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Sri Lanka PRIMARY THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY
The most immediate threats to Sri Lankan national security in
1988 were internal rather than external. The Tamil insurgency was
the most severe of these, involving a changing number of heavily
armed terrorist groups that carried out attacks on military and
civilian targets throughout the island and, for most of 1986,
actually controlled the Jaffna Peninsula
(see
fig. 1). A second
source of instability came from leftist nationalist Sinhalese
groups opposed to Tamil autonomy. The chief among these, the JVP,
launched a short-lived insurrection in 1971 that came close to
toppling the government of Sirimavo R. D. Bandaranaike. After a
period of open participation in the political system, the JVP
resumed its violent antigovernment activities in the 1980s, and
expanded its following considerably at the time of the Indo-Sri
Lankan Accord of July 1987. The government also faced a growing
problem of civil violence that seriously threatened the
democratic process. This unrest stemmed not only from the
continuing ethnic conflict but also from a general economic
malaise that increasingly prevented young men from playing
productive roles in society
(see Sri Lanka - Labor
, ch. 3). The problem of a
restless, unemployed youth, although separate from the ethnic
difficulties, was instrumental in providing a fertile recruiting
ground for extremists in search of a following.
Throughout the 1980s, external threats to the nation's
security were long term rather than immediate and tended to
involve the rivalry between regional and world superpowers for
influence over the Indian Ocean. The port of Trincomalee, one of
the best natural harbors in the world, has long been attractive
to foreign nations interested in Indian Ocean bases. India has
expressed a determination to prevent either the United States or
the Soviet Union from establishing a naval presence there, and
the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord helped confirm the Indian claim of
regional leadership.
Data as of October 1988
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