Rohini Hensman’s Journey without a Destination is the story of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war, told in the words of those displaced or dispossessed by the fighting.
Over half a million Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have fled to other countries while over a million Sri Lankans are displaced internally by the continuing conflict.
Her in-depth interviews bear witness to the complexities and the contradictions of a society at war with itself – the conflicting emotions of those who have fled the country, the hopes and fears of those who are internal refugees.
She charts in the process an incisive oral history of Tamil and Sinhalese nationalism – two cultures on a collision course – and a human cost that can never be adequately measured.
She has found that those who suffer sometimes have insights that could hasten a solution – insights inevitably based on tolerance and understanding.
These are qualities that we also urgently need in European countries if we are to face up to our own responsibilities – to help and support those who seek refuge from such savage conflicts.
Alf Dubs, Director
British Refugee Council
[1993]
Preface
It seems almost banal to say that when you set out on a journey, it is with a destination in mind: why would you set out otherwise? Yet millions of people embark on a desperate journey without any destination, impelled only by the desire to escape from the horror behind them, or forcibly driven from their homes. These are the refugees of the world; and Sri Lanka, considering how small it is, has made a sizeable contribution to their numbers.
Technically, only those who escape to another country are called ‘refugees’, while those who remain in their own country are called ‘displaced persons’. However, I refer to both groups as ‘refugees’ in this book in order to emphasise the essential similarity of their experience.
Recently, a great deal of hostility to refugees has been expressed in Britain and other Western countries. One example is John Major’s statement, ‘We must not be wide open to all comers just because Rome, Paris and London are more attractive than Bombay or Algiers’ (The Independent 2/7/91, p. 6). Yet the overwhelming bulk of Third World refugees flee to other Third World countries; in the case of Sri Lanka too, the number who flee to India is many times greater than the number who go to all the other countries of the world put together: 250,000 in India in 1991, compared with 80,000 in the West (see also Kismaric 1989, p. 119). But perhaps this is only due to lack of opportunity? Is it possible that all those teeming millions out there are just waiting to flock to Britain and other Western countries, and that the label ‘refugees’ is just a convenient excuse?
This is one of the questions that I set out to answer in the project which initiated this book, begun in 1989. I have taken Sri Lanka as a paradigm of the countries from which refugees are fleeing, and Britain as a paradigm of the Western countries in which they seek asylum.
Although both countries of course have their own peculiarities, I believe that – paradoxical though it may seem – it is possible to learn more about the fate and treatment of refugees in general from an in-depth study of this kind than from a more cursory examination of a variety of situations, although such studies are useful in their own way. There is also a point in confining the study to refugees and not taking up the more general question of immigration. Although refugees in the country where they seek asylum in many ways share the fate of immigrants, there is a fundamental difference in their situations. Immigrants, for a variety of reasons, wish to leave their homeland and settle in another country; refugees have no such wish, but are forced to leave their country as a result of political developments there. Successful settlement abroad cannot, therefore, be seen as a completely satisfactory permanent solution to the problem of refugees; in this they have more in common with displaced people who remain in their own country, because for both, the ideal solution is a situation where they can live in peace in their own homes.
Thus the responsibility of the international community towards refugees does not end with the provision of decent conditions of asylum, although this is of course essential. There is also an international responsibility to do whatever is possible to end the crisis which has driven them out of their homes, and help them to return and rebuild their lives there if they wish to do so. To see the problem in its entirety, therefore, it is also necessary to look at what has caused the refugee outflow in the first place, and how this can be remedied.
To begin with, I carried out in-depth interviews with 53 Tamil refugees in Britain, asking why they had decided to leave Sri Lanka, and why they had chosen to come to Britain rather than any other country. A few said they had come to Britain temporarily as students, and had been stranded when the violence broke out; most had not wished to leave Sri Lanka at all until forced to do so. As one refugee put it: ‘I didn’t choose to go anywhere – I didn’t want to go anywhere – I didn’t decide to leave at all.’
Many had suffered loss of status and identity as a result of the move, and longed to go back, provided they could go back to a home and not to a war. They seem a very far cry from people who had wished to come to Britain in order to improve their prospects – so-called ‘economic migrants’ – even though only a very small minority of them had succeeded in getting full refugee status. As one refugee commented, ‘The British government is saying the Tamils are economic refugees, but I don’t agree with that – that is not true. I myself was the chief accountant in a government department; there were 64 people working under me. If the Tamils fleeing from there are all economic refugees, why should the doctors, engineers and accountants come?’
Why indeed? As this comment suggests, I found that virtually all the refugees I interviewed in Britain had been well-educated and came from a fairly affluent background in Sri Lanka: many were doctors, lawyers, accountants, technicians, engineers, senior government officials, teachers, lecturers, etc. Some of the women had not been employed, but all except the very oldest had been educated up to ‘O’ level or beyond. Some had difficulties with English, but many others spoke it fluently. Their ages ranged from 18 to 70; some had been students, and a few were continuing their studies in Britain. I gathered that, before they were affected by the conflict, they had been comfortable or even well off in Sri Lanka.
Of course, they could all have been lying; they could have made up elaborate stories to deceive me and the immigration authorities. One way of checking up on them was to look through documentary accounts of the situation they claimed to be describing; another was to visit Sri Lanka and see for myself.
I did both, doing extensive background reading and visiting Sri Lanka twice, in 1990 and 1991. The documentary sources agreed remarkably well with the refugees’ accounts; and I found Sri Lanka full of displaced people, the number increasing from around 1 million during the first visit to around 1.6 or 1.7 million during the second – more than one-tenth of the island’s entire population. If we are to discount the stories of the refugees in Britain as being untrue, we would also have to dismiss the documented accounts, including those by reputable organisations like Amnesty International, as being mistaken; and we would have to believe that all the people herded into refugee camps throughout Sri Lanka in wretched conditions were there for a picnic.
Somehow, it doesn’t seem likely. Maybe people who make allegations about bogus asylum claims would change their minds if they went through the same enquiries as I did. Indeed, it is a good deal easier to prescribe that others should live in constant danger than to do so oneself. Some refugees felt that officials should see the situation for themselves before making judgements.
But why had the refugees chosen to come to Britain? Some had not chosen to, but had landed up in Britain more or less by chance. Those who had made the decision had done so mainly for one or more of three reasons: (1) because they already had relatives settled in Britain; (2) because they had a knowledge of English; (3) because up to the end of May 1985, there was an open visa system for all Commonwealth citizens.
As one refugee explained, when asked why he had chosen to come to Britain: ‘It’s the only country we can come to because we are Commonwealth citizens and no visas were required at that time. So we had to flee to a country where the language that we speak is spoken, and in fact I had my daughter here then. She’s settled down – she’s a British citizen. It was at her request that I came here.’
All three reasons are related to a fact which too often seems to be ignored: namely, that colonials in London and Paris were attracted to Bombay and Algiers long before the reverse flow started; and that the British were in Sri Lanka for a century and a half not merely as uninvited guests but as unwanted rulers who deprived its people of their rights in their own country. Against this background, the air of injured innocence of the Western powers rings rather hollow. It is worth looking at allegations by some refugees that, both historically and currently, Britain bears part of the responsibility for the crisis that is displacing millions of Sri Lankans.
It is all the more urgent to put the record straight because irresponsible untruths in high places cost lives. The situation in Britain today is such that the lives of refugees seeking asylum are at risk not merely from forcible repatriation but also from more direct physical attacks. On 29 December 1991 a Sri Lankan refugee, Panchadcharam Sahitharan, was assaulted by racist thugs in East London, and died four days later without regaining consciousness. He was not the first refugee to be killed by British racists. It is a tragic irony that refugees fleeing ethnic violence in their own countries should face exactly the same problem in the countries where they seek asylum. Anyone who fosters the myth that refugees are scroungers is condoning a society which tolerates these murders.
It has often been pointed out that, on the contrary, refugees are a resource for the country where they seek asylum. The majority of Sri Lankan refugees in Britain are highly skilled, educated, qualified people who could contribute a great deal to Britain if they were allowed to do so.
In fact, the country which suffers from the ‘problem’ of Sri Lankan refugees is Sri Lanka itself. The exodus of so many skilled and qualified people, the killing of many more, and the disruption of education, has put the development process back many decades. And, of course, it is a problem for the refugees themselves, who do not wish to go anywhere and only want to live and work in peace in their own country. Is there any prospect that they could do this in the foreseeable future?
The predominant picture of Sri Lanka as a country locked in irreconcilable ethnic conflict suggests that the answer is ‘no’. However, my own personal starting point for this project was a childhood memory which didn’t quite fit in with this picture. My family had lived in a Sinhala-speaking suburb of Colombo without ever feeling any hostility from our neighbours. When anti-Tamil riots broke out in 1958, Sinhalese friends who suspected that an attack on us was being planned not only warned us, but spared no effort to ensure that we escaped to safety, with the help of many others. What stands out in my memory is the love and concern of our Sinhalese friends and neighbours, who on that occasion probably saved our lives.
Could this be a mistake, or perhaps a unique experience? In order to find out, I asked the refugees about their own relationships with friends, colleagues and neighbours from other ethnic groups. Most of them spoke with warmth and affection of such relationships, and there were numerous instances where help had been given; many could, like me, recall living peacefully in multi-ethnic communities. What, then, had caused the problem, and were there any possible solutions?
A very wide range of opinions was expressed in response to these questions. A few tend to confirm the view that there is no meeting point, and therefore no solution. But the majority are impressively clear-sighted and humane – so much more so than the views expressed by most political leaders in Sri Lanka, that it made me think of these refugees as not mere victims of the violence, but as people well able to contribute to a solution.
It is all too easy to see refugees as objects – objects of violence in the first place, and then objects of relief and rehabilitation. Even if attempts are made to satisfy their special needs, this still doesn’t amount to seeing them as intelligent human beings. The first requirement is that we should listen to them, and that, really, is the purpose of this book. What they have to say about the situation in Sri Lanka is valuable because it shows what can be done by Sri Lankans, as well as by the international community, to put an end to the violence. Their wisdom comes from suffering, and they were generous enough to share it with me: I in turn would like to share it with others in the hope that it will help to put an end to their suffering.
Where there are gaps in my narrative, I fill them from documentary sources, and also include a bibliography of such sources at the end. But most of the story is told in the words of the refugees themselves; it is their experiences and insights which make this account distinctive. On the other hand, we have to recognise that many of them, and in some cases their relatives, are in an extremely vulnerable position, which could be made worse by unwelcome publicity. In attempting to protect their identities, I did not even ask for names and addresses, and have tried to give them the voice which they so desperately need without inviting the reprisals that are so often the punishment for speaking out. It is not possible to find a solution to the problem of Sri Lankan refugees so long as the people most affected are gagged by terror.
The refugees interviewed in Britain in 1989 were all Tamil, and Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are based on what they said. Chapter 4 is about Tamil refugees within Sri Lanka, Chapters 5 and 6, which deal with the idea of a Sinhalese and a Tamil state respectively, take up the experience of Sinhalese and Muslim refugees in Sri Lanka; and Chapter 7 is based on positive solutions proposed by all these groups. The predominance of Tamils is due to the fact that the Tamil refugee problem has been going on for much longer than the others; and it is also the case that whereas there are parts of Sri Lanka which are relatively safe for people of other communities, there is no part of Sri Lanka where Tamils are safe.
Major political changes took place between the interviews in Britain in 1989 and my visits to the camps in Sri Lanka in October 1990 and September 1991. In June-July 1989 the Indian army was still in Sri Lanka: having entered in 1987 as a peace-keeping force it had by then become embroiled in a war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in which Tamil civilians were once more the victims; the uprising of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP – a Sinhalese militant group) and its repression by the Sri Lankan government were in full spate; and there was a ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the most powerful of the Tamil militant groups (see Chronology).
By the time I visited Sri Lanka in 1990, the Indian army had left, the JVP uprising had been all but crushed, and the ceasefire between the government and the LTTE had broken down; moreover, the LTTE was for the first time carrying out open attacks on Muslim civilians. Thus, the circumstances which had led to the flight of the displaced people in Sri Lanka were in most cases different from those recounted by the refugees in Britain, although there were some events in common.
Where not otherwise indicated, I have put my questions and comments to refugees in bold italics. Bullet points indicate the beginning of quotations from the testimony of refugees.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation and the Refugee Studies Programme, Christian Aid and the World Council of Churches for funding the research for and writing of this book; the British Refugee Council, Tamil Refugee Action Group and South London Tamil Welfare Group for helping to organise the interviews in Britain; Sr. Angela, Sr. Martha, Sr. Antonita and Sr. Jayanthi, Anberia, Faizun and Yasmine, Scholastica, Lenita and Rajani for helping to organise the visits to refugee camps in Sri Lanka; and the staff at Satyodaya for helping me to meet refugees in the plantation areas and victims of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) conflict. My thanks also to Carol and Tim for so generously providing housing for my family while I was working on the book. Above all I would like to thank the refugees who talked to me for taking the time to tell me about their experiences and ideas; this book is dedicated to them, in the hope that the future will heal the wounds of their past.
The British Refugee Council wishes to acknowledge the support and assistance of Christian Aid in making the publication of this book possible.
Rohini Hensman, Summer 1993
Postscript
Coming back to this text so many years later, I have to say one thing that I failed to say in the original Preface: neither in conducting the interviews nor in writing the book did I make any pretence at being ‘neutral’. I made it clear to the refugees that my aim was to find a solution to the root problems in Sri Lanka that were creating the refugee crisis, and I should make that clear to readers of this account too.
At the time this book was written, Sri Lankan Tamils constituted a significant proportion of refugees worldwide. At present, although there are still many displaced people in Sri Lanka and the persecution of minorities as well as an extremely authoritarian state still plague the country (Hensman 2019), Sri Lankan refugees have been outnumbered by refugees from other countries. However, I feel the method of investigation and observations I have made in this book are as relevant to the current refugees, namely:
(1) Campaigning for humane asylum policies is undoubtedly important, but it is equally important to do whatever can be done to end the violence from which refugees are fleeing.
(2) It is crucially important to understand the complexities of the situation from which the refugees are fleeing. In Sri Lanka, for example, while atrocities by the Sinhala nationalist state were the prime reason for the exodus, Tamil nationalist militant groups, especially the LTTE, played a major role in reinforcing state violence and independently inflicting violence on Tamils, thus becoming a secondary reason for their flight; holding one actor responsible while glossing over the contribution of the other would, over the course of the next several years, achieve nothing. There are many such situations in the world today, where refugees are fleeing violence to which multiple actors are contributing, and simply condemning one side cannot solve the problem.
(3) Listening to what refugees and displaced persons have to say – about their experiences as well as their opinions about the conflict and possible solutions to it – is vital. On their experiences, they are the experts: no one else knows better than they do what they have been through and are going through. These experiences have to be part of any coherent account of the conflict. On explanations for the conflict and possible solutions, their opinions may vary; yet, as I found, a great deal of wisdom can be gleaned from their responses when their differing relationships to the various actors is taken into account, and any viable solution must take their viewpoints seriously. This point is particularly important today, when ‘experts’ often pontificate about conflicts while denying any voice to the actual victims, resulting in over-simplification and sometimes outright misrepresentation of the situation. Even people who call themselves socialists are guilty of doing this, blaming only their own bête noir while disregarding mass murder committed by tyrants supposedly opposed to their prime enemy. This book illustrates vividly why such a policy is not just a shameful refusal of solidarity with some of the victims of oppression, but also contributes to the continuation of violence and war.
Rohini Hensman, January 2022.
Chronology of Major Events
1798-1948: British colonial rule in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
1931: State-aided colonisation schemes to settle Sinhalese in the predominantly Tamil areas of the dry zone begun by D. S. Senanayake, then Minister of Agriculture and later the first Prime Minister after Independence.
1948: Independence. Newly-elected United National Party (UNP) government enacts Citizenship Act, making resident Tamils of Indian origin (Hill-country Tamils) into stateless persons.
1949: Indian and Pakistani Residents (Citizenship) Act makes registration dependent on the birth in Sri Lanka of ancestors, thus excluding 95% of Hill-country Tamils; Ceylon (Parliamentary) Election Amendment Act deprives Hill-country Tamils of voting rights.
1956: The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) comes to power and enacts the Official Language Act, making Sinhala the only official language.
1957: The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact recognises the use of Tamil in the North and East and regional devolution of power, but is then abrogated by the government.
1958: Non-violent protests by Tamils start. Island-wide anti-Tamil riots leave hundreds of Tamils dead; over 10,000 Tamil refugees taken from Colombo to Jaffna.
1959: SWRD Bandaranaike is assassinated by a Buddhist monk organisation angry about his attempts to meet Tamil demands.
1964: Pact between PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Indian PM Shastri agreeing that around 525,000 Hill-country Tamils would be repatriated to India and 300,000 given Sri Lankan citizenship.
1971: Uprising by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) rapidly put down by the government. SLFP government introduces ‘standardisation’ scheme which makes university entrance dependent not on merit but on quotas; the proportion of Tamil entrants falls as a result.
1972: New constitution gives Sinhala constitutional status as the only official language, and Buddhism the foremost place among religions, omitting guarantees of minority rights.
1972–1975: Nationalisation of plantations, accompanied by evictions of and violence against Hill-country Tamils, creating more refugees.
1974: Fourth World Tamil Research Conference in Jaffna attacked by Sinhalese police; 9 Tamils killed, hundreds injured.
1976: Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) adopts Vaddukoddai Resolution calling for a separate Tamil state in the North and East; Tamil militant groups begin armed struggle to achieve it.
1977: Election victory of UNP followed by large-scale anti-Tamil riots creating over 50,000 Tamil refugees.
1978: J. R. Jayawardene introduces new Constitution confirming privileged status of Sinhala and Buddhism and making himself executive president with enormous powers.
1979: Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) passed allowing for incommunicado detention of suspects up to 18 months without their being brought before a magistrate; no judicial remedies for arbitrary detention, torture or extra-judicial execution.
1981: Island-wide anti-Tamil riots create more refugees. Jaffna Public Library, containing over 90,000 volumes including ancient Tamil manuscripts, reduced to ashes.
1982: Referendum, conducted amidst allegations of fraud and intimidation, results in cancellation of forthcoming parliamentary elections.
1983: Tamil militants ambush army, killing 13 soldiers; island-wide state-sponsored anti-Tamil violence in which thousands of Tamil civilians are killed, tens of thousands displaced.
1987: Signing of Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in July, and entry of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) in accordance with its terms. In October, war breaks out between IPKF and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the most powerful of the Tamil militant groups. JVP launches insurrection. Government counter-insurgency measures include large-scale extra-judicial executions and reprisals against Sinhalese civilians.
1989: Negotiations between Sri Lankan government and LTTE begin in April, ceasefire announced in June. JVP leaders killed by security forces in November.
1990: IPKF leaves in March. LTTE massacres Sinhalese and Muslim policemen in June; ceasefire breaks down. In October, LTTE expels all Muslims from the North.
1990–1991: Attacks by security forces and Muslim home guards on Tamil civilians and by LTTE on Sinhalese and Muslim civilians leads to thousands of deaths and massive displacement.
Chapter 1: Understanding the refugee problem
How did it all start? What are the roots of the conflict which has led to such a massive exodus of people from their homes?
Only one of the refugees I met felt that the conflict pre-dated British rule, or had its roots in pre-colonial ethnic incompatibilities:
• If anybody tells me that this conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils is hardly 40 or 50 years old, then I would say that person is a liar. If the Mahavamsa and Culavamsa [Sinhalese epics] are anything to go by, our enmity dates back to the pre-Christian era during the time of Dutugemunu.
The overwhelming majority of the refugees, however, blamed the policies of successive Sri Lankan governments. For example:
• It’s the government. I don’t blame individuals – the people are really good. We still have good Sinhalese friends. Many of these friends write to us, still. And even after the troubles, it was my husband’s friends who sponsored our passports, because they have to sign a bond.
Sinhalese friends?
Yes. Tamil friends didn’t want to do it at that time, because all were scared and thought they might leave the country, so they didn’t want to commit too much. So our Sinhalese friends did it. Individually, they are very nice people. But the government is making use of the uneducated crowd. I never get angry with any Sinhalese person.
Which of these two views is more plausible? It is true that there is evidence for conflict between Sinhalese and Tamil kings; but these could be seen as expressions of political rivalry rather than ethnic incompatibility. What is remarkable, indeed, is the degree to which Sinhalese- and Tamil-speaking communities influenced each other, mingled, and even inter-married, in pre-colonial times (Bandaranayake 1984).
One or two refugees felt that the basis for future strife had been laid by British colonial policies:
• I think all the trouble was created by the British, because Sri Lanka is a former colony of Britain… When they left the country – when they gave us so-called ‘independence’ – they gave power to the Sinhalese, the Buddhist monks, who started to destroy our Tamil identities.
This charge is difficult to evaluate. The constitution at Independence did contain safeguards for minorities that were later removed (Hyndman 1988), but it also left the possibility that the Sinhalese majority could abuse its position of power. My own feeling is that British rule was more destructive in the way that it distorted the Sri Lankan economy for its own benefit, laying the basis for future poverty and underdevelopment, and creating the possibility that a struggle for resources could take the form of ethnic strife.
The charge that the problem has been caused by the Sri Lankan government was substantiated by reference to specific policies, beginning with the first United National Party (UNP) government, which in the year of independence passed an Act which excluded the vast majority of Hill-country Tamils from franchise and citizenship. As one refugee said:
• In 1948, when the Citizenship Act was brought in, my family became stateless. Then in the 1950s my father made an application under the Citizenship Act, and was one of the very few people who got citizenship under the Citizenship Act. Then, of course, there have been other agreements with the Indian government for repatriation and all that – this is one type of discrimination.
Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka constitute more than one ethnic community. Most Hill-country Tamils, or Tamils of recent Indian origin, came or were brought to Sri Lanka from India as plantation or estate workers during British rule, and thus became vulnerable to this specific form of discrimination, which deprived them of their franchise and citizenship; later, when the plantations were nationalised in 1972 and 1975, many of them were driven off the plantations to become displaced people, and in some cases to starve.
Tamil-speaking Muslims (or Moors) are another distinct ethnic group; and even the Sri Lanka Tamils, who are the largest group, sometimes identify themselves by the area of their origin, especially in the case of Jaffna Tamils.
Other policies which were seen to have led to the conflict were: (1) the Official Language Act of 1956, often known as the ‘Sinhala Only Act’ because it made Sinhala the only official language; (2) the resulting discrimination against Tamil speakers, especially in government employment; and (3) the ‘standardisation’ and ‘district quota’ systems in higher education, which were supposed to help educationally deprived sections to get university places, but actually resulted in discrimination against Tamils (Hyndman 1988).
The colonisation policies of successive governments, which were aimed at altering the population distribution by settling Sinhalese in predominantly Tamil areas, also caused enormous resentment. Last but not least, pogroms against Tamils, seen to have been carried out with government instigation – in terms of propaganda as well as organisation – were for many people the last straw. Groups seen as having a powerful influence, especially the Buddhist monks and the media, were also blamed. With few exceptions, the Tamil refugees felt that without these provocations the separatist movement would never have arisen.
In the wake of the massacre of Tamils in the 1983 riots, the UNP government reacted by outlawing the Tamil members of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) who were demanding a separate state by non-violent means. Some Tamils felt then that all legal, peaceful methods of obtaining their rights had been tried and had failed. The militant movement, already engaged in an armed struggle for a Tamil state which had begun in the mid-1970s, began to receive much more widespread support, the militants becoming popularly known as ‘the boys’.
The legislation of 1948 and 1949, which deprived the hill-country Tamils of their citizenship and franchise, led to protests in parliament but no open violence; it was only in the 1960s, when deportation of those who were not granted Sri Lanka citizenship began, that thousands of people arrived in India as refugees.
By contrast, the ‘Sinhala Only’ policy followed by SWRD Bandaranaike’s SLFP government from 1956 onwards resulted in non-violent protests from Tamils, which in turn led to major rioting in 1958, as some of the refugees recalled:
• There was no problem before 1958 – it was only after that all this started. It was created by politicians for their own benefit and for their power.
As the refugees did not say much about this early period, I quote from an account by a prominent Sinhalese journalist and editor, Tarzie Vittachi, written soon after the events:
Bandaranaike… enacted the Sinhalese Only Act, thereby setting off a series of disorders two months after the new government took over… The area most seriously affected was the Gal Oya Valley… [O]ver 150 people were killed during that brief spell of open race-hate… In August 1957 the Tamils threatened an island-wide Satyagraha or civil disobedience campaign. This danger was averted by the forging of a pact between Bandaranaike and the Federal Party leader, Chelvanayakam. Almost exactly a year later the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam (or B-C) Pact was jettisoned, which led to the large-scale riots and bloodshed of May-June 1958. (Vittachi 1958, p. 20)
Attacks on Tamils by gangs of Sinhalese thugs began on 22 May: the hooligans acted with the apparent assurance that the government was on their side, and the Prime Minister seemed to confirm this assumption:
On Tuesday morning, 27 May, at 7.15, a group of citizens who had distinguished themselves in various fields of public activity called urgently to see the Prime Minister and implored him to proclaim a State of Emergency. Mr Bandaranaike’s answer was that it was an ‘exaggeration’ to call the situation an ‘emergency’. His supplicants later said they were appalled at the insouciance with which the Prime Minister appeared to be taking the mass murders, looting and lawlessness which had broken out everywhere. (Vittachi 1958, pp. 45–6)
Later that day, however, a State of Emergency was declared by the Governor-General, a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed, and the army and navy were called out to quell the violence. Although the arson and looting continued for several days, calm was gradually restored. By the second week of the Emergency,
the refugee population in Colombo had grown to formidable proportions: 12,000 men, women and children of every imaginable walk of life were herded together in temporary camps… (Vittachi 1958, p. 87)
The purpose of the rioters, as outlined in pamphlets sent to the government, was to ‘clear Tamils out’ of areas of Sri Lanka which they saw as being exclusively Sinhalese. As one pamphlet threatened:
Don’t think that you or any of the Tamils will be safe, as we have enough petrol to make living torches of all of you and monuments of the Tamil houses… We have the priests behind us and every temple will come out into the open against you if you try to use force on us… Be warned. Death is at your doorstep. Act now and join us in our struggle for freedom from the Tamils and other aliens such as the Muslims, Malays, Burghers [Sri Lankans with some European ancestry], etc, all of whom can go to the Northern and Eastern Provinces if they want to remain in Sri Lanka… (Vittachi 1958)
Bandaranaike’s weak attempts to restrain his followers led to his assassination by a fanatical Buddhist monk organisation in 1959. The violence abated, but the government policies which made Tamils feel like second-class citizens continued, laying the basis, as the Tamil refugees felt, for the present conflict. One said:
• The basic reason was discrimination against Tamils in several things – getting jobs, higher studies – they didn’t get a chance. I asked why this movement, these groups, started, and they said these are the reasons.
Another said:
• Segregation, for a start. Segregation, denial of rights… the standardisation of education. Because Tamil citizens weren’t given an equal opportunity to enter university. I know friends who got double the marks of Sinhalese friends in the same university, but still haven’t been given the opportunity… one person had to come back and do petty jobs after doing his A levels. This is one of the main reasons why I had to join EROS [Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students, one of the militant groups].
Another explained it in terms of language and politics:
• At the start, Tamil people were well educated in English, and they were having top-rank positions in government. Even in the minor clerical grades, there were Tamil people holding positions. But when Bandaranaike came in 1956, he thought the only way to change this was by changing the medium of instruction as well as the medium used in government offices to Sinhala. So then Tamil peoples were deprived, they had to start again from ‘ayanah aayanah’ [the ABC].
When they introduced swabasha (the vernacular) as the medium of instruction at university level, I liked it. We were going very fast; immediately they were asked to translate all the English books into Tamil and Sinhala. So Bandaranaike did something good for both communities, Tamil as well as Sinhalese. But there was discrimination. Tamil people had to study Sinhala, and even after studying Sinhala they were still discriminated against. I translated Sinhala poems and other things into Tamil. But I lost my job after 17 years’ service because they couldn’t guarantee my security.
Do you think there would have been no conflict if not for that discrimination?
Definitely. If there was no language barrier, this conflict would not have arisen. Bandaranaike wanted to come to power, and the only weapon he had was this language weapon.
Other refugees agreed that the government’s discrimination was the main cause of the conflict:
• The groups are fighting for the freedom of the Tamil community. The Tamil community and the Sinhala community are separate and they can’t live happily, that’s why. Earlier we were all together, but the government’s attitude to Tamils and Sinhalese was totally different: in education, in work, there was government discrimination. Then we felt, if we’re separate, we’ll be happy. The government first made this problem; we were all happy with Sinhalese people before…
• Tamils are treated as secondary people, and the Sinhala leaders, or Sinhala government, are not willing to accept Tamils’ self-determination. Earlier the Sinhala leaders and Tamil leaders signed an agreement – the Banda-Chelva agreement – but the government didn’t implement it.
Do you think this problem would have arisen if the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact had been honoured?
No! If the Sri Lankan government had implemented the Banda-Chelva Pact, this problem would not have happened! That’s the main reason.
But that was not a separate state as such.
That was a federal state. A federal state means, they accepted the North and East as a Tamil homeland. But now we’ve lost that; we can [no longer] accept that sort of pact… We lost everything – our property and psychology, no? If they had honoured that pact, there would have been no problem. If they had honoured our parliamentary leaders and implemented their pact, the youth would never have taken up arms, and they would never have lost their lives. It’s all for that reason.
Others blamed the political leaders:
• I think it’s the politicians. Starting with Bandaranaike – he is the one who started the Sinhala Only policy. And then there was the standardisation policy.
So would you say it’s mainly Sinhalese politicians?
I think so – yes, they are the ones who started it. And they are settling Sinhalese: for example, Batticaloa is a Tamil area, and they were settling Sinhalese in Batticaloa, Amparai and other Tamil areas. so that’s also a problem. I think it’s unfair to settle people like that.
So you think this is what led to the conflict?
Mainly, I think, it’s the standardisation policy which is very unfair and ruined the country. If somebody has the better result, they should enter university, and that way you get better service for the country. They could have found a way to improve the economy rather than discriminating against the people who are coming up.
• Politics – cheap politics [is the cause]. In one word, that’s the answer as far as I’m concerned: cheap politics.
You think it is politicians who have stirred up the trouble?
There’s no question about it. I won’t blame Sinhalese people. I have moved with them, and they are quite reasonable if they are left alone. But if you poison their minds, they can be easily twisted.
• It was all started by politicians for their own benefit and status – for their power and for their seats, they have developed that, formed that. They talk politics in parliament, there will be so many parties together around the table, they talk one thing there, in parliament, around their table; but they feed something else to the nation, they feed tension to the teenagers – this is what has happened.
Do you think the problem is caused only by Sinhalese politicians, or by both Sinhalese and Tamil politicians?
I strongly feel the Tamil politicians are also to blame. If they had been friendly in all matters, there is no chance that this situation would have developed. It is for their seats and power they have done all this. Definitely, a hundred times I will say, it hasn’t been done by the community! We were good friends – there were so many intermarriages!
• I would say it’s a man-made thing, made by the politicians. Sinhalese politicians have contributed more, and the Tamil politicians also have to be blamed. Anti-ethnic feeling is an easy way to run a political platform, to get an easy mandate; I think they have made the best use of it. The Sinhalese people’s minds have been poisoned with anti-Tamil feeling, and almost all the Sinhalese have a feeling that Tamils have no homeland in Sri Lanka – which the Tamils have possessed… (Tamil politicians) have also used the same formula to attract the Tamil masses – using our ethnic feeling to get support.
This refugee, like many others, emphasised the distinction between Sinhalese political and religious leaders, and the Sinhalese people:
• The cause of the ethnic conflict is in the self-seeking politicians, so to say –politicians who are greedy for power and position, especially among the Sinhalese politicians. I think they are without exception very corrupt. Of course, the ordinary Sinhalese villagers lead simple lives and they are not bothered about whether you are a Tamil. But the politicians and the Buddhist clergy are ruthless.
Referring to the Buddhist clergy, last month, Mahanayake Thero – he is the chief priest of one of the sects – writes in one of the papers and says that this is a Sinhala Buddhist country and others must, in effect, obey – subordinate themselves – to the Sinhalese Buddhists. I can’t understand at this stage – in these circumstances – how the responsible media should publish an article like that. These are things which incite people, so, in fact, I would also blame the media – the news media, including the television and radio.
So that is the thing; power-hungry politicians are the cause of the situation in Sri Lanka today. They don’t for a moment look to the interests of the people as a whole, as human beings – you know, you may be Sinhalese, I may be Tamil or another man may be Muslim, but then we’re all human beings. They don’t look at it from that point of view. Since 1958 or 1956 or since independence – we may as well say since Sri Lanka gained independence – the Sinhalese have taken over the administration of the country; from then onwards there has been discriminatory legislation, and then in 1983 they thought they could destroy the Tamils – it reached a climax in 1983.
What do they expect us to do? We can’t all the time submit to their brutalities and atrocities and discriminatory methods. We had to defend ourselves against this, so naturally the boys showed them that we are not a servile race, and they started fighting. And now retribution has set in: now the Sinhalese are living in fear of their lives and Sinhalese people are being killed by their own people.
Discrimination, as these quotations show, was bitterly resented, and the resentment was not diminished by the constitutions of 1972 and 1978, which in effect defined Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist country. But on top of that, it was the resurgence of anti-Tamil violence in the 1970s, and its rapid escalation after 1977 – especially the massive anti-Tamil riots in 1983 – which made more and more Tamils feel that the situation was intolerable, leading to the growth of a Tamil militant movement on the one hand, and the accelerated exodus of refugees on the other.
Discrimination against Tamils in university education and government employment would affect only a small minority, even if this was a relatively important section which would form the core of the militant movement; but the threat to their physical security was experienced by every Tamil, and led to the craving for some place where they could feel safe. In the initial stages, this place of refuge was not sought abroad by most Tamils, but in the Northern and Eastern Provinces where they could feel relatively secure – although in the Eastern Province the colonisation drives, leading to violence and attacks on Tamils, also contributed to Tamil insecurity.
The desire for a separate state, or at least for autonomy within a federal set-up, could never have gained popularity if it had not been seen as necessary for the attainment of basic rights and physical security:
• The fact of the matter is, it is the refusal of successive Sinhala governments to concede the barest minimum concessions to the Tamils that has led to this imbroglio today.
Then you think this would not have happened if Tamil rights had been respected by the Sri Lankan government?
That’s right. In 1947-8, what Chelvanayakam, the TULF leader, asked for was a federal set-up; they resorted to all manner of pleading – words, satyagraha, non-violent movements. This militancy has been something foreign to the Tamils in the recent past. Whenever they assaulted us, kicked us, we ran to Jaffna. We did not turn back to raise our hands. But if such passive people have been scored to a fever pitch of militancy, it is for this reason.
Some refugees saw violence as a prime cause of conflict:
• I was participating in the Fourth International Tamil Research Conference which was held in Jaffna during Mrs Bandaranaike’s time, and 10 people were killed: that was the immediate cause for the uprising of Tamil youth. From that time, people started to raise arms and other things.
• A lot of people left Sri Lanka because of the Official Language Act; and in the hill country, it is so difficult to get into government employment because of the Act. Also, if you’re stateless, you’re not entitled to any employment in the public sector, and even the private sector won’t take you. So very few people could get out of the plantation sector. Then there has been other legislation, and the two constitutions: the 1972 constitution which made Buddhism the state religion and gave the Sinhalese language itself a constitutional status, and the 1978 constitution by the UNP which made things worse – they didn’t make things any better.
So there was all this discrimination, and along with it there was violence, from 1956 onwards. In the hill country, from 1970 particularly, estates have been burned, people have been killed – whenever there’s been major violence, until recently it was not people in the North and East who suffered most, until the army was sent there; the Hill-country Tamils have been affected much more than anyone else. Discrimination, along with violence: this is what has caused the problem.
Others pointed to the links between discrimination and colonisation:
• The Tamil people have been denied their rights in every way by the Sri Lankan government. They feel they are a minority and can’t live in Sri Lanka without getting their own country.
What exactly have they been denied?
Everything: getting jobs, getting education – and they have been settling Sinhalese people in the North and East, for example in the Vavuniya area, and Tamil people have been getting killed. Every time a Sinhalese party comes to power, they come to power through racist activities, through propaganda against Tamils.
• Sinhalese who are living in the Sinhala areas, I accept. But Sinhalese who have colonised and are living in the Tamil areas, I won’t accept. Because they are not just Sinhala people – they are also one of the government institutions. They have taken our land.
What about the Sinhalese people who were living in Tamil areas before the government colonisation schemes?
In the East, before 1947 – you can get the census report – there were only 414 Sinhalese families in the Trincomalee district. But in 1987, there were three Sinhala areas in Trincomalee. In 1947, there were two Tamil areas in Trincomalee; in 1977, only one Tamil electorate.
The composition of the population has been shifted by these schemes?
Yes. They were forcibly brought there and colonised. They’ve brought people from prison, and other such anti-social elements. So in my view, they’re not just ordinary Sinhalese people. Now also, I think, whoever comes to live with government support – prisoners or anti-social elements – they must realise that. Because in Sinhala areas they have a lot of land; so they can live and be prosperous. But they are coming to get our lands. If we lose our lands, we don’t have a national identity… The way the British earlier treated all of us, Sinhalese and Tamils, after they left, the Sinhalese are treating us in the same way. That is the main reason why the problem started.
You think that is why the militants took up arms?
Yes. Till 1975, our political leaders fought by democratic means, through parliament, but they didn’t achieve any of their aims. Finally, the Sinhalese government started to massacre Tamils – that was a very important turning-point. After that, there was no other way for Tamil youths to defend themselves and their people. That’s the main reason why they took up arms. At that time, the government used to take people, put them in prison, kill them and throw their bodies in the road in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Now it’s happening in the South. So we are happy to see this happening in the South, because earlier the same thing happened in our areas, but at that time the Sinhalese were not worried about it. For them it is new, but for us this is old history.
So you think they took up arms basically to defend themselves?
Yes, basically to defend themselves and our people.
One described how students were provoked into violence:
• After 1971 the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the SLFP, they imposed a law: standardisation. After that, most of the Tamil youths didn’t get admission to university, so they were forced to lose their chances. To get their rights, they did some non-violent agitations; but the result was beatings and harassment. While they were unarmed, the state – the government, the police – answered with arms, so they were forced to take up arms.
Other refugees saw the land issue as fundamental to the conflict:
• They are settling Sinhalese by the hundred. The Sri Lankan government says, ‘So long as you are a Ceylonese, you can settle anywhere.’ That is not quite correct. I can go and buy in the South, and the Sinhalese can come and buy in the North. But here the government is settling the people. That is what we are against, not the Sinhalese ordinarily coming and residing. We are opposed to colonisation by the Sinhalese with government aid, not by people on their own: they can come and settle. That was the first thing, actually, the land. Then language, education, employment – there was discrimination.
Do you think that if it was not for the discrimination, there wouldn’t have been a demand for a separate state?
Definitely not. Even if they had given a federal government, the demand would not have been there. Federalism, the politicians have been telling the Sinhalese since 1948, is separation. The media – the papers, the TV and the radio – have been saying that federalism is separation. So the Sinhalese masses are totally opposed to it, even now.
Even now, you think?
Yes. It will be very difficult for the government to change their policy. Even if they agree to it, it will be very difficult to satisfy the Sinhalese masses. Because they have been told day in and day out, and brain-washed – you can say, brain-washed – that federalism is separation. Separation – we were forced to come to that position. Because when we asked for federalism they were killing us and putting us in jail and passing all sorts of legislation – even the MPs could not function in parliament because they were asked to take an oath that they would not advocate federalism. So they couldn’t sit in parliament; there’s so much discrimination!
Considering that these respondents spanned the entire political spectrum – from extreme Tamil nationalists, who supported and had participated in the armed struggle for a separate state, to vehement critics and opponents of Tamil nationalism – one central argument is remarkably consistent. Summed up, it would amount to something like this: successive Sinhalese governments and political leaders had alienated the Tamil-speaking minorities, and especially the youth, by a series of discriminatory measures in education and employment, by downgrading their language and culture, by Sinhalese colonisation of their areas, by denial of equal rights and equal opportunities, by anti-Tamil propaganda, and by the refusal of political autonomy. Repeated bouts of government-sponsored violence – either entirely gratuitous or in response to non-violent protests – had finally driven a section of Tamil youth to take up arms in self-defence and in order to establish a separate state of Tamil Eelam.
I was impressed by the fact that even the Tamil nationalists (including, incidentally, the one who had traced the ethnic conflict to pre-colonial times) did not claim that a separate Tamil state was somehow natural or historically inevitable, but, on the contrary, saw it as the solution to a very specific problem: namely, discrimination against and persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
I was also impressed by the refugees’ inclination to pin-point specific policies rather than, say, more vaguely blaming Sinhalese people in general (an aspect which will be examined further in a later chapter).
The charge that government policies of discrimination and persecution have led to violent conflict has been confirmed by several non-Tamil observers, including one of the Sinhalese refugees. Indeed, it seems self-evident that measures aimed at progressively converting Sri Lanka into a Sinhala-Buddhist state must, necessarily, result in the denial of equal rights to ethnic minorities.
However, while this might be what initiated the process which has caused such massive displacement, it would be simplistic to see it as the sole cause of the present conflict; nor would it be possible to explain much of the displacement without referring to other factors. Many refugees referred to the opportunism of Tamil politicians and their willingness to play the ethnic and communal card; the activities of the Indian army (Peace-Keeping Force), which entered Sri Lanka after the signing of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord in 1987, and of the militant group sponsored by them, the EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front); the general progression of the Sri Lankan government towards totalitarian dictatorship; and competition for employment and in business.
Other factors were the more widespread poisoning of Sinhalese people’s minds by anti-Tamil propaganda – resulting, among other things, in the JVP’s opposition to any concession to Tamil demands; the rapid political degeneration of the Tamil movement, leading to murderous internecine fighting between the militant groups, out of which the LTTE emerged as the strongest; and the LTTE leadership’s intolerance both of other groups and of opposition or criticism from Tamils, including their own membership.
Some refugees described how people, regardless of their allegiance, had been forced to live by the law of the gun:
• They are sick of all this fighting. But now what has happened, in my opinion, is that the people who have got guns in their hands are not interested in finding out what the people want, they are only interested in what they themselves want. Anybody who disagrees with what they are thinking has to be killed. So many people have been killed (i.e. Tamils killed by Tamil militants)! The situation is that anybody who has a gun is important, and anybody who disagrees with this fellow with the gun is a target. It makes it all the more difficult for us to go back. If we go there, and while casually talking I say, ‘I don’t like that fellow’, probably Tamils will shoot me. I mean, not that we are going to stand up on a platform and make a speech and then get shot – no! Just while talking, buying some vegetables in the market, if you casually mention something, probably that is good enough for being a target.
• Everybody is with arms, anyone who has a gun has power, so it is difficult to say who is going to win or who is going to lose or how the situation is going to change. It is exactly like what’s happening in Beirut.
• The government is not really prepared to do anything about the problem – they just go on and on with these talks and everything. And even the Tamil people – you know, the Tigers – they’ve got so used to the situation, I don’t think they’re aware of what’s really going on. I mean, everyone’s got used to the trend now: they fire, and these people attack. I don’t know whether anybody gets a kick out of these things, but that’s the way I see it: everyone’s got used to this pattern of life, and they don’t want to solve it – they just want it to be like that. And then the Indian army comes into it, and that’s also enlarging the problem.
• In the last six months, it’s been getting worse every day! Now, even small children are joining the boys’ groups, because they are seeing people dying every day. They see innocent people getting killed, so they feel they don’t want to live, at least they can catch one person and then they can die.
One problem for people was the number of factions involved:
• There are so many groups of Tamils, little, little groups; and in my opinion, I don’t think there should be so many of those groups. If you’re going to fight for freedom, you should be united. But this… I can’t believe it! So many groups!
• I think it’s the difference in their policies – like one group may have a policy, a couple of people don’t like that, so they go and start a new group. I think this has added to the problems – like now, the IPKF are using the EPRLF against the Tigers. That’s really a shame – I don’t think it should be happening when we're fighting for our own freedom – we shouldn’t have so many divisions among ourselves.
Some personal stories show that the struggle within the groups themselves had become destructive. For example:
• I worked in the LTTE, then I had a problem with the movement, so they sent me back to Jaffna. In Jaffna, I had trouble with them, so I left the movement.
Once you left, were you threatened? Death threats? Are there many people like you, who have left under threat?
Yes. They’re hiding – at the moment, they’re hiding. A lot of people.
So anyone who disagrees with the leadership very strongly has problems?
Yes. They must either leave the country or go into hiding – otherwise they’ll be killed. There’s no democracy now. Now we are also helping others who are hiding.
You mean former colleagues of yours from the movement who have also left?
Yes, yes. They’ve left, and they’re in hiding. A lot of people – boys – are in that situation. Even today there were one or two letters from some of them in Colombo – they said, ‘If you can send some money…’ because they can’t go to work in Colombo either – Colombo also is now full of all the movements, they are killing people…
Tamil movements operating in Colombo?
Yes! What has happened to Amirthalingam and Uma Maheshwaran and all these people? [Tamil leaders murdered by Tamil militants.] The government is supporting the LTTE – they give them houses and funds and that and this. So they are living and working there. And whoever comes from other movements, or their own former members, they get killed and dumped. Former members have the same problem as other movements: they can’t live in Jaffna, they can’t live in Colombo, they can’t live in India… Not only that, even in Britain they are threatening us! We had decided to collect money through a programme and send it, and we printed tickets and sold the tickets. They threatened: ‘Immediately you must stop this programme, otherwise you will lose one of your family members at home.’ That’s the main reason we stopped that programme.
So they’re threatening reprisals against your family members in Sri Lanka?
Yes, yes. Mainly the LITE. So here also we are hiding – we can’t do anything. They’ve been fighting each other, and they’ve lost their support from the people, so they’ve started doing all this.
The arrival of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force, according to several refugees, troubled the waters even further:
• Now the Indians have come, and they are discriminating between rival militant groups. They are trying to prop up a group [the EPRLF] which has no support with the people, and as a result they are killing everybody! They now say that they don’t want to leave because the Tamils are not safe. It’s all rubbish! The moment the IPKF leaves, I can assure you the EPRLF will be lynched by the people. They are waiting for an opportunity. Not because they love the Tigers, but because the EPRLF has committed so many atrocities. The conflict was started by the discrimination of the Sinhalese government; now it has been made worse by the discrimination of the IPKF.
• The Indians… like to look after their strategic interests, but they can’t maintain the peace. They have no reason to kill our people: they came as a peace-keeping force! … I think the Indians must get out of our country, and they have to leave us to solve our problems in our own way. They are encouraging violence now. Yesterday I had a message from our village that the army had killed nearly about 200 people! They declared a curfew, and they said, ‘We are searching for Tigers,’ and they killed them. They said they came to keep the peace, but their behaviour shows that they have some other interest. It is true that we want peace, but there’s no point talking about peace while the Indian army is killing people! They have to change their minds; they can stay here, but they have to change their minds.
• The Indian army came here as a peace-keeping force, but they’re not doing their job properly. I think they are an ‘Innocent People Killing Force’!
• We used to blame only the Sinhalese forces, but now we have to blame so many people: our own leaders, India… Those days we cried for help from India, we thought India will come and do something for our people, but the IPKF has not helped us! And at the moment, we don’t have any unity among our people – we’ve got so many groups now… We believed in the Tigers and thought they would bring out something; but afterwards we became disillusioned, because they don’t have real, proper people involved, with political knowledge and that sort of thing; they don’t have enough knowledge.
• The main causes are political, economic, and now the Indian army there. Sinhalese jingoism asserts that foreigners invaded the country and controlled it. That’s utter rubbish. It was always the ruling classes that invited the foreigners: Buvanekabahu invited the Portuguese, Rajasinghe II of Kandy invited the Dutch. And the miserable Kandyan chiefs, the ancestors of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, invited the British into Kandy. J.R. Jayawardene and clique invited the Indians into Sri Lanka – it’s not the people of the country who invited them. They didn’t come of their own accord.
What do you think actually started the trouble originally?
On both sides, the greed for political power by these leaders. Both sides, including Tamils: even now they’re killing each other, it’s only for power, not to serve the people. As has been said by one Tamil, ‘It’s like worm eating worm and growing fat.’
Some thought that to see the struggle as purely one between Tamils and Sinhalese was an over-simplification:
• Even among themselves they have a lot of differences, like, say Buddhist Sinhalese and Catholic Sinhalese, then up-country Sinhalese and low-country Sinhalese. Sinhalese discriminate among themselves and Tamils also discriminate among themselves – especially Jaffna Tamils. But when it comes to the fighting, it’s Sinhalese and Tamils!
• Basically, the Sinhalese and Tamils are good people. I have been working and living with the Sinhalese – they are very hospitable people. But they have been charged with racism by the government, by successive governments, because that was the only weapon left to the government – I don’t know how it was invented! – for them to come to power or to keep them in power.
Other interviewees were more philosophical:
• It’s not only our leaders – it’s also a lot of our people.
• The people also contributed, because the people also take responsibility for the mistakes if they follow bad leaders. There were lots of mistakes. It is not an unusual problem, because everywhere, in every country, you have a minority and a majority. There are so many countries with a majority and minority where they’re living peacefully and prosperously, like Canada, Switzerland, even the United States. Even in India there is a majority and minority. But of course our political leaders, they made a contradiction out of this issue, they misused it, and they missed opportunities to solve the problem. Now they want to solve it, but the problem is complicated now – they are trapped by the complications, not by the problem itself…
• Actually, I’m optimistic. Because the problem must be solved. It is difficult, but we must find some sort of solution. In the past, nobody realised their mistakes, and they didn’t want to realise them. Now I think everybody is beginning to realise them… I think with time they will agree on a common formula, a common solution. Because now everybody feels that we want a solution – it was not like that in the past. But the problem is so entrenched now, so complicated.
• Why are they killing innocent people? I don’t know why Sinhala people or Tamil people are killing innocent people… Fighting between militant groups and government troops is one thing, but killing innocent people is very, very bad. Every person, from whatever party, has rights. They have the right to support any party without getting killed for it. I don’t know what’s the meaning of this kind of ‘revolution’! They’re just after power, I think.
We will return to the question of the relationship between the communities at a later stage, when considering solutions to the problem; for the moment, what is important is that so few respondents thought that ethnic differences in themselves were a cause of the conflict, although some did point out that constant anti-Tamil propaganda had poisoned the minds of many Sinhalese.
We have been through a diversity of views on the causes of the conflict, and if the picture that emerges is complicated – even confusing – this is to a large extent due to the nature of the reality itself. Unless the complexity of that reality is grasped, it will be impossible to understand the different reasons why refugees have been fleeing the country.