ABSTRACT
Following a conflictual and ultimately fruitless peace process that began in early 2002 and ended finally in January 2008, the civil war in Sri Lanka restarted with a strong sense of inevitability. The ‘ethnic conflict’ began in earnest in 1983 and subsequently moved through four distinct conflict phases (Eelam I-IV), several failed ceasefires and peace negotiations, as well as a disastrous military intervention by the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF). However, the final phase of the war was very different from the primarily guerrilla warfare tactics that defined Eelam I and II, as well as the ‘hurting stalemate’ that characterized Eelam III and eventually led both sides to embrace peace talks when the political opportunity arose. The peace process failed, however, and the resumption of the final phase of civil war, Eelam IV, led unexpectedly and relatively quickly to the military defeat of the LTTE. This chapter examines the military dynamics that influenced the failed peace negotiations and determined the final outcome of Eelam IV. When the war reignited, few predicted that a military solution was around the corner with the dramatic loss of territory by the LTTE first in the east and then its strongholds in the north, culminating in the deaths of their entire leadership on the battlefields of Mullaitivu. Whether this marks the end of militant Tamil nationalism, or the mutation of the conflict into a different mode of warfare, it is perhaps too early to tell.
