One of the world's longest running civil wars ended in May of last year. For 26 years the Government of Sri Lanka fought against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist organisation seeking statehood for the country's Hindu minority. Although the conflict has been on-going for more then two and a half decades it was only towards the end that the international community really started to take notice, mostly because of the horrendous rates of civilian casualties in the closing stages. Before I get into the nitty gritty of death tolls, displacement rates and so on I want to say a bit about Mahinda Rajapaksa, the country's president and the rebel outfit he faced.
Rajapaksa was elected to Sri Lanka's Parliament at the age of 24 and served a stint as prime-minister before becoming president in 2005. In addition to the presidency he is his own Finance and Defence minister. His brothers occupy many top jobs in Sri Lanka's Government including secretary of defence and speaker of parliament (the only office capable of impeaching a Sri Lankan president). Following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers the chief of the Sri Lankan armed Forces, Sarath Fonseka, challenged Rajapaksa in a presidential election. He was subsequently court marshalled, found guilty of using "treacherous words", stripped of his rank and medals and sent to prison. Sri Lanka's constitution limits presidents to two terms in office. Rajapaksa is currently trying to change this.
The Tamil Tigers were, objectively speaking, some of the worst human rights abusers and war criminals the world has ever seen. Their offences include some 163 suicide bombings, attacks on blatantly civilian targets including Buddhist shrines, the conscription of tsunami orphans as child soldiers and the ethnic cleansing of any territories they captured. During the closing stages of the war the Tigers prevented thousands of civilians from fleeing the conflict zone in order to use them as human shields to prevent army shelling. The tactic failed miserably.
Now you know a little bit about the forces involved let's talk some more about the campaign and it's consequences. At it's height just prior to the defeat of the rebels and for some time afterwards the war displaced some 300,000 Tamils from their farms and homes. Today, a year and a half after the end of combat operations, around 6000 are still prevented from returning home. Now this isn't all the Government's fault. When they started losing serious ground to the army the Tigers began lacing villages with mines and a lot of areas just aren't yet safe to go back to but there are other, more nefarious cases. An additional two ministries Rajapaksa manages to find room for on his stationary are Highways And Ports and Aviation. Many Tamil villagers are returning home to find their lands have been cleared for post-war development projects, power stations, industrial zones, etc.
The defeat of the Tigers has had a startling cost in human lives. Sri Lanka's defence ministry estimates that 6261 soldiers were killed and another 29,551 injured in the final 3 years of the fighting. The death toll over the course of the war could be as high as 23,000. This figure doesn't include civilian or rebel deaths, both of which were probably higher then military casualties. With the conflict finally at an end you might expect Sri Lanka to ease up on it's military spending. On the contrary, the army it set to grow by up to 300,000 more troops to secure the Tamil territories.
If there's one thing that makes me optimistic about the Sri Lanka's future it's that it's people are no slouches when it comes to democracy. When Rajapaksa first gained the presidency he did so with a razor thin majority of 50.3% Although much has happened in the past few years to erode the checks and balances on power I am of the opinion that democracy, once given, is very hard to take away and Rajapaksa will face an uphill struggle to maintain his authoritarian regime once the country has recovered from the effects of war.
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