1505-1656 Portuguese occupy coastal Sri Lanka.
1656-1796 Dutch occupy coastal Sri Lanka.
1796-1815 Great Britain occupies coastal Sri Lanka.
1815 British establish control over all of Sri Lanka.
1948 (Feb. 4) Sri Lanka becomes independent as Ceylon.
1948 (Feb. 4) Britain grants Ceylon dominion status.
1956 Sinhala Only Act establishes Sinhala as the official language of government.
1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike becomes prime minister—the first woman in the world
Elected head of a national government.
1972 New Tamil Tigers are formed in Jaffna.
1972 (May 22) Ceylon becomes Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
1978 New constitution is enacted.
1981 (July 30) Government declares state of emergency in the wake of ethnic riots.
1983 Severe anti-Tamil riots occur in southern Sri Lanka, as civil war escalates.
1987 Indian peacekeeping forces arrive in Sri Lanka.
1989 (June 28) Tamil Tigers declare cease-fire.
1990 (Mar.) Indian peacekeeping forces leave.
1990 (June 11) Tamil Tigers end cease-fire.
Found. But in June the LTTE carried out a series of strikes against police stations in Eastern Sri Lanka. Hundreds of police officers were slaughtered in the attacks, many after surrendering to the LTTE. Even more Tamil civilians were killed as an angry Sri Lankan army reconquered the major towns of the Eastern Province.
Both sides were now well armed, and the once rag-tag army of Tamil youths became a fierce and well-trained guerrilla army. The fighters for the LTTE are considered to be the most dedicated and fiercest guerrilla fighters in the world. They wear amulets of cyanide around their necks and are expected to commit suicide before they canbe captured by Sri Lankan forces. They are known for their suicide corps, which carries out bomb attacks. In 1991 they killed Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian prime minister, while he campaigned for reelection in India. In 1993 they blew up Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa during a May Day parade in Colombo.
1991 (May 21) Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
1993 President Ranasinghe Premadasa is assassinated by LTTE.
1993 (Jan. 14) Anglican cleric attempts to negotiate peace between Tamil Tigers and government.
1994 Chandrika Kumaratunga is elected president.
1995 (Dec.) Jaffna peninsula is recaptured by government troops.
1996 (Jan.) Central Bank building in Colombo is bombed by LTTE.
1997 (Jan.) Tamil Tigers launch major attacks in civil war.
1997 (May) Government's Operation Jayasikurui (Final Victory) campaign begins.
1998 U. S. government designates LTTE a terrorist organization.
1998 (Oct. 27) Tamil Tigers overwhelm well-fortified army base.
1999 (July) Human rights activist and parliamentarian Neelan Thiruchelvam is murdered by LTTE.
1999 (Dec.) Sri Lankan government attempts to pass a constitutional reform bill, ensuring greater regional autonomy, in order to win Tamil support.
2000 (Oct.) President Kumaratunga's People's Alliance coalition calls a new election, hoping to win the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution; the election leaves the president's party in an even weaker position.
(continued)
The LTTE leader Prabhakaran is known for his unwillingness to tolerate opposition within his organization. Many leaders who challenged him have either disappeared or been killed. Those who have fled to the government controlled areas of Sri Lanka have often been assassinated.
After 1990 the war became bloodier and more intense. Both sides also increased their attacks on civilians. The guerrillas attacked Muslim and Sinhalese villages in areas of the north and east which they felt belonged to the Tamils, while the government army and police rounded up thousands of Tamil civilians who were executed without trials.
The human rights abuses of both sides have appalled the rest of the world and led to demands that both sides stop killing civilians. In addition to the human rights abuses, there have been LTTE bomb attacks in Colombo. In January, 1996, the LTTE bombed the Central Bank building in the heart of Colombo, kill-
Sri Lanka Time Line (continued)
2000 (Dec.) LTTE call a cease-fire in hopes of reaching a settlement with the government.
2001 (Apr.) LTTE calls off its cease-fire, saying that the government has not responded to the rebel organization's efforts; government begins an offensive that is beaten back by the rebels.
2001 (June) Sri Lanka Muslim Congress withdraws from the president's People's
Alliance, causing a political crisis; President Kumaratunga suspends parliament and calls for a national referendum.
2001 (July) Fighters of the LTTE seize Bandaranaike International Airport and destroy
About half the planes of Air Lanka.
2001 (Dec. 9) Opposition United National Party wins control of the Sri Lankan
Parliament.
2001 (Dec.) Under new prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the government establishes a cease-fire and begins making efforts at negotiating with the rebels.
2002 (Sept. 5) Government ends the ban on LTTE as a precondition for talks with the rebels.
2002 (Sept. 16) Government representatives and LTTE leaders begin official face-to-
Face talks on a Thai naval base at Satthip, Thailand.
Ing more than one hundred people. In December of the same year nearly one hundred were killed in the bombing of a commuter train in the Colombo suburbs.
During 1999 and 2000, the Tamil fighters unleashed a new heavy wave of violence. In July, 1999, the LTTE murdered human rights activist and parliamentarian Neelan Thiruchelvam and in September the guerrilla organization massacred scores of unarmed Sinhalese villagers. At the end of the year a suicide bomber attempted to assassinate President Chandrika Kumara-tunga. This was followed by bombings and shootings throughout the southern part of the nation. In April, 2000, Sri Lankan military forces lost an important military camp to the rebels, but the Sri Lankan soldiers were later able to recover much of their lost ground.
World History
