endofyears. (II)

today we went to school just to attend a morning assembly.
was bloody exciting.

today there only 304 305 and half of 303 who were having lessons la (of the 3Es).
then all the teachers either on MC or invigilating, if not got nothing to teach, then the whole day just sit in class do our own things. lame. might as well let us go home right, since most of the teachers not there or let us do self-study.

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Reasons for the Sri Lankan conflict:
1. citizenship rights
govt. dominated by sinhalese; after independence, citizenship was granted to those born in sri lanka or ancestors were born in sri lanka. the indian tamils who were brought there by the british to work in tea plantations felt helpless, and became stateless.
steps taken to resolve this: india held discussions with sri lanka; agreed to let a certain amt of indian tamils return to india, while the rest was to be granted citizenship. sri lanka, however, did not fully carry this out. as many as 100 000 indian tamils remained stateless although they continued to work in the tea plantations and contribute to e country's economy.

2. government jobs
before independence, under british rule, english-educated tamils could enter govt service and be promoted; occupied powerful positions in the govt. sinhalese, however, were at a disadvantage as they could not read/write english. after independence, thetamils were unable to secure jobs or be promoted because of the official language act; they were given 3 years to learn sinhalese or be dismissed. sinhalese however had their positions improved by the sri lankan govt.
official language act resulted in: peaceful demostrations by tamils, which was met with riotous support of the sinhala.
steps taken to resolve this: tamil made the language of thje minority; became language of administration in the northern & eastern parts of sri lanka, because many tamils located there. this was however unsuccessful because of protests by the sinhala community. english was taught to facilitate communication b/w tamils & sinhalese.

3. education (university admission)
before 1970, entrance was based on merit; exams held in english. almost the same no. of tamils & sinhalese in engineering and medical courses. after 1970, tamils had to score higher than sinhalese in order to enter the same courses. admission became hard for tamils; no. of tmails in engineering courses dropped from 48% in1969 to 14.2% in 1975.

4. resettlement of population
this policy aimed to resettle poor sinhalese peasants so that they could live on and cultivate land for rice. sinhalese peasants were moved into tamil areas. buddhist monks and the sri lankan army (mainly sinhalese) also occupied tamils' homeland.
this resulted in: resentment amongst tamils.



Consequences of the Sri Lankan conflict:
Social:
1. hatred hostility and distrust between sinhalese & tamils
children grow up with strong racial and religious prejudices; hard to creaachieve peaceful solutions.
2. violence and armed conflict
1956: anti-tamil riots in response to tamils' peacful protest against the offical language act. led to tamils losing hundreds of lives and property. many other anti-tamil riots followed after that; after the 1983 riots, thousands of tamils fled to tamil nedu in south india.
initail peacful demands by tamils failed; in the 1950s they wanted a federal arrangement within sri lanka. however by 1976, the demands of the tamils were still not met; resulted in the formation of the Tamil United Liberation Front (a political party), which wanted a separate and independent state called tamil eelam.
this however was not accepted by the govt, leading to the formation of thetaml militant group, the tamil tigers/LTTE. they attacked sinhalese and tamils who did not support the idea of tamil eelam.

Political:
3. foreign intervention
after 1983 riots: india attempted mediation by sending foreign minister to sri lanka to mediate in a dialogue b/w sinhalese and tamils. dialogue failed.
1987, july: indian sent ships to jaffna to give sri lanka tamils there food and petroleum products; turned back by sri lankan navy. indian air force then dropped food and medical supplies in jaffna, which violated sri lankan air space. sri lanka was pressured into signing peace accord with india; terms: ceasefire between tamil tigers and sri lankan forces; tamil tigers to surrender their arms to indian peacekeeping troops.
1987, oct: tamil tigers did not fully surrender arms; indian peacekeeping troops take control of jaffna (tiger-controlled) by force. led to clashes b/w peacekeeping troops & tamil tigers.
1990: peacekeeping troops withdrawn.

Economic:
4. unemployment
thousands of tamils and sinhalese lost their jobs because of the 1983 riots. sinhalese retaliated by vandalising looting and burning their places of work.
5. loss in overseas investors
instability of economy because of violence, leading to fall in foreign confidence and investments; foreign investments fell from US$66m in 1982 to US$22m in 1986. results in a stagnant economy.
6. fall in no. of tourists
loss in tourism earning caused by violence; damaged tourism which was one of sri lanka's main source of income. this leads to less funds to develop basic facilites, eg. transport, housing & electricity.


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argh. finally.
and this is only like one-eighth of what we need to study.
hm. this is good way of memorising, really. haha.