Patrick Peebles in a refereed article in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 30-55 …. which John De Silva in Melbourne, my Aloysian sporting mate, has worked on to make it feasible for me to present it in the Thuppahi format-style. The supporting Maps & Diagrams are presented via web-references, while the web-reference to the article as a whole is placed herein in pdf format.
Sri LANKA’S INABILITY to contain ethnic violence as it escalated from sporadic terrorism to mob violence to civil war in recent years has disheartened observers who had looked to the nation as a success story of social and political development. In retrospect, Sri Lanka lacked effective local institutions to integrate the society, and the Sinhalese elite relied on welfare and preferential policies for the Sinhalese majority to maintain power. These alienated the minorities and resulted in Tamil demands for a separate state. 1
This article documents one of the more intractable areas in which ethnic conflict has arisen, land “colonization.” Both major parties competed for thevotes of the Sinhalese, but the creation of agricultural settlements in the undeveloped interior of the island, or colonization, is associated primarily with the United National Party (UNP). During the UNP government of recently retired President Junius Richard Jayewardene (1977-88), both the level of violence and the pace of colonization in the Dry Zone between the Sinhalese and Tamil majority areas increased.
This article describes the objective changes in population distribution that have taken place and raises some issues of general interest in the area of ethnic conflict. The current typology of ethnic identities is inadequate to describe these historical changes, so some discussion of ethnic categories is necessary. The people of Sri Lanka have been divided for census purposes into eight or more “ethnic groups or races.” The Sinhalese make up 74 percent of the island’s population, are predominantly Buddhist, and live primarily in the southwestern and central regions of the island. The secession movement has arisen only among those Tamils called “Sri Lanka Tamils” (13 percent of the population), who speak a dialect distinct from the Tamil dialects of India, are largely Saivite Hindu, and live mainly in the north and east of the island.
FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE …. see …. Peebles (1)
…. and take note of FIGURE 1 and the Maps that are essential aspects of the presentation.ap 3
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Totally agreed. Colonization by Sinhala politicians is much worse than colonialism of the British. Even today no river is diverted to the Northern Province