Racial Conflict in Sri Lanka: Origin and Development
36 Pages Posted: 19 May 2003
Abstract
The ethnic conflict of Sri Lanka is a well-known issue of the international political arena. There are lots of theories, which explain fundamental cause of the racial conflict. This paper, however, aims to establish another theory on the origin of the conflict, which has caused thousands of lives and property losses since country's independence in 1948. Accordingly, this conflict is a result of the British decision to highly unify three regional sovereignties, which already existed and later brought under the loose-control of European predecessors. The British decision to highly unified three sovereignties under the centralized administration largely lies on their willingness to stabilize British rule in Sri Lanka (formerly known as a Ceylon). This paper is, by exploring the process of the origin (pre-independent era) and consolidation (post-independent era) of the unitary structure, attempting to identify major root causes of the ethnic conflict presently known to us today.
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