It's over. Asia's longest running civil war has ended. After a vicious offensive by the Sri Lankan government, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have laid down their weapons. This is a long-sought end to a savage and bloody conflict. The test now is whether the Sri Lankan government will address the grievances that led the Tamils to take up arms. Will this minority be welcomed as an equal member of Sri Lankan society?
Sri Lanka, an island nation located off the southern tip of India, is a divided society. The Sinhalese majority is Buddhist and constitutes nearly three-quarters of the country's 20 million people. Tamils are Hindu and Christian, account for about 15 percent of the population and live in the north and east of the country. The Tamils have long complained of discrimination. Frustrations boiled over in 1983, with the launch of a fight for independence and the establishment of a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka.
That fight endured for 26 years and claimed over 80,000 lives. It was an especially bloody conflict: The Tamil Tigers, as the LTTE is often known, pioneered the use of suicide bombings, a tactic that took the life of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when Tamil leaders took offense at his intervention in the conflict. The Sri Lankan government responded to regular attacks against it with the often-indiscriminate use of its own weapons. The Tigers' propensity to use civilians as human shields and to see the slaughter of Tamil civilians as a propaganda victory lengthened the casualty lists.