8 Sri Lanka: Conflict is Dead, Long Live the Conflict N. Manoharan During 2009, Sri Lanka witnessed unprecedented violence resulting in large casualties, human suffering and economic loss. The Sri Lanka government was able to crush the Liber- ation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) but this has left behind a series of problems, particularly for the civilians. There are problems of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), rehabilitation of former child soldiers, restructuring the war-torn economy and absence of a political platform for the Tamils. BRIEF HISTORY Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka turned violent due to the insensi- tivity of the State in addressing the genuine grievances of the Tamil community and the consequent resort to arms by the frus- trated and radicalized Sri Lankan Tamil youth. At the height of the Tamil insurgency in the mid-1980s, there were five major and nearly 30 splinter militant groups, prominent among them being the LTTE. 1 Belief in militancy and sympathy for the militants gradually arose among the Tamils after the ethnic riots of 1983. With the massive migration of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to Tamil Nadu after the 1983 riots, India could not ‘remain unaffected by the events’. 2 New Delhi offered its good offices to resolve the conflict to ensure its national security 1 Prominent among them were the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), LTTE, Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) and Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). 2 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, while rejecting a Bangladesh type inter- vention in Sri Lanka on behalf of the Tamils, said in the Indian Parliament: