Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels - 4-Jan-08 - Generational Dynamics

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Jan-08

Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels

Sri Lanka has said it is formally withdrawing from a 2002 ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), informally known as the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Ethnic map of Sri Lanka, around 1975.

Ethnic map of Sri Lanka, around 1975.

Sri Lanka military commanders are promising to defeat the Tamils once and for all by the end of 2008. "We can bring the war against the LTTE to a turning point once we are able to destroy the LTTE capabilities to operate in bunkers and forward defence lines," says the Chief of the army.

The civil war between the two Sri Lankan ethnic groups -- the market and government dominant Sinhalese vs marginalized Tamils.

The Sinhalese came to the island of Ceylon from northern India around 500 BC, and adopted the Buddhist religion around 300 BC, developing a great civilization. They speak the language Sinhala, and today they're about 70% of the population of Sri Lanka (the modern name for Ceylon).

The Tamils occupied the southern tip of India as early as 1000 BC, in what is now the Indian province of Tamil Nadu. They adopted the Hindu religion, and came to Ceylon in the 7th century AD. In the 14th century, they seized power in northern Ceylon and established a Tamil kingdom. They speak the Tamil language, and today they're about 10% of the population of Sri Lanka. (Muslims and Christians comprise the remainder of the population.)

Indian subcontinent, with the island of Sri Lanka off the southern tip of India.

Indian subcontinent, with the island of Sri Lanka off the southern tip of India.

The LTTE began as a separatist group in 1976, and began low-level terrorist attacks and battles with government forces in 1983, until a ceasefire was signed in 2002.

The peace treaty started falling apart in 2005, and violence took a big surge upward in summer 2006, while the world was watching the war in Lebanon, as I described at the time.

Foreign governments are expressing "concern" and disappointment that the government has decided to abandon the ceasefire agreement, which they claim was worthless anyway.

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Still, the announcement that the government army intends to defeat the Tamils by the end of 2008 is, by itself, a significant event. Up till now, many Tamils were resisting participation in the conflict, but this announcement will unite them.

We now have three "minor" incipient or actual crisis civil wars going on:

The war in Darfur began with low-level violence that has been increasing since then, turning into a full-fledge crisis war in 2003. The mainstream media and politicians think the war began in 2004, and the UN Security Council has passed one resolution after another ordering the fighting to stop, all to no avail. Senator Joseph Biden, easily the stupidest man in the Senate, went on Meet the Press in April and said that all we'd have to do is send in 2200 troops, and we could stop all the fighting. When the Darfur genocide began to appear in the news in 2004, I wrote that the UN is completely irrelevant, and that nothing could stop it because it's a crisis war, and crisis wars can't be stopped until they reach their own conclusion. Now, almost four years later, that prediction has turned out to be 100% true.

The Sri Lanka civil war, that we've been describing, has not yet had the transformational "regeneracy" that unifies both sides and makes it a full-fledged crisis war, but the army Chief's announcement that he expects total victory in 2008 is a big step in that direction.
I can imagine the Sri Lankan people cheering at this news. The beginning of a crisis war is a time for partying and celebration, because the people (on both sides) believe they'll have an easy victory. Once a significant military defeat occurs, the war turns ugly, and completely genocidal, with each side valuing human life as worthless compared to the value of winning the war. This "regeneracy" might happen this year.

The recent post-election massacres in Kenya have raised concerns about a full-fledged civil war, although that's unlikely because it's too early in Kenya's generational timeline, as I explained yesterday. The most likely scenario in the next few weeks is some sort of peace agreement, possibly even a peace treaty such as the one that the Sri Lankans signed in 2002.
What's interesting is how shocked everyone seems to be by the violence in Kenya. I've heard one commentator after another say, "We thought that Kenya was getting more and more stable." These people, of course, have no idea that as the last crisis war (the Mau Mau Rebellion that ended in 1956) recedes into history, the chances of a new civil war become increasingly certain.

In fact, all three of these countries have followed and are following the same general pattern: It begins with low-level but gradually increasing violence for a couple of decades. When the violence reaches a certain point, everyone gets scared and both sides agree to stop fighting. That agreement lasts only a short time, before a final generational change turns it into a full-scale crisis war.

That's not just true in small countries, of course. It's happening in Pakistan, where the Pakistanis are increasingly joining forces with al-Qaeda.

And it's happening in the relationship between Japan and China, where the hostility became so bad in 2005 that both sides took steps to reduce the tension. Japan even went so far as to elect an older generation Prime Minister who recently took a trip to suck up to China.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, all of these countries are following the same type of pattern along each country's generational timeline. Once these "peace" agreements are in place during generational Crisis eras, all it takes is a sufficient provocation by either country to stir up nationalistic fury in the younger generations of both countries, finally leading to full-scale war. (4-Jan-08) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Jan-08 Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Jan-08
Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels