Who’s Who, What’s What
In case you’re confused by all the initials and long names, here’s a list of who’s who and what’s what in this Sri Lankan situation.
Black July – the name for the riots which began on July 23, 1983, in which over 1,000 Tamils were killed and tens of thousands of homes were destroyed. The incident began when LTTE members ambushed and killed 15 soldiers from the Sri Lankan Army, which began a backlash of the Sinhalese majority against the Tamils. It is often seen as the beginning of the war.
Ceylon – the British name for Sri Lanka which dates back to the Portuguese colonization of the island in 1505. The name was officially abandoned in 1972.
Eelam – the native Tamil name for Sri Lanka
Gotabhaya – see “Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya”
Jaffna – a city in the Northern region of Sri Lanka, and capital of the Northern Province; also refers to the entire peninsula region surrounding the city. Jaffna is almost entirely Tamil, aside from the military presence, and Jaffna Tamils have their own culture and dialect of Tamil.
JVP – “Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna,” which is Sinhala for “People’s Liberation Front.” It is a Sinhalese nationalist, Communist political party in Sri Lanka.
Lasantha - see “Wickrematunge, Lasantha”
LTTE – Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group made of Sri Lankan Tamils whose goal is to break away from Sri Lanka and form an independent state.
Mullaitivu – one of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka; also the name of the capital of this district. Mullaitivu district is in the north of the country.
Velupillai Prabakharan – the leader of the LTTE. His name is often written as “Pirapaharan” and variants thereof, to reflect different ways of transliterating from Tamil.
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa – Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary and the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Mahinda Rajapaksa – the current president of Sri Lanka.
Sinhala – the language spoken by the Sinhalese people; it is an Indo-European language.
“Sinhala Only Act” – a law passed in 1958 which made Sinhala the sole official language of Sri Lanka and limited the use of Tamil and English in the public sphere. Ostensibly the law was meant to distance the newly independent country from its British colonial masters, but also had the effect of marginalizing the large minority who only spoke Tamil (i.e. most Tamils, Muslims, and other non-Sinhalese ethnic groups).
Sinhalese – the main ethnic group of Sri Lanka. They speak Sinhalese and are mostly Buddhist, although there is also a significant minority of Sinhalese Christians.
STF – “Special Task Force,” an elite wing of the Sri Lankan police, dedicated to counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. They have been witnessed enforcing the white van kidnappings.
Tamil – the language spoken by the Tamil people; it is a Dravidian language, unrelated to the Indo-European languages (such as Hindi, English, Spanish, Russian, etc.).
Tamils – an ethnic group native to South India and Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka. They are the largest minority group in the country, and speak the Tamil language. They are further divided into two culturally and dialectally different groups; the Indian Tamils immigrated from the mainland more recently than the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Tamil Eelam – the name given by some Tamil groups to the Tamil state they aspire to create in the North and East of Sri Lanka.
Tamil Nadu – a state in the Southern part of India; it means “Tamil Country” and is the homeland of the Tamil culture and language; it is ostensibly the origin of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Vanni – a region in the north of Sri Lanka, where many people displaced from their homes by the fighting are trapped and caught in the crossfire.
Wickrematunge, Lasantha – prominent anti-government journalist, editor of the newspaper The Sunday Leader. Shot dead in January 2009. The government has been suspected of being either directly or indirectly involved in the murder.
