As Sri Lanka continues to teeter on the edge of all-out war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan state, it is hard but necessary to believe that the country does not need to endlessly repeat the same cycle of events. Roads within the war-zone areas of the north, and even more so the east, have once again been crowded with thousands of shelter-seeking Tamils and Muslims – continually pushed this way and that by warring parties. But this is a war for homeland on one side and for a sovereign state on the other, and neither actor will provide ordinary people with homes or lands or the basic rights of citizenship.
Largely forgotten in this conflict's long years has been the fact that, 17 years ago, all 75,000-80,000 Muslims were evicted from the island's north. A group of people who, like the Tamils who the LTTE claimed to be fighting for, had considered the north their inalienable homeland, suddenly found themselves on the other side of a border that attempted to sever their pasts and futures from their homes. About 65,000 northern Muslim refugees now live in camps in Puttalam District alone. These events need to be remembered in Sri Lanka, not only because acts of large-scale forced movement of ethnic minorities continue to be a feature of today's conflict, but also because both observers and participants need to make constant links between these events and the forms of state or quasi-state power that are being claimed and put into effect.
The 1990 eviction of Muslims and the 1995 exodus of Tamils both were major one-time events of displacement in the north. The nature of both events help us understand the contradictory faces of Tamil nationalism, as well as the paradox that the situation represents: how one group of people, Tamils, has the freedom to belong but is without the freedom to speak; while the other group, Muslims, is without the right to belong but has retained the freedom to speak, because the community is not subject to the LTTE's focus. It is necessary to grapple with this paradox if we are to understand what democracy could look like for those living in the north and east.
The eviction
In October 1990, throughout the five districts of Kilinochchi, Mullaithivu, Mannar, Vavuniya and Jaffna, the LTTE announced that all Muslims living within the Northern Province must leave within 48 hours. On Mannar Island, the LTTE announced that all Muslims must report to the LTTE office by the 24th of the month, and leave by the 28th. Despite protests by a delegation of local Tamils and the Catholic clergy, the LTTE sealed off Erukkalampiddy town in Mannar on the 28th, and forbade all further dealings between Tamils and Muslims.