by Piyumal Wijeratne

Created on: February 16, 2009

Sri Lanka, a country called by many a name like "the pearl of the Indian ocean", "the Dharmadweepa", and "the land of cannibals" is home to one of the most ruthless terror outfits in the world. This terrorist organization is the "L.T.T.E"(Liberation of Tamil Tigers' Eelam).

Of the many ethnic groups that live in the country, the Sinhalese are the majority. The Tamil people who represent a minority ethnic group started to claim that they were being treated unfairly by the majority ethnicity. This problem came down to an armed conflict and for now this civil war has cost thousands of lives. Fortunately this war is about to end.

There were a lot of conflicts between the Sinhalese and the Tamils in the past. Tamil leaders like "Uma Maheshwaran", "Dougles Devananda" and "Wargaraja Perumal" took up arms against the Sri Lankan government before the "L.T.T.E" was born. There had been some separatist organizations in the past like "E.P.R.L.F", "P.L.O.T', "E.R.O.S" and "T.E.L.O" in this very country fighting to gain power for the Tamils.

The government which was led by Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike tried to please the Sinhalese Buddhist priests of the country by avoiding the Tamil people from gaining strong positions in the government. This enraged the Tamils. The Buddhist priests sometimes tried to implant racism in the Sinhalese' minds. This was when the Tamil leader "Welupille Prabakaran" started to kill the leaders of Tamil separatist organizations in order to become the sole representative of the Tamils. He started the "L.T.T.E" terrorist group which is called the "Tigers" now.

Suddenly in 1983 a group of Sinhalese army soldiers died due to a landmine explosion in the northern area which was at that time dominated by terrorists. This incident angered the Sinhalese and the Sinhalese people killed a lot of Tamils who lived in the southern area. This happened in the July of 1983 and this incident is called the black July. India
started to help the L.T.T.E and the terrorists captured the northern area of Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan President who was in power in this bloody era was President Mr.J.R.Jayawardana. He led the Sri Lankan army well towards the victory. Indian government forced him to stop the war but they sent the "I.P.K.F"(Indian Peace Keeping Force) to Sri Lanka. The I.P.K.F was not welcomed by the people of the country. The Sri Lankan government was forced to devolve power to the Tamils. But this devolution did not work due to the L.T.T.E failing to

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