 2009, the current situation in Sri Lanka has only partially improved. A large part of the Tamil population remains displaced. While there are fewer political and civil rights issues, incidents of torture and forced disappearances have continued in recent years,” notes a report in the Harvard International Review.
Sri Lanka is also facing a UN-led international investigation into alleged human rights violations during the final stages of the war, despite strong opposition from the Rajapaksa government.
The Harvard report said, “The Sri Lankan government frequently surveys and monitors those associated with the LTTE. The Sri Lankan military still primarily occupies Tamil areas designated as ‘high security areas’, Although somewhat less than during the war, the government’s Anti-Terrorism Act (PTA) mostly targets Tamils.
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lesser known facts about the protest
During the peak of anti-government protests, the majority ethnic Sinhalese group, for first timeRemembering the ghastly ethnic Tamils killed in the final phase of the civil war. Earlier such events were mostly private.
While Sri Lanka’s anti-government protesters set an example for other democracies, Tamil activists say security forces would not have shown such restraint if they were protesting and in Tamil-centric areas.
“There are always two different treatments of protesters. It depends on who you are and where you are,” said Anushani Alagarajah, a Tamil civil rights activist based in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka. BBC,
Thoughts are personal.
(edited by Prashant)