NEWS BACKGROUND : Sri Lanka History: Foreign Domination

The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, a pendant-shaped island off India in the Indian Ocean slightly smaller than the state of Virginia, was long known as Ceylon.

For centuries it was dominated by foreigners--first the Portuguese, then the Dutch and, from 1815 until independence in 1948, the British. For 24 years after independence, it was a British dominion, but in 1972, became an independent republic within the Commonwealth and resumed the traditional name Sri Lanka, which means “resplendent island.”

Most of its 14.8 million people (almost 75%) are of Sinhalese extraction. Tamils are the largest minority (18%), and the balance is made up of Moors, Europeans, Eurasians and aborigines. The Tamils are about evenly divided between Ceylon Tamils, who have been on the island for many generations, and Indian Tamils, a people who were imported from India in the 19th Century to work on the British tea and rubber plantations.

The official language is Sinhala. Along with Tamil and English, Sinhala is also designated one of the three “national languages”.

Virtually since independence, the Ceylon Tamils have felt discriminated against by the Sinhalese, who hold dominant positions in the government of the parliamentary republic. The Sinhalese also hold dominant posts in education, commerce and the military. The friction has been exacerbated by religious differences: Most Sinhalese are Buddhist, and most Tamils are Hindu. The Indian Tamils, disenfranchised in 1948, have for the most part kept out of the quarrel.

Tamil extremists want a separate nation, which would be called Eelam, in the northern and eastern part of the island.

From time to time, particularly in the past four years, the extremists have resorted to violence in pursuit of their separatist goal. About 5,000 people have been killed in terrorist attacks.