ABSTRACT
The Sri Lankan war offers many lessons about how ethnic wars begin and how difficult it is to end them. The war was fought between the Sri Lankan government and a rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In 1956, the government enacted a 'Sinhala Only' policy, making the Sinhala language the official language of the country. In 1973 Prabhakaran formed his first rebel organization, the Tamil New Tigers, which would become the core of the LTTE. In 1983 the LTTE ambushed an army patrol near Jaffna, killing thirteen soldiers. The attack ignited intense anger among the Sinhalese population, and mobs, often assisted by government politicians, and attacked Tamils in the Sinhalese areas of the country. The LTTE, throughout its thirty-six-year history, was led by the charismatic Velupillai Prabhakaran who did not tolerate any dissent among his followers. He would battle against five Sri Lankan leaders, losing finally to President Mahinda Rajapaksa of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party.
