Talk:Sri Lankan Civil War/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Does anybody have any objections to my removal of the words "terrorist tactics"? As has been demonstrated at Talk:Terrorism, the word "terrorism" is basically a charged word used by governments to refer to whomever they do not like. Node 20:54, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think terrorist tactis and terrorism should be removed. There are always two sides to a civil war, one can't just call the non-government side "terrorists" by DEFAULT.

I agree with that, I think that makes it more NPOV, it is part of the reason we have the 'Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?' section on the LTTE page just to give both sides of the argument.--Realstarslayer 01:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC) (BTW shouldn't this go into its own section below?)

What!! It is said in other articles that LTTe is a terrorist group cause it kills civilians and uses child soldiers. LCman

1. I don't think genocide is the correct term to describe what happened. 2. The 3rd. paragraph in Backgrounds and Origins seems somewhat overheated. It can be rewritten on a NPOV fashion by someone knowledgeable. Tipu 23:34, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Peoples were grabbed out of streets, houses, cars, marched to HOT TAR pits, and thrown in amongst other Tamil bodies (burning to death). It was a short-lived genocide (intensity of a genocide, but not the duration of other genocides)

Someone purposely changed the name of the tamil party to "Federal United Coality of Kurds (FUCK)," then someone else has changed it to "Federal United Coalistion of Superior to Sinhalese race (FUSS)"

Stop playing games please.

Remove NPOV?

I don't see any reason why the NPOV tag should still be there. This article is about as objective it is possible to be objective on a subject like this

59.92.207.114 17:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems like nobody has an issue with the article anymore - at least nobody replied in 2.5 days. I'll remove the tag for now. If someone still sees issues, please explain. — Sebastian 06:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The link ShareBare quoted is a one from LTTE propaganda, not a neutral source. Let's put that aside: there is no mention in that article that the policies were based on race. The article says "This effectively based university entrance on race.", and ShareBares interpretation that there was in fact a race based law is, at best, a distortion of facts: the article already had the fact that some laws resulted in reduced number of Tamil students, and your citation does not claim anything more than that.

Also, Tamil as a spoken language (including Muslims) is about 18% of SL Population, while Tamils themselves are about 9% [1]. And your cited article says "Less than 15% of university seats were available for Tamils.". How do you claim this as a deleberate plot on Tamils? Greenleaf 03:38, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Greenleaf, the facts cannot be denied. The university entrance marks for Tamils (as a race, a people) had to be higher than that of Sinhalese. This was based on government's redistribution of university admission based on region and thus effectively race. Look at the data given in the table.

PS It is Share Bear not ShareBare. Please learn to pay a little more attention to details. Share_Bear -Share Bear 01:48, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm honestly sorry for the mistake, and I also mistyped Bear as Bare once, there was no way to correct the comment. Although I do not see why a lack of a space in a talk page was taken as an insult or, to that matter, as significant --after all this is not our full-time job and talk pages are not articles-- I do apologise. People think differently. And I hope it would not be too much to ask that you kindly consider indenting your text next time so a reader can easily see which part of it is yours and which is mine.

Facts, when they are present, cannot be denied. But numbers alone would not explain away anything. One can also claim that while the economic policies were less restrictive, Tamils had an Unfair Advantage (in the marketing definition of the term, let's say) by having easily available Tamil books while books published in Sri Lanka in both languages were scarce, (English just gone away) and after tough economic policies and consequent limits on imports, Tamils only lost this edge. She would use the very fact that 50% of medical seats were acquired by less than 10% of the students earlier, to claim that it implies a privilege of some sort rather than merit alone, and to say economic policies for nationwide benefit must not necessarily preserve the extra previlages enjoyed by certain small groups of society. So, numbers alone wouldn't make a theory. Particularly so in this case, as there is no clear suggestion what exactly this law was, which banned Tamil litreature alone.

Second, and coming to the point, I highly applaud your attention to detail, and hope you would accordingly acquiesce in the fact that the website you diligently cited lacked proper support for your claim, which was the matter at hand as far as your edit was concerned.

Hereby I also explicitly relieve you of the burden of paying attention to my name, Greenleaf, as long as you limit the mistakes to such a level that readers can distinguish whom you are referring to. You may use the attention thus saved while reading your citations, as talk pages and histories are read only by a few, articles, possibly thousands. Greenleaf 05:09, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

A post script:

You say, "This was based on government's redistribution of university admission based on region and thus effectively race. Look at the data given in the table." and the only table I see in the page does not have anything to do with region. Could you please be more specific about your mention on region? And if you were referring to the district quotas, please remember, areas such as Colombo and Matara were also heavily affected. Do you explain those cases as statistical phenomenons while case in Jaffna was a diabolic plot, according to the same law? According to some, "admissions controversy and the quota system resulted in a more equitable distribution of opportunities for Sri Lankans in general" - US Library of Congress[2], although some brilliant Tamil students were affected. So were some Sinhala and Muslim students from Colombo and Matara and Kandy, but their loss was not readily visible because of the general Sinhalese increase, which was a result of majority of general population of Sri Lanka being Sinhalese rather than Sinhalese being favoured. Tamil Students from less-previliged Tamil areas such as Mannar and Mulativ would have been benefitted as well. As long as Tamil entrances were never reduced than what can be expected statistically in an ideal equal-opportunity system for whole country, I don't see how you see that as a discrimination. Greenleaf 06:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

If 9% of Tamils had 15% of university seats, it implies 91% of non-Tamils had 85% (which is less than their population percentage) of university seats. Didn't non-Tamils claim these reforms were discriminatory against them? -165.12.252.11 07:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The percent of population that the Tamils made up is irrelevant, if they were not given an equal opportunity to compete for a portion of the seats it counts as discrimination. I wouldn't call it racial discrimination though, I think ethnic is a better word in this case. VirafPatel 00:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

9% figure is understated

The claim that

None of these figures include the Tamil speaking Muslims known as Moors

Arun 10:54, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

the latest governemnt census indicate that 28% of srilankan speak tamil as their first language.

Forget facts and fiction

I don't know what you guys are arguing about. Numbers can be made up- the government controls numbers and independent studies have control over their numbers!!! But let me tell you, I know of many tamils who got much higher grades than Sinhalese counterparts (their own friends), yet could not get into the same schools as them.

Worse than this, descrimination even occured within races (amongst different classes), but that's a story for another day.

Please do not rewrite this article without discussions

As of today there was yet another attempt of rewriting this article, and with the rewrite there were accusations that the article was written by the LTTE. I can not see at all that it is the case, and even though the article is not good, it should be extended and improved by discussing the various points we do not agree on. Ulflarsen 16:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I would like to try to improve this article. Long ago, for nearly three peaceful years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I lived in Sri Lanka. I made many friends in both communities, and -- as much as humanely possible -- I have tried to avoid taking sides. I realize that it is very difficult to remain objective about this, and some people may feel that I tilting toward one side or another, but at least I am trying not to! Also, I plan to back up all of my assertions with documentation.

I propose to focus on the roots of the conflict section -- that is where my expertise lies -- and add the following:

• • Add overview of Sri Lanka's ethnic communities.
  • Add map showing the communities.
  • Point out that there was little ethnic conflict before Independence.
  • Describe the unitary state created by the British after 1815, with very little regional or local autonomy. This is very important.
  • Efforts to establish a united national government after Independence were half-hearted, at best.
  • "British schools" Actually, most were American, and built by the Wesleyan mission, but in Tamil areas mostly -- the British, fearing subversion, wanted to keep the Americans as far away from the capital as possible. From the late nineteenth century to the 1970s, the Wesleyan mission schools were widely regarded to be the best schools in Asia. (Lesson: It's fine to build good schools, but you must build them for everyone.) With all due deference to my Tamil friends, I believe this is the reason they did so much better in competitive civil service examinations. The Sinhalese were, in the main, simply not as well educated.
  • 1948 Constitution modeled on unitary British state with insufficient attention paid to minority protection. This laid the foundation for conflict: There are too few Tamil speakers to offset any Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo.
  • Describe election of Bandaranaike in 1956 and the "Sinhala-Only" policy.
  • 1958 Riots. There are no words to describe how deeply these riots shocked and alarmed Sri Lankans in both communities; there was a sense that the country had begun a spiral into chaos from which it could not recover.
  • Lack of progress in Parliament, in which a destructive pattern sets in. Sinhalese leaders try to take positive steps, but they are opposed by extremists, and their party is wiped out in the next election.
  • Formation of Tamil militant groups.

Please let me know what you think. Kind regards, Bryan 18:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good, and seems you cover most of it. I believe its good that one person with some knowledge can take responsibility of the rewriting. I have been a year in Sri Lanka, as an SLMM monitor, and can try to add in. Think that the internal infighting, the "etnic outbidding" on the Sinhalese side, as described in the book "Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka" by Neil de Votta. It is however a minefield you are entering into, I have got some flak myself due to the SLMM article. As you probably well know, the situation is quite locked up and the various groups are fighting hard for their view of the situation. Ulflarsen 15:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I know it's a minefield, but I also know that many people appreciate our trying to bring NPOV to volatile subjects. I recognize that people interpret SL history differently, but that is partly what I am planning to write about. Bryan 18:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds goot to me too - I must suggest that you try to edit the existing article rather than just rewriting it, or in case you insist that it must be rewritten (I agree that the quality of current article is not very appealing) then please open a subpage in the talk page so others can review your article and may be come up with suggestions before we switch versions - in case you want to really turn the article upside down, I guess you are aware of templates in

Wikipedia:Template_messages/Maintenance#Articles_undergoing_major_edits

. I wish you well, and hope you'd have the neutrality and balance needed to get a reasonable agreement, and, of course, courage to face and calm to address peer critisism.

I'm planning to write only about the "Roots of the Conflict." I really don't know the specifics of what's happened since 1981, the date of my last visit to Sri Lanka.

About "flak"s Ulf mentioned, I was one of the two editors who did not agree with him about an issue (which was not the same issue with the other editor), and Ulf is free to justify his edits and do the relevent changes. I still do not see why Ulf's claim "this all is due to Sinhalese infighting" is relevent to

SLMM or critisism thereof, and Ulf, if I remember correctly, still did not explain away protests from quaters such as UTHR, Karuna and Mr Ananda Sangari. Anyway that's a closed issue I guess. :-) Greenleaf

04:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The main critique on the revision of the SLMM article was from a person not logging in, he added a lot of content that basically adds up to that the SLMM is siding with the LTTE and that most Sinhalese was against it. Strangely then that the SLMM is still there, still supported by the President and the PM and the opposition leader. Strange indeed. The sentence with the "Sinhalese infighting" is connected to the how the two main parties play each other, it seems to have been so since independence and it seems to be a very integral part of the "Tamil problem". When it comes to the SLMM article, frankly I just gave up. The article as today is a mess, the first part is basically what I did, which I believe is rather balanced, and the second is just a long harangue of critique against Norway. Not much of an encyclopedia entry - but I think its best I stay out of that, not the least since I have been with the SLMM and therefore probably would just be stamped as LTTE biased. But the really interesting thing about Sri Lanka is how a country that was on its way to be the first third-world country to enter the developed world, could fail so miserably. It was well ahead of places like South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. Not so today. If I go back to the beginning "Greenleaf" - to place that failure on one cause, I guess it would be "Sinhalese infighting".

Yes, if you go back to the beginning. But we were, then, at the SLMM article, and that was, for the sake of being an Encyclopedic resource, not meant to address, the

Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka which was a different article in itself. Your ideas are, however much I agree with them, however much they're worth or close to the supposed truth, opinions, by the way, and should be treated as such even in the related article. Greenleaf

08:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I'm biased against LTTE - If you, say, put in the LTTE article that LTTE has to reform drastically and that most doubt they can, I'm opposed to that edit as well, for the same reasons I mentioned previously. It's an opinion of an editor, and however true it is, it's not neutral to say so. In a talk page, it's a different matter altogether, and I did not oppose your arguments in the talk page. Greenleaf 08:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

So no "Greenleaf" - its not a closed issue, but quite a lot of the critique (from UTHR and others) just do not take into account what the SLMM is; a tool for the parties. It can assist the parties if they want to go forward, but can not push them. I believe the close to failure of the current peace process is linked to the same "Sinhalese infighting" that destroyed the possibility of making Sri Lanka a Singapore - and instead has it on its way to becoming a Somalia istead. Ulflarsen 14:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Whether "UTHR/Karuna/Sangari/Devananda does not take in to account what the SLMM is" has nothing to do with Sinhalese infighting and that, precisely, was my opposition to your reduction. As for what prevented SL from being a Singapore, I don't see why that's really relevent to SLMM either (although, in SL political arena's context, it already became a worn-out cliché by early '80ies). If we want to go to root causes of the whole story, then we'll have to insert a paragraph of psycology to every religion article in wikipedia, because there's a very strong school of thought that says religion was inspired by people for psycological needs. Greenleaf 08:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The reason I brought "sinhalese infighting" into the SLMM article was because of the anonymous writer that insisted adding loads of anti Norwegian comments. I see his efforts as fueled by the same infighting that has ruined the country the last 40 years. And, as I try to show by referencing to "Blowback", these are not my own ideas. There seems to be a rather large crowd of people studying the conflict that view it this way. Or about the opposite view; that LTTE is the cause. The LTTE has only been a major player since the middle of the 1980, while the various troubles have been there since the beginning of the 1950.

I am well aware of that I am not supposed to preach my opinions and ideas, and that is why I in the original SLMM article tried to be rather balanced. You can check the history of that article. And that is also why I have not gone against the load of critique that was added by the anonymous contributor, just the parts that was way off and not true. But it seems you have been more interested in arguing against me than his various additions. But if you are happy with the SLMM article as it is I am not the one to change it - I can live perfectly well with it.

Ulf, I entered the scene by correcting (in my view) two edits, one of yours and one his; he did not argue back, but you did, so I was naturally engaged with you in an argument. That doesn't mean that I automatically sanctioned all of his edits. If you see Ranil Wickremesinghe article, you'll see that I have countered pro-sinhala nationalist edits as well.

And no, ideally, I would have been happier if we two could come in to concensus there about my edit that ... critisisms against SLMM as being merely politically motivated (which would include everyone from "Sinhalese" to Sangari to UTHR). You said that it does not make any sense without "Sinhalese infighting" and suggested that the whole sentence be removed. Whether people haven't understood SLMM's role does not automatically mean that Sinhalese infighting is responsible of that. Those 'misunderstood' people include RSF as well - right or wrong, not infighting Sinhalese. I cannot of course force my opinion on you, so, although I tried my best to come to an agreement on this, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Greenleaf 01:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I did not enter the paragraphs about my (and almost all SLMM monitors) view that the LTTE has to reform drastically. I wrote it on the talk page to show that I and most SLMM monitors are not pro LTTE as the anonymous cotributor tried to paint a picture of. Again - I know the NPOV policy and I know the difference between articles and talk pages. But if it bothers you I will drop such comments on talk pages as well.

I did not say that you did, I took that just as an example to show that "Sinhalese Infighting" was something similar to that - an opinion. And I did say that I perfectly agree that those kind of stuff are ok in talk pages. I'm really baffled here how you intepreted me. Greenleaf 01:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

As for your last paragraph; I am not so sure that there is not a connection. Part of the "Sinhalese infighting", or "etnic outbidding" as Neil de Votta talks of is that all others are to blame, British, Indians and now Norwegians. If you read the UTHR you see the pattern. What they report on various terror acts by the LTTE is basically good stuff (even though it could be shortened down), but they always end up demanding something from the SLMM that it was not built to deliver. Same goes for lots of the other NGOs, parties in the south etc. The anonymous writer goes over and over on this, his own opinion you might say - and rather POV.

To wrap it up: I dont think I will do any more edits on the SLMM article, not interested in the flak. And I will probably keep away from this article too, for the same reason. The guy that has volunteered to rewrite it seems knowledgeable and commited and I'll leave it to him. Ulflarsen 10:59, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I hope that you and the other contributors will stick around! I'm planning to make changes to the background sections only (see my note above). A note on POV and NPOV: In a contested area such as this one, NPOV can be achieved, I think, only by DOCUMENTING the facts and then accurately and fairly indicating the various ways that a particular event is viewed. Consider the following... Bryan 18:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I hope you decide to stay. I cannot promise that I would never oppose your edits, but in my humble opinion, that's what wikipedia is. In return, you have a right to oppose my edits if you think they are not good. Still, I do value your contributions, and hope you would stay on SL related articles. (To quote Don Barzini for the second time, "we all are reasonable men here" :-)) Greenleaf 01:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Bryan, most of the "documented facts" out there are flawed. During the riots, the government expelled media personnel from SL - that's how far they've gone to hide issues. How difficult is it to misportray facts in documents? I think the best that can be done is use sources that have nothing to do with the SL government. Even outside agencies like BBC have trouble getting true unfiltered details out of SL, so it's better to trust reports that leaked from individuals. I have family members who saw kids being killed during the riots, and others who were qualified but denied government jobs, and yet others who couldn't get into universities because they were held to higher standards than non-tamils (both officially by the laws, and unofficially because the admissions officers could do whatever they want). Don't trust "documented facts." Dig up testimonials and facts from indpendent newswriters who had free access to SL (good luck!).

Hi Brian, Ulf, and others to whom it may concern:

I moved your new article segment here because it would facilitate a convenient edit - free from regular noise in talk page. Hope you won't mind and continue to edit there. Thanks.

By the way, are you sure about the spelling of Badi-ud-din Mahmud? I have seen his name spelt Badiudeen Mohamed. And I believe he was a Dr. ;) Greenleaf 01:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

fixed references. Greenleaf 01:56, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved from main article. El_C 01:57, 21 November 2005 (UTC) The LTTE has been given the horrible title of terrorists. However, it is the singalese majority government that has shown bias towards their own people and do not give Srilankan Tamils rights. The LTTE is a group who is trying to liberate their people from the majority singalese country, hence the name Liberation Tigers. The tigers are trying to fight for their people's rights and the rest of the world is just looking at them and judging them as if they are terrorists. This point of view is not only wrong but unfair to the soldiers who are fighting in what they believe in. It is also not rigth because the LTTE have been at a ceasefire since 2001. The fact that the people of the world still consider the LTTE to be terrorists is unjust and actually cruel. 67.70.12.202

   - depriving a section of Eelam Tamils of their citizenship,
   - declaring the Sinhala flag as the national flag,
   - colonising parts of the Tamil homeland with Sinhala people,
   - imposing Sinhala as the official language,
   - discriminating against Tamils students seeking University admission,
   - depriving Tamil language speakers of employment in the public sector,
   - dishonouring agreements entered into with the Tamil parliamentary  political leadership,
   - refusing to recognise constititutional safeguards against discrimination,
   - later removing these constitutional safeguards altogether,
   - giving to themselves an authocthonous Constitution with a foremost place for Buddhism,
   - and changing the name of the island itself to the Sinhala Buddhist name of Sri Lanka - appropriately enough, on  the 'tenth day of the    waxing moon in the month of Vesak in the year two thousand five hundred and fifteen of the Buddhist Era'.