Newspaper Article

THE LEGACY OF SRI LANKA'S `MRS. B'

Dyer, Gwynne

2000

Overview

At the moment, Sri Lankan citizens are killing one another in industrial quantities in the Jaffna peninsula in the north, what one aid worker recently called \"the largest open prison in the world.\" The north of the island is home to most of the Tamil-speaking minority, a group so alienated by [Sirima Bandaranaike]'s policies that it eventually fell under the thrall of rebels devoted to the creation of a separate Tamil state called Eelam. The open Tamil fight for independence from Sri Lanka did not start until after the nationwide anti-Tamil pogroms of 1983, at a time when Bandaranaike was out of office. But it was she who did the most to legitimize the attitudes that eventually led to that tragedy. No individual is ever solely responsible for the wreck of an entire country, but Sirima Bandaranaike came pretty close. How ironic, therefore, that her daughter should be leading the effort to achieve a peaceful settlement with the Tamils. It is a thankless task, because the Tamil leadership has been radicalized to the point of intransigence while ethnic supremacism has become a staple of Sinhalese politics. In last week's election, she did not win enough seats in parliament to push through constitutional changes that would give Tamil-speaking areas more autonomy, and she still refuses to talk to the Tamil Tigers directly, but she is trying.

• Publisher: Gannett Media Corp
• Subject: Bandaranaike, Sirima