Sri Lanka: Surviving Ethnic Strife

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1997, Pages

  De Silva, K M ^a,b  

^a Intl Centre for Ethnic Studies   (Sri Lanka)

^b UNIVERSITY OF PERADENIYA   (Sri Lanka)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 16744366548     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. See particularly K.M. de Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: Problems of Governance (Delhi: Konark, 1992). For a more jaundiced view of the processes of democratic survival, see Mick Moore, '"Guided Democracy' in Sri Lanka: The Electoral Dimension," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 32 (March 1994): 1-30.
2. See particularly K.M. de Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: Problems of Governance (Delhi: Konark, 1992). For a more jaundiced view of the processes of democratic survival, see Mick Moore, '"Guided Democracy' in Sri Lanka: The Electoral Dimension," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 32 (March 1994): 1-30.
3. On the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka, see K.M. de Silva, Regional Powers and Small State Security: India and Sri Lanka, 1977-1990 (Washington, D.C., and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
4. C.A. Chandraprema, Sri Lanka: The Years of Terror. The JVP Insurrection of 1987-1989 (Colombo, Sri Lanka: Lake House, 1991), is by far the best study of the problem.
5. On the politics of this period, see James Jupp, Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy (London: Frank Cass, 1978) and A.J. Wilson, Politics in Sri Lanka, 1947-1979 (London: Macmillan, 1979). The period after 1978-79 is reviewed in de Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: Problems of Governance.
6. On the politics of this period, see James Jupp, Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy (London: Frank Cass, 1978) and A.J. Wilson, Politics in Sri Lanka, 1947-1979 (London: Macmillan, 1979). The period after 1978-79 is reviewed in de Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: Problems of Governance.
7. On the politics of this period, see James Jupp, Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy (London: Frank Cass, 1978) and A.J. Wilson, Politics in Sri Lanka, 1947-1979 (London: Macmillan, 1979). The period after 1978-79 is reviewed in de Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: Problems of Governance.
8. This may be taken as a relative improvement over what happened in 1972, however, when the term of Parliament was extended without the voters' being consulted at all.
9. This is discussed in de Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: The Problems of Governance.
10. On Sri Lanka's welfare state and its economic base, see G.H. Peiris, Development and Change in Contemporary Sri Lanka: Geographical Perspectives (Delhi: Macmillan, 1996).
11. See C.A. Chandraprema, Sri Lanka: The Years of Terror.
12. On the effects of ethnic conflict on Sri Lanka's economy, see J.M. Richardson and S.W.R. de A. Samarasinghe, "Measuring the Economic Dimensions of Sri Lanka's Ethnic Conflict," in S.W.R. de A. Samarasinghe and R. Coughlan, eds., The Economic Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict (London: Frances Pinter, 1993), 194-223.
13. See de Silva, Regional Powers and Small State Security.
14. In the August 1994 balloting for the 225-member Parliament, the SLFP-led People's Alliance won 105 seats to the UNP's 94.
15. During unrest that took place near the town of Negombo in mid-September 1996 after several UNP supporters were shot to death by parties known to have SLFP ties, President Kumaratunga was quoted by a local newspaper as urging her partisans to meet force with force, employing a pithy Sinhalese phrase that translates roughly as "just slice them up." Her remarks, which appeared in Lankadipa (Negombo), 17 September 1996, have drawn widespread criticism in the press and from organizations such as the Civil Rights Movement.