3.2. Conflict and Muslim IDPs
3.2.1. Conflict and Muslim IDPs in the Eastern Province
Conflict in Sri Lanka brought the Eastern Muslims into the crossfire. Traditionally Muslim elites and politicians cooperated with the Sinhalese ruling class. But at the times of conflict, such collaboration irritated the Tamils. Since 1985, relations between the Tamils and the Muslims in the Eastern Province had become strained. The tense relations were also encouraged by the demographic distribution of the ethnicities in the territories where conflict took place. The Eastern Province has an ethnic population where all groups inhabit in large numbers, with a distribution where Tamils account for 42%, Muslims for 34% and Sinhalese for 22% (Census Report. 2011: 12). This pattern of ethnic demography incites ethnic tension between the Tamil and Muslim groups over many issues.
The problem of land ownership distribution was one of the points of disagreement.
Originally, a large number of Muslims were landlords in the Eastern Province. During the 1960s & 1970s Tamil farmers worked in Muslims‘ paddy fields as laborers. In the early 1980s when the armed conflict emerged, the LTTE mobilized the Tamil farmers to fight against to the Muslim landlords, accusing the Muslims of continuously buying paddy lands in the Tamil rural areas. As a result many Muslim landlords were forcibly evacuated from their lands and became IDPs in nearby Muslim villages. This continued for few years in the late 1980s. In some cases, the Muslims who resisted to evacuate from their home and protested against the LTTE in the Eastern Province were killed (Imtiyaz, ARM. 2012: 7-9).
Business competition was another issue that widens the gap between the Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups in the Eastern Province. It was noted that the Muslim traders ran most of the businesses such as textiles, home needs, real estate and gem & jewelers. This was interpreted wrongly by the LTTE and mobilized the Tamils against the Muslim traders in the Eastern province. As a result many shops and factories were looted by the Tamil mobs. The above examples show that the conflict between the Tamils and Muslims was originally created by the LTTE for their own sake.
When the LTTE emerged as a militant group in the early 1980s some Muslim youths joined this group in support of their so-called Tamil independent state. But when the LTTE began to kill the innocent Muslims in the Eastern Province the Muslim LTTE carders left the LTTE and joined the Sri Lankan government forces. As a result the Sri Lankan government formed a ―Home Guard group‖24 in the Eastern Province and urged these ex-LTTE Muslim carders to fight against the LTTE. This widened the gap between the Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups in Sri Lanka and resulted in many massacres and internal displacements in the Eastern Province, the Kattankudi Massacre being one of them (Ibid. 2012: 10-12).
On Friday evening of the 3rd of August 1990, some 300 men were at prayer in the Meera Jumma Mosque in Kattankudi, a densely populated Muslim town on the Eastern seaboard. At around 8 o‘clock, LTTE gunmen drove up to the mosque, locked the doors to prevent escape and began firing into the crowd inside with automatic weapons25. A similar incident took place at the Hussainiya mosque nearby on the same day. More than 150 men and boys were killed in both incidents. Other 14 were killed in Akkaraipattu on August 5th
24 Home Guard is a village level armed group that was formed by the Sri Lankan government forces to protect certain villages from the LTTE and support to the Sri Lankan forces as well.
25 This was the first time in the Sri Lankan history that Muslims were killed inside the mosque while they were praying in the night. It was highly condemned by some Muslim countries.
and 15 more in various locations over the next two days. The August 3rd massacre in Kattankudi was followed by several weeks of attacks on the Muslim community, marked in many cases by extreme brutality (Ibid. 2012: 13-14).
A Tamil human rights group reported an LTTE massacre in Eravur, near Batticaloa (Eastern Province), in which around 120 people reportedly died: the LTTE cadets arrived in Eravur about 10.30 p.m. on 11th of August and went about massacring Muslims until the early hours of the morning. They went through the Muslim areas of Surattayankuda, Michnagar, Meerakerni, Saddam Hussein village and Punnakuda, killing 121 persons. Among the worst reported incidents was the cutting of a pregnant lady's stomach. The baby was pulled out and stabbed by the LTTE (Ibid. 2012: 8-10).
The above events were a huge shock to the Muslim community in the East. The expulsions and killings had broader ramifications. Many Muslims fled the villages and areas of predominantly Tamil population to the more secure Muslim towns and villages along the Eastern coast. Others abandoned paddy lands they owned in rural Tamil areas, fearing for their safety if they went out to cultivate their rice fields. Many of these lands have remained inaccessible for Muslim owners. According to the Muslim Information Centre (MIC) that at least 63,000 acres were lost in the Eastern province as a result of the events of 1990 (Ibid.
2012: 11). Apart from these incidents a number of killings, abductions, tortures and internal displacements also took place on various occasions until the war ended in May 2009.
The conflict in the Eastern Province was marked by a mix of issues, which widened the gap between the Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups. From the Muslims‘ point of view the LTTE aimed to weaken the Muslims‘ political, economical and social power in this region. At the same time, the LTTE did not want to see another minority (Muslims) challenge their so-called Tamil homeland. However, since the conflict‘s end in May 2009, all Muslims who
temporarily became IDPs within the Eastern Province eventually went back to their hometowns and now live peacefully. Currently there is no Muslim IDPs in the Eastern Province except a few IDPs, which resulted from the tsunami in December 2004.