THE PRESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1987. Race war in Sri Lanka

Press, 24 April 1987, Page 16

THE PRESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1987. Race war in Sri Lanka

The presence of a New Zealand cricket team in Sri Lanka has drawn more than the usual attention here to the renewed racial troubles in a fellow Commonwealth country. Hundreds of people have been killed in Sri Lanka in the last week, many of them by bombs planted by extremist factions of the Tamil community. For more than a decade, the Tamil minority has sought a degree of autonomy from the central Government. In the last four years, violence has intensified; nearly 6000 people have been killed; the country’s northern province has become all but independent under a rebel administration.

The bombings this month set back further what were already slim prospects for a negotiated settlement. Since late last year a rough truce had been operating in the contested northern and eastern areas, where the Tamils make up a significant proportion of the population. The Sri Lankan army, in an attempt to improve its reputation among Tamil civilians, had been doing no more than hold its bases in the north. Indian Government attempts to mediate in the dispute made little progress, but there had at least been negotiation between the Government and rebel groups.

The latest terrorist attacks cannot encourage the negotiations. They must have the effect of forcing the Government to take a tougher line against the rebels, and against Tamils in general. Although the Government has tried to restrain Sinhalese reprisals against Tamils and their property, there have been nasty incidents in the capital, Colombo, and elsewhere. Sri Lankan armed forces attacks on rebel strongholds in the north have led to civilian casualties.

As well, the bombings look like an attempt by the Tamil terrorists to demonstrate they can operate anywhere in the country. The Tamil leadership is attempting to stir trouble in the central part of the country, which has a large Tamil population, but which had been relatively quiet.

The most effective way to build support for the Tamil extremists is to provoke reprisals from the Government. Now that the Sri Lankan Cabinet has promised “strong measures” against the terrorists, the rebels’ strategy appears to be working. Terrorists and their supporters probably number no more than a few thousands in a Tamil community of nearly three million. They can only hope to achieve their objects by intensifying tension and hatred between the

two populations. Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) is an Indian Ocean island, about half the size of the South Island, and has a total population of 15 million. The violence there has a considerable impact on the outside world. India, Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour, has been drawn into the dispute because Tamil rebels have found bases and support among the much larger Tamil population in southern India. Sri Lanka, with its small armed forces under considerable pressure to contain the rebellion, has sought help from other countries, including China and Pakistan, with whom India has uneasy relations. Among Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking community is a small group of Muslims who speak Tamil but regard themselves as distinct from the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamils. The Muslims claim they are under pressure from both larger groups to take sides in the quarrel; they have looked to outside Muslim countries for help. Even the major Powers cannot avoid keeping a close eye on events. The Sri Lankan Government is generally proWestern. Some of the Tamil groups claim to be Marxist-inspired. At the heart of the disputed eastern province is the port of Trincomalee, once a major British naval base. Were it to be opened to either the United States or the Soviet Union it would bring a significant change to the balance of naval power in the Indian Ocean. The war is wrecking Sri Lanka’s economy. A flourishing tourist trade has all but vanished. The Tamil extremists are attempting to spread the violence into the tea plantations along the country’s central hills. Investment is drying up and an increasing proportion of the country’s Budget is being spent on fighting the war and repairing the damage.

The prospects for a settlement are poor. Most Tamils would probably accept a degree of autonomy under which they ran such sensitive matters as schools, police, and land distribution in their own areas. This much the Government in Colombo is probably ready to concede, but only in exchange for an end to the violence.

Instead, the extremists are embarked on a course that could end in partition of what is already a small and poor country. Most Sri Lankans, regardless of race, abhor the war. The mounting casualty lists make it more and more difficult for the two races to trust one another, or to live and work together. Amid Sri Lanka’s troubles, a curtailed New Zealand cricket tour is a very small matter.