...Nira Wickramasinghe The year 2008 saw a successful military campaign by government security forces against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the North. Elections to the Eastern Province resulted in a break away faction of the LTTE sharing power with the government. People continued...

...Nira Wickramasinghe The year 2007 saw a successful military campaign that led to the “liberation” of the Eastern Province by government security forces. The country's high economic growth rate continued despite the war, but inflation and the cost of living also rose significantly. The regime's...

... and integrity of the nation. It is concerned, first, with the refer- endum, fixed for July 5th by presidential proclamation under the previous regime of J. R. Jayewardene and now postponed sine die, which would determine whether the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, effected...

... with the terms of the Ac- cord, an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) occupied the Northern and Eastern provinces in order to combat the secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In the south the Sinhalese majority wrestled with this major shift in the prospect of the nation. There the Accord was used...

... government had merely made a symbolic gesture to the Tamils, the same could not be said about the concession to unify the Northern and Eastern provinces into a single politico-administrative unit. No other matter in the entire Accord has been more inflammatory to Sinhalese sensitivities, trig- gering even...

...Bryan Pfaffenberger SRI LANKA IN 1986 A Nation at the Crossroads Bryan Pfaffenberger As the year 1986 drew to a close, Sri Lanka found it- self no closer to solving the Tamil separatist crisis. Fighting for a separate nation in Sri Lanka's Northern and Eastern provinces are several Tamil militant...

... to wage a guerrilla war to take control of the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. In national politics, the United National Party, which came to power in 1977, continues to control the government while the opposition parties are in disarray. In the economic sphere, the move toward capitalism has...

... with the objective of achieving regional auton- omy for the Tamil-speaking communities living predominantly in the Northern and Eastern provinces of the island. Due to the adverse policies adopted by the Sinhalese-dominated center in the post-independence pe- riod, the Tamil demand for regional autonomy escalated...

... of opportunity opened when President Rajapakse reversed the stand he had taken during his election campaign and requested the Norwegian government to continue as a mediator. He also signed an order extending the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces a measure opposed by some Sinhala nationalists and dear...

... in the Northern and Eastern provinces are very largely responsible for this polarity. The political senti- ments of the two communities have come to a point from which there is no return to the mutual acceptance and respect that existed in early post- independence days. The Sinhalese Perspectives The Sinhalese...

... the TULF leader, and ac- 3. Annexure-C, which was the key provision in the "Parthasarathy formula," envisaged regional councils in the Tamil-dominated Northern and Eastern provinces with jurisdiction over such subjects as law and order, administration of justice, social and economic develop- ment, cultural...

... and cease all violent activities. For its part, the Co- lombo government would withdraw its security forces from the north and east, and it would agree to hold a referendum on the unification of the Northern and Eastern provinces, the predominantly Tamil-speaking prov- inces that the Tigers view...

... out in recent years for the improvement of conmunications between Sinkiang and the eastern provinces of China. Urumchi and Kashgar have been connected with China by the erection of a radio station, and con- siderable effortws have been expended in the establishment of a motor road through Inner...

... Conference. In mid-August, President Jayewardene responded to the four principles by declaring that recognition of Tamils as a "distinct" nationality, the establishment of a separate homeland, and the linkage of the Northern and Eastern provinces in essence constituted a demand for a separate state; hence...

...- cation. Some of them had been translators for Americans; others had been teachers. The field of education seems not to elicit much interest among people from the eastern provinces, but does rather among those from the North who seem to have less chance to get into key government positions. Similarly...

... in New Delhi until he too accepted its conditions. As part of the agreement, the LTTE agreed to decommission its weapons; the Sri Lankan government agreed to recognize Tamil (and English), in addition to Sinhala, as official languages, merge the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and institute a provincial...

.... In March after the Indians had withdrawn, the Sri Lankan army was quick to occupy as much of the Eastern Province as possible. This province has been officially joined to the Northern Province by the terms of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accords, pre- sumably subject to a referendum supposed to have taken place...

... (some- times militant insurgents but just as frequently, unarmed civilians). But almost all of this was happening in the North and East-away from the Sinhalese heartland. To be sure, an occasional bomb exploded in Co- lombo, or Sinhalese peasants were killed in the Eastern Province by Tamil militants...

..., but the civilian population and the troops based there must be resup- plied by air and sea. The army operation involved 20,000 troops, including many diverted from service in the eastern province, backed by armor, artillery, and air cover. The army's plan was rather conventional: move out of Vavuniya in force...

... 3.5 million (44 This represented a swing of 8.8 percentage points against the UNP compared to the 1989 parliamentary elections. In the May 1993 provin- cial council elections held only in the South (i.e., excluding the northern and eastern provinces), the UNP polled 46.9% of the total valid vote...