Political Consequences

- Armed conflict
In the beginning, the Tamil did not want any conflict or violence towards anybody. They just felt discriminated because of the policy that Sri Lanka government had made and felt that they have the rights to be fairly treated. Hence, they started to voice out their unhappiness to the government. Suddenly, a new political party called the Tamil United Liberation Front emerged. This causes the Tamils to asked for a separate independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka and name it Tamil Eelam as the Tamils believed that that would ensure their rights. However, despite all that, the Sri Lanka government still refuse the Tamil’s request and causes them to form the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, another name for it is Tamil Tigers, and resort to violence since requesting had failed. In response to the Tamils’ and the Tamil Tigers’ action, the Sinhalese showed their hostility, sometimes through violence towards the Tamils. The armed conflict has led to war between the LTTE and the Sri Lanka government, has troubled the Sri Lanka government for more than 20 years and has cost more than 60000 lives.


- Foreign intervention
Sinhalese-Tamil conflict had attracted the attention of India and thus, causes them to play the role of mediator in response to the 1983 riots. The dialogue mediated by India failed as both Sinhalese and Tamil could not come into an agreement. The Indian government then sent 20 ships to provide food and petroleum products to the Sri Lanka Tamils, but the ships were turned back by the Sri Lanka navy and this causes the Indian Air Force to dropped food and medical supplies in Jaffna. This violated the Sri Lanka airspace. Under pressure from India, Sri Lanka finally agreed to sign a peace accord with India. The Indian troops took control of the Tamil Tigers by force when they failed to fully surrender their weapons. The peacekeeping force was then withdrawn because of the clashes happening in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Foreign intervention has causes the distrust between the mediator which in this case is India and Sri Lanka.