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1 1 (February 23, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/goveksu0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Sri Lanka Background and Historcal Setting The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, known as Ceylon until 1972, is a constitutional democracy in South Asia with relatively high levels of economic and social development. It is strategically located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern tip of India's Deccan Peninsula. The island nation was settled by successive waves of migration from India beginning in the 5th-century BC. Indo-Aryans from northern India established Sinhalese Buddhist kingdoms in the central part of the island. Tamil Hindus from southern India also settled in northeastern coastal areas and established a kingdom on the Jaffna Peninsula. Beginning in the 16th century, Sri Lanka was colonized in succession by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English. Although Ceylon gained its independence from Britain peacefully in 1948, succeeding decades were marred by ethnic conflict between the country's Sinhalese majority, clustered in the densely populated South and West, and the largely Hindu Tamil minority living in the North and East. Following independence, the Tamils-who had attained educational and civil service positions under the British- increasingly faced discrimination from the Sinhalese- dominated government, which made Sinhala the sole official language and gave preferences to Sinhalese in university admissions and government jobs. The Sinhalese, who had deeply resented British favoritism toward the Tamils, saw themselves not only as the majority in Sri Lanka, but also as a minority in a larger regional context that includes over 70 million Tamils in southern India. Civil War and Political Developments For 26 years, from 1983 to 2009, a Tamil militant separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) sought to establish a separate state or internal self-rule in the Tamil-dominated areas of Sri Lanka. Political, social, and economic development was constrained by the ethnic conflict and war between the government and the LTTE, which cost an estimated 70,000-130,000 lives. After the civil war's violent end in May 2009, when the military crushed LTTE forces and precipitated a humanitarian emergency in Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated north, attention turned to whether the government had the ability and intention to build a stable peace in Sri Lanka. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015) faced criticism for an insufficient response to reported war crimes by government forces, a nepotistic and ethnically-biased government, increasing restrictions on media, and uneven economic development. In the 2015 presidential election, Mahinda lost to Maithripala Sirisena (2015-2019). Parliamentary elections led to a unity government supportive of Sirisena's reform agenda, including efforts to reduce the authority of the executive presidency. The Rajapaksas Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (2019-2022) of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, a Updated February 23, 2023 Figure 1. Sri Lanka in Brief brother of former President Mahinda Raj apaksa, won the 2019 presidential election on a platform of national security, pledging to suppress Islamist extremism. His and his brother's key base of support was the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. Most Tamils, who are largely Hindu, as well as most Muslims, voted for Gotabaya's opponent. Gotabaya selected his brother as prime minister. The Rajapaksa political position was further strengthened in 2020, when the SLPP won 145 of 225 seats in parliament. In October 2020, parliament passed an amendment that strengthened the powers of the president and reversed previous reforms. Observers viewed Gotabaya's election as bringing a return to nepotistic and authoritarian government. The context for the 2019 presidential election was at least partially set by the April 2019 Easter bombings that killed over 250 people at several churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. Security was a key theme in the election and played in favor of Gotabaya, a former Secretary of Defense credited by many Sinhalese with the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 and the end of the country's 26- year-long civil war. Economic, Financial, and Political Crises Sri Lanka is in the midst of its worst-ever economic crisis. In April and May 2022, Sri Lanka informed its creditors it would not make payments until it was able to restructure its debt. At that time, Sri Lanka reportedly owed $51 billion. (Sri Lanka's largest external creditors are the Asian Development Bank, China, Japan, and the World Bank.) Flawed agricultural policies, a tax cut, limited foreign exchange, declines in remittances and tourism, and the increasing costs of food and fuel all contributed to the

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