Summary

Sri Lanka has been plagued with a long history of government and economic crises. Of late, food, fuel, and medical supply shortages have pushed its people to the edge with no clear path toward economic or political remediation. This has threatened democracy as trust in government has been reduced considerably. 

Political and Economic Crisis of 2022

In 2022, Sri Lanka experienced its greatest crisis. Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a temporary state of emergency in April after significant protests of his management of the country’s finances. Many of the government’s cabinet resigned along with the governor of the central bank. President Rajapaksa appointed Ali Sabry as finance minister; however, he resigned the following day which led to the President losing majority in the government. Medical facilities then claimed that they were running out of urgently needed pharmaceuticals. The government announced it will default on around $51Bn worth of foreign debt. 

In May, clashes occurred between government loyalists and protesters camped outside the president’s office in Colombo. This resulted in nine fatalities and hundreds of injuries. The President resigned and was rescued by troops as his residence was overrun. Ranil Wickremesinghe replaced him after several previous terms as Prime Minister. 

In June, fuel sales were suspended, and all fuel was rationed for essential services only due to difficulty importing fuel with insufficient credit. The United Nations warned of Sri Lanka stepping into a major humanitarian crisis. Rajapaksa and his family were later evacuated to the Maldives on a military aircraft. 

Inflation reached record highs and Sri Lanka was asked to restructure its debt. 

For further information on Sri Lanka’s political crisis in 2022, see the resources below:

Articles:

1. Sri Lanka’s hard road to recovery from economic and political crisis | East Asia Forum
2. Timeline: Sri Lanka’s worst economic, political crisis in decades | Protests News | Al Jazeera
3. Sri Lanka: Democracy in Crisis - The Centre for Independent Studies (cis.org.au)
4. A Year After Mass Protests, Sri Lanka’s Governance Crisis Continues | United States Institute of Peace (usip.org)
5. Sri Lanka crisis: What is Aragalaya? (indianexpress.com)
6. 1 Year Later, Sri Lanka’s Struggle Continues – The Diplomat
7. Sri Lanka’s Crisis and the Power of Citizen Mobilization - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Tamil Tigers

The Tamil Tigers are a guerrilla organisation that has been classified as a foreign terrorist group. It is also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which originated to fight for Tamil minority ethnicity’s rights and form a separate Tamil Eelam state in Sri Lanka. The LTTE has a political wing and a military wing and are controlled by a Central Governing Committee. The LTTE military wing was thought to have had as many as 10,000 fighters at its largest. 

LTTE carried out guerrilla attacks in the 1970s and controlled parts of northern Sri Lanka in the 1980s. It spent the 1980s defeating and consuming the remnants of other minor Tamil fighting groups. LTTE lost control of its northern Sri Lankan stronghold in October of 1987 when an Indian peacekeeping force regained the territory for Sri Lanka. In 1990 the peacekeeping force withdrew from Sri Lanka and LTTE quickly grew in size conducting terrorist attacks including killing a former Indian Prime Minister. In 1993 they were responsible for the assassination of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa. In July 2001 they conducted an attack on the Colombo International Airport destroying around half of the country’s commercial airliners. 

After sporadic failed ceasefire agreements between LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government, in 2008 the government formally abandoned the ceasefire agreement and captured a number of LTTE strongholds. The LTTE maintains a network of sympathisers and suspected financers, although no known attacks have occurred since 2009. 

For further information on the Tamil Tigers, see the resources below:

Articles:

1. Tamil Tigers | Definition, History, Location, Goals, & Facts | Britannica
2. Refworld | Country Reports on Terrorism 2017 – Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
3. The history of the Tamil Tigers | News | Al Jazeera