Casualties Of Sri Lankas Civil War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Casualties Of Sri Lankas Civil War - Essay Example LTTE has not yet accepted defeat or it seems that both the parties have a very notorious reputation for exaggerating and lying (Rotberg, 1999). This particular tendency to lie and exaggerate has been perhaps the most important aspect of this war. For instance, the government exaggerates casualties among LTTE fighters while deliberately lies about its own casualties. Sri Lankan security forces have a reputation for reprisals after an attack has taken place. This kind of retaliation has often targeted the helpless civilians in the war zone in the North-East of Sri Lanka where most of the Tamils are living. In the rest of the country, Sinhalese are the majority. Muslims form the third ethnic minority group. Tamils constitute 18.5% of the total population while Sinhalese constitute approximately 74% (2001 Census). The post-1983 history of this island nation has never been the same and sporadic fighting in the North-East and occasional bomb explosions in the South have claimed more civilian lives than all casualties among security forces and the combatants put together. Though there are no reliable statistics to show the extent of such civilian casualties over the years, independent estimates put the figure at a colossal 60,000 with further 20,000 missing. These figures, of course, include some deaths among government soldiers and Tamil rebels too (www.worldwatch.org). While causative factors for the civil war in Sri Lanka have received much less attention than its consequences, both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the ultimate survivor of all Tamilian rebel groups fighting for separation, haven’t paid attention to the mammoth toll the war takes on the civilian population in the country (Richardson, 2005).