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The following provides a brief overview of the history of Sri Lanka. If you have any comments, please feel free to email them to us.

I. Early Period & Colonization
Sri Lanka’s first settlers were the nomadic Veddahs. Legend relates them to the Yakkhas, considered “demons” by some, who were conquered by the Sinhalese around the 5th or 6th century BCE. A number of Sinhalese kingdoms, including Anuradhapura in the north, took root across the island during the 4th century BCE. Buddhism was introduced by Mahinda, son of the Indian Mauryan emperor Ashoka, in the 3rd century BCE, and it quickly became the established religion and a focal point that led to a strong sense of nationalism. Of course, the kingdom of Anuradhapura was not impregnable. Repeated invasions from southern India over the next 1000 years left Sri Lanka in an ongoing state of dynastic power struggles.

The Portuguese arrived in Colombo in 1505 and gained a monopoly on the invaluable spice trade. By 1597, the colonizers had taken control over most of the island. However, they failed to dislodge the powerful Sinhalese kingdom in Kandy which, in 1658, enlisted Dutch help to expel the Portuguese. The Dutch were more interested in trade and profits than land or religion, and only half-heartedly resisted when the British arrived in 1796. The British eventually chipped away at Kandy’s sovereignty and in 1815 became the first European power to rule the entire island. Coffee, tea, cinnamon and coconut plantations (worked largely by Tamil laborers brought down from southern India) sprang up and English was introduced as the national language.

II. Independence and the Road to Civil War
Known then as “Ceylon,” Sri Lanka finally achieved full independence on February 4, 1948, following closely on the heels of the independence granted to India due to the efforts of, among many others, Mohandas K. (“Mahatma”) Gandhi.
The first prime minister of the new independent government was Dr. Stephen Senanayake. When he died in 1952, his son Dudley Senanayake followed him. Dudley resigned in 1953 and was replaced by Sir John Kotewala. All three were members of the United National Party (UNP).

However, in 1956 the UNP fell from power. The next government was led by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who promoted Sinhalese culture and extended state control of the economy, adopting socialist policies. However, he was assassinated in 1959 while trying to reconcile the two communities and was replaced by his widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the world’s first female prime minister) who continued the policy of nationalization, bringing most schools under state control. In 1965, Mrs. Bandaranaike was replaced by former Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake who was prime minister again until 1970.

During this time, the government continued to promote mostly Sinhalese interests, making Sinhalese the national language and effectively reserving the best jobs for the Sinhalese, partly to address the imbalance of power between the majority Sinhalese and the English-speaking, Christian-educated elite. These actions prompted the Tamil Hindu minority to press for greater autonomy in the main Tamil areas in the north and east.

In 1972, the nation adopted a new constitution, became a republic and changed its name to the “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka” (“Sri Lanka” is a Singhalese name). The constitution gave Buddhism “the foremost place” with respect to religion[1], and made Sinhala the “Official Language” of Sri Lanka. Many have argued persuasively that the 1972 Constitution did away with safeguards for minorities that were contained in the earlier Constitution. Subsequent civil unrest resulted in a state of emergency in Tamil areas. Sinhalese security forces faced off against young Tamils, who began to fight for an independent homeland. Junius Richard Jayewardene was elected president in 1977 and promoted Tamil to the status of a “national language” in Tamil areas. He also granted Tamils greater local government control, but the violence continued to escalate.

III. Ethnic Conflict and the LTTE
In 1976, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, was founded. The LTTE is an ethnic separatist group that seeks an independent state (“Tamil Eelam”) in areas of Sri Lanka inhabited by mostly ethnic Tamils[2] (Eelam is a Tamil term that means “homeland”). When LTTE cadres massacred an army patrol in July of 1983 (a month Sri Lankan Tamils refer to as “Black July”), Sinhalese mobs went on a week-long rampage, killing 1-3 thousand Tamils, burning and looting property and displacing an estimated 100,000 Tamilsfrom Colombo alone[3]. In the minds of most people, this event marked the start of the civil war. Many Tamils moved north into Tamil-dominated areas, and many Sinhalese began to leave the Jaffna area. Tamil secessionists claimed the northern third of the country and the eastern coast. They were clearly in the majority in the north but proportionately equal to the Sinhalese and Muslims in the east. Violence escalated with both sides guilty of “ethnic cleansing” and with Muslims frequently caught in the middle.

The Government of India became involved in the ethnic conflict in the 1980s. The involvement was apparently motivated by a mix of issues – its leaders’ desire to project India as the regional power in the area, worries about India’s own Tamils seeking independence, and a genuine concern for the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Uncoordinated in the 1980s, the central and state governments of India supported both sides of the conflict in different ways.

By 1985, there were an estimated 50,000 internal refugees in Sri Lanka, another 100,000 Tamil exiles in India, no tourism, slumping tea prices and dwindling aid (because of human rights abuses). Government gains in 1987 led to Tamil unrest in India, prompting concerns of an Indian invasion. In the same year, the Indian government of Rajiv Gandhi negotiated an agreement with the government of Sri Lanka on the Tamils’ behalf without consulting the armed resistance, although all Tamil resistance groups, including the LTTE, eventually agreed to it. After the agreement was signed, the Indian government formed the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). The two governments agreed that the Sri Lankan Army would retreat and that the IPKF would maintain order in the north and disarm the Tigers. The agreement led to Sinhalese and Muslim riots in the south over the government “sell-out” and Indian “occupation.” Sri Lanka descended into a quagmire of seemingly inescapable violence.

In 1989, a Sinhalese rebellion broke out in the south and the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party (JVP), or “People’s Liberation Front,” orchestrated a series of strikes and political murders. The country was at a standstill. When the government’s talks with the JVP failed, it unleashed death squads that killed JVP suspects and dumped their bodies in rivers. A three-year reign of terror resulted in at least 30,000 deaths. The LTTE’s trust in both the Sri Lankan and Indian governments dissolved and the IPKF ended up fighting the LTTE. The IPKF finally withdrew in 1990. The Tigers had agreed to a ceasefire but violence flared almost immediately when a breakaway Tamil group unilaterally declared an independent homeland.

Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during a campaign tour by a suicide bomber in 1991 (likely an LTTE cadre), apparently to stop him from getting elected in the then-upcoming election (Mr. Gandhi had resigned as Prime Minister in 1989 following a general election defeat), and thereby also stop him from sending Indian troops into Sri Lanka as he had done in 1987. Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, who negotiated with India for the withdrawal of the IPFK in 1990, was also assassinated (likely by members of the LTTE) in 1993.

In 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga became prime minister and president in 1995. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Mrs. Kumaratunga’s mother, was thereafter appointed prime minister for the second time in her life. Mrs. Kumaratunga won a second term in December 1999. Just days before the vote, the president was the target of a LTTE suicide bomb attack which left her without sight in one eye.

IV. Prospects for Peace
In December 2001, Ranil Wickramasinghe, who lost the 1999 elections, became prime minister when the UNP again swept the parliamentary elections. This could have led to deadlock between Parliament and the executive in dealing with high inflation, high unemployment, poor infrastructure and, of course, the 18-year-old civil war, but some promising peace talks with the LTTE facilitated cooperation in the political process.

Peace talks brokered by a Norwegian delegation inspired a one-month cease-fire beginning December 24, 2001 (the first in seven years) that was renewed in January 2002.

The LTTE temporarily pulled out of the peace talks in 2003, saying that insufficient attention was being put on developing an interim political solution. The government eventually produced a proposal, and the LTTE a counter-proposal for an “Interim Self-Governing Authority,” which President Kumaratunga responded to by taking over several defense-related ministries. Peace talks remained suspended. In early 2004, she took over additional ministries and dissolved Parliament, calling for an election, which brought her United People’s Freedom Alliance to power.

During the election, LTTE commander Colonel Karuna of Batticaloa-Ampara split from the group’s main leadership, claiming insufficient resources and power were being given to Tamils of the eastern part of the island. The LTTE officially sacked him, small-scale violence erupted, and tensions were extremely high. After the election, brief fighting south of Trincomalee led to a rapid retreat and capitulation of the Karuna group, their leaders eventually fleeing to Colombo. Apparently, a Muslim member of parliament may have been involved in facilitating Karuna’s escape, but reports are conflicting.

On December 26, 2004, one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history, the Indian Ocean earthquake, struck off the western coast of Sumatra. The earthquake and subsequent tsunamis reportedly killed more than 220,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The impact on Sri Lanka was severe. The north, east and south coasts were devastated by the 10-meter high tsunami that killed approximately 35,000 people and displaced close to 1 million others.

In August 2005, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar (a Tamil) was assassinated. The government blamed the killing on the LTTE. The assassination plunged the Sri Lankan peace process into its worst crisis since 2002.

But unfortunately, since that time, prospects for peace have dimmed even more. The national presidential election held on November 17, 2005, was – at the direction of the LTTE – widely boycotted by Tamils in the North and East and therefore resulted in a slim victory for Sri Lanka Freedom Party candidate Mahinda Rajapakse over the main opposition rival, former prime minister Ranil Wickramasinghe of the United National Front (the United National Front is an electoral alliance formed by the UNP and the Ceylon Workers’ Congress). Although earlier in his career Mr. Rajapakse favored a negotiated settlement with the LTTE, his stance became increasingly hard-line after signing an agreement with two other nationalist political parties. Mr. Rajapakse launched his campaign for the presidency by announcing that he would reject the LTTE’s demands for Tamil autonomy. He also vowed to review the 2002 ceasefire agreement with the LTTE and indicated that Norway would no longer play a role as a peace broker.

The presidential election was followed by LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s annual “Heroes Day Speech” on November 27, 2005. Using particularly harsh and divisive language, the LTTE leader stated that the government’s actions had left the Tamils with “no alternative other than to fight and win their right to self-determination.” In what he called an “urgent and final appeal,” Mr. Prabhakaran stated that “the new government should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people,” and he warned that the government’s rejection of his appeal would cause the LTTE to “intensify [its] struggle for self-determination” and “national liberation” as early as “next year.”

Prospects for renewed negotiations became even more bleak when, just a week after Mr. Prabhakaran’s speech, President Rajapakse said he would “revise” the ceasefire agreement signed in 2002, disregard an agreement establishing a joint administrative mechanism to distribute tsunami aid that had been signed with the LTTE by the Government of Sri Lanka under President Kumaratunga, and would discuss peace with, “All parties involved in the crisis,” indicating that the government would likely refuse to accept the LTTE as sole representative of the Tamils. The LTTE’s acceptance of any or all of these measures would constitute a humiliating step backward from previously stated positions.

As a result of these unfortunate statements by both sides, violence is again on the rise all over Sri Lanka, particularly in the North and East. Yet, as of this writing, the 2002 ceasefire agreement between the LTTE and the government is in grave jeopardy and Sri Lanka again stands at the brink of open warfare. It is hoped that somehow peace negotiations will recommence in the near future. Prospects remained questionable, however, with the first week of January 2006 featuring continued violence in Sri Lanka, notably in the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.




1. Many people refer to Buddhism as the “state religion” of Sri Lanka, but this is not quite accurate, at least insofar as it implies that Buddhism is the only religion permitted in Sri Lanka or that anyone who works for the government must be Buddhist. The 1972 Constitution of Sri Lanka states that the government “shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana [Buddhist teaching], while assuring to all religions the rights granted by [other provisions of the Constitution],” including a person’s “freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.” (Constitution of Sri Lanka, Ch. II, Art. 10.)

2. To better understand the nature of the Sri Lankan conflict, it is essential to differentiate between “ethnicity” and “race” – terms that seem to have become somewhat conflated in modern usage. Historically, “race” has been used to describe a human population distinguishable from others based on shared biological traits, the assumption being that the human species, Homo sapiens, can be “naturally” subdivided into biologically distinct groups. In practice, however, scientists have found it impossible to separate humans into clearly defined “races.” Accordingly, most scientists today reject the concept of biological race and instead see human biological variation as falling along a continuum. “Race” is often confused with “ethnicity,” a somewhat ambiguous term that refers mostly, though not exclusively, to cultural (non-biological) differences between groups. An ethnic group derives its identity from its distinctive customs, language, ancestry, place of origin, or style of dress. Since Singhalese and Tamils do not exhibit any biological characteristics that are distinctive from each other, their differences are “ethnic” in nature; hence, most people properly refer to the Sri Lankan conflict as an “ethnic war.”

3. On July 23, 2004, the 21st Anniversary of Black July, President Chandrika Kumaratunga offered an apology, on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka, for the atrocities and offered compensation to some of the victims and their families.