Ongoing fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is creating a humanitarian catastrophe. More than 160,000 people have been displaced since the army launched a military operation on July 26th to seize the Mavilaru irrigation sluice gate inside LTTE territory.

On August 14th, the Sri Lankan air force bombed a school in an LTTE controlled district, killing 61 students and injuring more than 100. Controversy and international concern followed when Sri Lankan government officials and military generals openly declared that children were legitimate targets of the Sri Lankan armed forces, regardless of "age or gender," as the government claimed the victims were all "child soldiers". The government claims were rejected by the UN and SLMM officials. Unicef and other international bodies condemned the massacre as "shocking".

Violence in Sri Lanka has been escalating since Mahinda Rajapakse won the country’s presidency last November. For months, the military and associated paramilitary groups have waged a covert war, aimed at undermining the 2002 ceasefire and provoking the LTTE into responding. Amid the worsening conflict, over fifty thousand people were displaced between April and July and another 7,439 have fled to the nearby southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

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Sri Lanka is a nation consisting of a Sinhaelese Buddhist majority and a Tamil (mainly Hindu and Christian) minority. Until the 1970s, ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka had largely taken the form of a demand for autonomy for the Tamil-speaking regions under an overall federal framework. The lack of results after twenty-five years of negotiations, and the rise of Sinhala nationalism as represented by the 1972 constitution, led to a radicalization of many Tamil youth. A large number of militant organizations have been set up, one of which was the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). The TNT was formed in 1972 by a small group of young Tamils and university students led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. Many students joined the TNT thereafter due to the fact that they were not given equality in the grading systems and admission to post-graduate schools. The TNT's first military operation was the assassination of the mayor of Jaffna, in 1975, followed by a few successful bank robberies to fund their activities and the assassination of a number of minor police officials. In 1976 they teamed up with militants headed by S. Subramanian to form the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In 1979, Anton Balasingham joined the LTTE as their main ideologue. Balasingham added depth to the LTTE's politics. Whereas they had earlier been committed to the single idea of Tamil independence, Balasingham added a new layer of social policies, inspired by Marxism and anti-casteism, which profoundly shaped the LTTE's worldview.
Tamils - A brief introduction | Wikipedia: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | Tamil Eeelam Homepage | LTTE Peace Secretariat | Global Security: LTTE | FAS: LTTE

In 1983, violence in Sri Lanka escalated into a Civil War. The events dubbed Black July began after an attack on in Jaffna by the LTTE resulted in the deaths of thirteen government soldiers. On the 25th of July, the day the 13 soldiers were to be buried, some Sinhalese civilians who had gathered at the cemetery formed mobs and started killing Tamils and looting and burning their properties in retribution for what happened. Between 1000 - 3000 Tamils were killed and tens of thousands of houses were destroyed and a wave of Sri Lankan Tamils sought refuge in other countries.

In 1987, the Sri Lankan Army launched a new assault to recapture Jaffna. In the Indian press, the attack was depicted as being brutal and leading to disproportionately large civilian casualties. Faced with growing anger amongst its own Tamils, India intervened directly in the conflict by air-dropping food parcels on Jaffna in what was interpreted as a show of strength. After negotiations, India and Sri Lanka entered into an agreement whereby Sri Lanka agreed to a federal structure which would grant autonomy to the Tamils. India was to send a peacekeeping force, the IPKF, to Sri Lanka to enforce the agreement.The LTTE rejected the agreement on the grounds that the reforms were only illusory. The result was that the LTTE now found itself engaged in military conflict against the Indian army. The Indian army fought a bitter month-long campaign to win control of the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. This campaign and the army's subsequent anti-LTTE operations were ruthless, and made it extremely unpopular amongst the Tamils. Accusations of torture by Indian forces were widespread and anger against India even resulted in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a member of the LTTE.

When Indian troops left the Sri Lanka in 1990 (upon request of the Sri Lankan government), the LTTE took significant parts of the north and established many government-like functions in the areas under its control. In 1990, the government launched an offensive to try to retake Jaffna. The army rounded up young men merely on the suspicion of being insurgents, and executed them. The LTTE responded by attacking Sinhalese and Muslim villages and massacring civilians. The largest battle of the war was in July 1991, when the army's Elephant Pass base was surrounded by 5,000 LTTE troops. More than two thousand died on both sides in the month-long siege. In February 1992, another series of government offensives failed to capture Jaffn and in 1993 the an LTTE suicide bomber assassinated the Sri Lankan President.

In the 1994 parliamentary elections,t he Sri Lanka Freedom Party came to power on a peace platform. A ceasefire was agreed to in January 1995, but fighting resumed almost immediately. Determined to retake Jaffna, the new governmentpoured troops into the peninsula, leaving large parts of the town in ruins. In one particular incident in August 1995, air force jets bombed Navali's St. Peter's church, killing at least 65 refugees and wounding 150 others. By early December 1995, they had succeeded in bringing Jaffna under government control for the first time in nearly a decade. The government launched another offensive in August 1996. Another 200,000 civilians fled the violence. On May 13, 1997, 20,000 government troops tried to open a supply line through the LTTE-controlled Vanni, but failed. LTTE suicide and time bombs were exploded numerous times in populated city areas and public transport, killing hundreds of civilians. In January 1996, the LTTE carried out their deadliest suicide bomb attack, at the Central bank in Colombo, killing 90 and injuring 1,400. In October 1997 they bombed the Sri Lankan World Trade Center and, in January 1998, detonated a truck bomb in Kandy, damaging an important Buddhist shrine. In response to this bombing, the Sri Lankan government outlawed the LTTE and with some success pressed other governments around the world to do the same.

In March 1999, in Operation Rana Gosa, the government tried invading the Vanni from the south. The army made some gains, but could not dislodge the LTTE from the region. The LTTE returned to the offensive with "Operation Unceasing Waves" on November 2, 1999. Nearly all the Vanni rapidly fell back into LTTE hands. Thousands were killed. The rebels also advanced north towards Jaffna. The LTTE was successful in cutting all land and sea supply lines of the Sri Lankan armed forces in the town of Kilinochchi and surrounding areas. In December 1999 the LTTE tried to kill Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. She lost one eye, among other injuries.

In 2001, the LTTE began to declare their willingness to explore measures that would safeguard Tamils' rights and autonomy as part of Sri Lanka, and announced a unilateral ceasefire just before Christmas 2001. The government was facing increasing criticism over its "war for peace" strategy, with peace nowhere in sight. After losing a no-confidence motion, the elections of December 5, 2001 saw the victory of Ranil Wickremasinghe's United National Front on a pro-peace platform. The new government reciprocated another unilateral LTTE ceasefire offer on December 24, 2001. The two sides formalized it in a Memorandum of Understanding signed in February 2002. Norway was named mediator. The government agreed to lift the ban on the LTTE. Both sides agreed to the principle of a federal solution. This was a key concession for the LTTE, which had always insisted on an independent Tamil state. It also represented a concession for the government, which had seldom agreed to more than minimal devolution.

On December 26, 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami hit Sri Lanka, killing more than 30,000 people. Aid poured in from donor countries, but disagreements broke out almost instantly over whether it was to flow to Sinhalese or Tamil regions. By June 24, the government and LTTE agreed on the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure.
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Violence escalated in December 2005. Increased guerrilla activity included mine attacks, clashes between the the Tigers's navy and the Sri Lankan navy, and the killings of sympathizers on both sides. Prominent figures were targeted for assassination, including a pro-LTTE MP gunned down at a Christmas Mass. Other incidents such as assassination of Tamil journalists and civilians led the SLMM to question whether a ceasefire can still be said to exist. In February 7, 2006, Sri Lanka's government and the LTTE meet for peace talks in Geneva which were reported to have gone "above expectations". Both sides agreed to curb the violence and hold talks in April, but on April 20th, the LTTE officially pulled out of peace talks indefinitely. On April 25th, a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber attacked the Sri Lankan Army headquarters in the capital, Colombo, killing 10. Twenty-seven were injured, including the army commander Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka. The Sri Lankan military began aerial assaults on rebel positions in the north-eastern part of the island nation. On May 10th, the Sri Lankan Navy killed 13 Tamils, including two children, in Jaffna. New talks were scheduled in Oslo, Norway, for June 8-9. These were cancelled after the LTTE claimed its fighters were not being allowed safe passage to travel to the talks. On June 15, a mine exploded next to a bus in central Sri Lanka, killing at least 64 civilians; this attack prompted more air strikes against the rebels. Following a naval battle off the coast of the town of Pesalai, Sri Lankan navy personnel were accused of lobbing two grenades into the "Our Lady of Victory" church, killing one Tamil civilian and injuring others taking refuge inside.The chief bishop stated his church had been desecrated, by "unjust aggressors, the Sri Lankan Navy" in an angry letter to the Vatican.
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Sri Lankan general Parami Kulatunga was killed June 26 by an LTTE suicide bomber.

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A new crisis, and possibly the resumption of war, emerged in July 2006. The Sri Lankan government claimed the LTTE was blocking a sluice gate in the north-east that provided water to civilians. The Air Force attacked LTTE positions and ground troops began an operation to open the gate. Fighting near the Muslim-majority town of Muttur in early August killed at least 30 civilians and displaced 22 000 residents of the area. The LTTE eventually withdrew from the town of Muttur and it seemed an end to the stalemate was in sight as Norwegian mediators persuaded the Tamil rebels to reopen the sluice gates. However as SLMM truce monitors and rebels approached the reservoir area, the Sri Lankan military recommenced artillery attacks thus forestalling the expected reopening of the gates. Soon afterwards, it emerged that 17 Tamil NGO humanitarian workers were found executed. They were found lying face down on the floor of their office, with bullet wounds, still wearing their clearly marked T shirts indicating they were international humanitarian workers. The murders prompted widespread international condemnation. Relatives blamed the Sri Lankan armed forces for the murders. Some Western diplomats conceded that early indications "look like the Government was involved." The head of the ACF was denied initial access to the incident site by soldiers. The sluice gates were eventually reopened the next day with conflicting reports as to who actually opened them, despite this, the army continued major ground and air offensives against the rebels in the area.

TamilNation.org | Wikipedia: Sri Lankan civil war | BBC: Tamil Tigers | Canadian Tamil News