- Countries:
- Sri Lanka
- Topics:
- History, Software & Tools, War & Conflict
- Languages:
- English
This post is also available in:
| Español: | Sri Lanka: Debate sobre paz y conflicto... |
“The events that surround the history of the Sri Lankan conflict, their impact and interaction with other events are still highly contentious.” The Peace and Conflict Timeline (PACT) project helps to gain a deeper understanding of the conflict's roots and promote discussions and debates on the issue, according to their website.
1 comment
Join the Conversation
Recent Articles also in South Asia
- › Gross National Happiness: Bring It Home To Roost
- › Video: Worldwide youth express themselves in 60 seconds
- › Pakistan: Take Back The Tech Campaign
- › India's tryst with e-health: A healthier future for its rural millions?
- › India Remembers Horrifying Mumbai Terror Attacks
Recent Links also in South Asia
#
Tomlax says: “those people who score more in exams are not really more educated.” Read the post at Kuzu-Bhutan Weblog to learn why.
Funding drive
Global Voices Email Updates
Get summaries of new stories from Global Voices in your inbox daily, weekly, or just sign up for important announcements.
Our Other Sites
Special Projects
This site is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Please read our attribution policy.
Ndesanjo Macha2440 posts 
.hj barraza7 posts 
Deborah Goldemberg8 posts 
Paula Góes580 posts 
Adil Nurmakov1320 posts 
Renata Avila64 posts 
Syafique Shuib3 posts 
Milton Ramirez51 posts 
Jorge Gobbi36 posts 
Kamla Bhatt60 posts 
Roger Franchini2 posts 
Jillian C. York384 posts
Feature: Historical roots and contemporary causes of conflict in Sri Lanka
“I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people. They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things,” Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, in an interview with Stewart Bell of the National Post newspaper of Canada, 23 September 2008.
PACT’s overall purpose is to examine the root causes and contributory factors of conflict in Sri Lanka and to promote discussion on these themes. In the coming months, the PACT team will invite various individuals, including academics, journalists and historians, to give their perspectives on these topics and in turn we’ll ask you to give your reactions.
Many commentators are calling for the root causes of conflict to be addressed in a meaningful way. They argue that even if the LTTE is defeated militarily, the underlying conflict will continue as a result of the non-addressal of these critical issues. Indeed, these issues existed long before the LTTE emerged as an armed militant group.
What are these root causes and what should be done about them? This feature seeks to unpack some of these issues.
The controversial statement above made by Army Commander Lt. General Sarath Fonseka raises issues of origin and a supremacist ideology that has roots, according to our first commentator Lakshman Gunesekara, going back some 500 or even 1,000 years. The former editor of the Sunday Observer talks to the PACT team about his views on the historical and contemporary causes of conflict in Sri Lanka and about racism in Sri Lanka, past and present.
Our second commentator, Dr. Farzana Haniffa, an anthropologist and senior lecturer at the University of Colombo, talks to the PACT team about how the roots of conflict in Sri Lanka have impacted on the Muslim polity, and on Muslim nationalism and identity.
Listen to interviews of our first two commentators by visiting the latest feature at http://pact.lk/2009/03/05/feature-historical-roots-contemporary-causes-and-contributory-factors-of-conflict-in-sri-lanka/