ABSTRACT
For almost three decades from 1983 to 2009, the island nation of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon until 1972) was wracked by a bloody conflict between the forces of the government of Sri Lanka and one of the most fearsome terrorist and insurgent organizations of contemporary times: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The goals of both sides were mutually incompatible; the government, dominated by the Sinhalese majority, wanted to maintain the unity of the island-nation while the LTTE wanted to create a separate Tamil nation on one-third of the island and incorporating two-thirds of the coastline. Numerous attempts, often mediated by external powers, to reach a peaceful settlement acceptable to both sides went nowhere (Nadarajah and Vimalarajah, 2008). The conflict ended with a decisive military victory by the Sri Lankan military in May 2009 in which virtually the entire senior leadership of the LTTE was killed and the LTTE military capabilities wiped out.
