Cyberspace, War & Sri Lanka

23 September 1996
Students Weekly Magazine, Massey University, New Zealand.

The war in Sri Lanka, being fought on the ground and in cyberspace, needs international mediation to be resolved peacefully, according to a Massey University researcher.

Social Anthropology professor Margaret Trawick has spent the past two years researching the Sri Lankan war, both in Sri Lanka and through Internet sources, to help find a path to peace.

The government of Sri Lanka is at war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Tigers are fighting for an independent Tamil state in the north and the east of Sri Lanka. Tamils from the largest minority in Sri Lanka, with Singhalese the majority. The two groups speak different languages and have distinct histories.

"They (LTTE) have gained a reputation of being uncompromising and committed to combat. However, the government has failed to address some real grievances and the war will not stop until both sides enter peace negotiations with international mediators present," she said.

Professor Trawick was trained under the National Defence Education Act, in the US, to become fluent in Tamil. Scholars were trained to be fluent in languages of countries which have potential to be trouble spots.

The war in Sri Lanka, which has been building up since the mid- 1970's, escalated in 1983 when island-wide anti-Tamil fighting broke- out. It escalated again in 1995 after unmediated peace talks failed. Many civilians fled to the west.

Professor Trawick says that in the past few years the war in Sri Lanka has been fought both on the Internet and on the ground. "You can now get day-to-day accounts of what is happening in the war, from many points of view. Just as the Vietnam war was the first television war, the war in Sri Lanka may be the first Internet war," she said.

Tamils have traditionally placed high value upon education and literacy. Tamils in northern Sri Lanka raised their children to enter professions such as engineering and medicine, in part because the poor soil of their land discouraged any agrarian economy.

"When Sri Lankan Tamils fled to the West they quickly acquired computer skills in order to continue their professions. Both the Internet and the war were growing at this time. Expatriate Tamils formed Internet discussion groups and the war in their homeland was one of the topics discussed,", she said.

Tamils who favoured the formation of an independent Tamil nation were probably the first national liberation movement to have their own homepage.

Professor Trawick says the Sri Lanka government and supporters soon replied with their views. "This is a terrible, terrible war on the ground, paralleled by a war in cyberspace. International recognition is the goal of the cyberspace struggle," she said.

Through her research via the Internet, and by visiting Sri Lanka and talking to Tamils and Singhalese, Professor Trawick is working with others to bring a just end to the war.

"We want to reduce human rights abuses by making it clear that the international community will not put up with this. Our second aim is to get peace negotiations going again between the government and the LTTE," she said.