After independence in 1948, the Sinhalese felt that their greater numbers entitled them to more rights and powers. Sea Tiger Colonel Soosai During the colonial period and the early years of Sri Lankan independence the Sinhalese and Tamils got along reasonably well or at least didn’t have any overt animosity towards one another. Background of Sinhalese and Tamil Hostilities In May 1985, more than 150 people (mostly Sinhalese) were gunned down by terrorists in what became known as the Anuradhapura massacre. By 1984 a violence Tamil uprising had all but driven Sinhalese security forces out of the Tamil north and east. The suicide tone of the movement was set when Pon Sivakumaran, a spokesman for young separatists in Jaffna, committed suicide in 1974 to avoid arrest. Some of the groups had strong Marxist beliefs. Many of the groups were militant youth groups made up of unemployed graduates and unmarried and rootless youths and were often led by a single charismatic leader. In the 1970s and 80s various radical pro-Tamil groups began calling for the establishment of a Tamil homeland called Eelam. The Tamils are divided in the Sri Lankan Tamils (9 percent of Sri Lanka’s population), whose descendants arrived many centuries ago, and the so-called Indian Tamils (8 percent), who were brought in by the British during the last 150 years to work the tea plantations. They live primarily in the north and east and the tea-growing areas of central Sri Lanka. The darker-skinned Hindu Tamils are the largest minority in Sri Lanka, making up 16 percent of the population. The Sinhalese are in turn divided among the lowland Sinhalese (44 percent of Sri Lanka’s population) and Kandyan Sinhalese (31 percent.), who have traditionally lived in the highlands and hill country of southern central Sri Lanka. The name Sinhalese is derived from the term for “dwelling of the lions.” a reference to Sri Lanka’s mythical founder, an Indian princess who is said to have mated with a lion. Sometimes called Sinhalas or Singhalese, they speak the Sinhala language, live mostly in southwestern Sri Lanka and are predominately Theravada Buddhists. Killinochi April 2004 Buddhist Sinhalese (pronounced Singhalese) make up 74 percent of the population of Sri Lanka. Sinhalese, Tamils and the Tamil Separatist Movement Despite suffering huge losses, they remained strong, with high morale. In the 1990s and early 2000s the Tamil Tigers were regarded as one of the most tenacious, patient and stubborn insurgent movements in the world. The Tigers emerged as the dominant group in the late 1980s when the Marxist groups lost credibility for supporting the presence of Indian security forces in northen Sri Lanka between 19. In the early 1980s they competed with Marxist Tamil groups, also trained in India, for dominance. In the early and mid 1980s, the Tamil Tigers were armed and trained by India. After a massacre in 1983, thousands of new recruits joined the LTTE. They gained their position as the main insurgency group in Sri Lanka by allying themselves with other radicals, recruiting young peasants, brutalizing those who went against them and running a campaign of terror and assassination. It was one of several anti-government groups in Sri Lanka. In the early 1970s, the LTTE was comprised of 26 fighters. Of Killinochini May 2004 The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were an anti-Sinhalese separatist movement in Sri Lanka that has waged a war since 1983 against the Sri Lankan government in an effort to create an independent homeland for the Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
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