Sri Lankan Tamil refugees arrive in India in 2005. Photo by Climatalk .in via Flickr

A major insurgency, pitching militias, guerrillas and suicide bombers against state forces. A division of a nation along ethnic and religious lines. Reprisals against civilians by both state and terrorist forces. Support for the terrorists followed by intervention and war by a larger power in opposition.

It’s worrying how easily this could describe the Islamic State, but this is the Sri Lankan Civil War. Claiming tens of thousands of lives, the war began as an ethnic clash between Tamil and Singhalese groups on the island in 1983. Over the years it expanded as Indira and later Rajiv Gandhi’s governments provided training and equipment for men including the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Prabhakaran, allowing the group to escalate from guerrilla warfare into heavy combat. Indian troops under the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) were stationed on the island during the late 80s, originally providing stability – but tensions between the various forces led to a breakdown of relations. The LTTE fought both the IPKF and the Sri Lankan army, producing bad blood between India and Sri Lanka which persists to the present day – the IPKF have been accused of multiple acts of war crimes including rape: one alleged victim was Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, a suicide bomber who succeeded in killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as he campaigned for re-election.

The final chapters of the civil war were written in May 2009, with the death of Prabhakaran – but it did not heal the nation. In 2013, images purporting to show Prabhakaran’s 12 year old son executed by Sri Lankan security forces were released.  Even before that, outrage had built up as the extent of the security forces’ massacres was revealed in a 2011 Channel 4 documentary. As important was the role of the Tamil diasporas, many who remain vehemently supportive of the LTTE despite their actions. One can visit La Chapelle, a road just off of Gare du Nord, and find dozens of Sri Lankan Tamil shops – many bearing posters of Prabhakaran’s face. Elsewhere in Paris, pro-LTTE demonstrators are not an uncommon sight.

It’s tempting to draw conclusions from the Sri Lankan Civil War and apply them to our present conundrum: the Sri Lankan government does boast, after all, to be the first nation in the world to eradicate terrorism from its land. That’s true, if we ignore state terrorism, but it’s difficult to imagine the Iraqi government doing the same. For a start, unlike the hugely permeable borders of the Middle East, the only way into Sri Lanka is by air or sea. Furthermore, the LTTE could never have more support than there were Tamil civilians, who always constituted a minority and whose numbers fell as the Civil War ravaged the country, forcing many to flee abroad. The alienation of many of those who remained due to the LTTE’s excesses further hurt their cause, and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi swayed public opinion against them quite comprehensively. Comparing the Sri Lankan government’s victory over the LTTE to defeating IS simply ignores the numbers at play.

Furthermore, the LTTE never harnessed publicity in the same way in which IS has done. Although a network of Tamil diasporas supported them throughout their reign (and to the present day), the cause of Tamil Eelam (‘homeland’) certainly did not gain the same press coverage as contemporary incidents in the Middle East or Europe. Whilst the lack of social media certainly prohibited widespread dispersion of their ideology during the 80s and 90s, even in the 21^st Century more coverage has occurred in the aftermath of the war.

But there are lessons we can take from the civil war regarding proxy wars, and arming ‘rebels’. Indira Gandhi’s government, keen to shore up India’s status as a regional power and worried about Indian Tamils demanding self-determination, supplied arms and training to the LTTE and other Tamil nationalist groups throughout the 1980s. During a Sri Lankan government siege of LTTE positions, India went so far as to drop food and medical supplies to the beleaguered guerrillas. All of this allowed for her son, Rajiv Gandhi, to send the IPKF into Sri Lanka, occupying the Tamil north, and extending India’s power in the region. The Sri Lankan government, wary of this larger, better-armed force, used the IPKF-protected disarmament process to transfer troops to the south of the country, fighting Sinhalese nationalists.

From here, however, it all went wrong. Though many Tamil groups did disarm, the LTTE refused. Tensions between them and the IPKF turned into a conflict in which the Sri Lankan government is accused of supporting the Tamil guerrillas against the Indian occupation force. Regardless, the war was mismanaged by India, with intelligence failures and increasingly poor rapport with locals leading to heavy casualties. By the time the last units of the IPKF departed from the tear of Lanka in 1990, many civilians were dead, raped, traumatised, or homeless. A year later, Rajiv Gandhi himself was killed at the hands of a group which his mother had helped to foster.

The Sri Lankan government is anything but angelic. Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of running a mafia state since his victory in the civil war, imprisoning political rivals and ensuring transactions run through his office. In many ways, he might be just another Assad, albeit with less publicity. Still, the lesson from the Sri Lankan Civil War is that rushing in to arm militias or throwing boots on the ground is not the best way to shore up a region, but the quickest and most effective route to chaos.

Freetown, the cramped capital, a home to many ex-military in the slums. Photo by Church Mission Society via Flickr.

In 1991, Sierra Leone was plunged into a Civil War that would take over 50,000 lives and result in the displacement of around 2.6 million people. Children were abducted and forced to become soldiers or sex workers. Civilians were raped, mutilated, and had their limbs amputated. Some were captured as slaves and forced to mine diamonds to finance the conflict. Only in September 2010 did the UN Security Council feel that they could lift the final remaining sanctions against Sierra Leone. So, to what extent has Sierra Leone recovered from the conflict, and is there hope for the future?

The state of domestic politics is mixed. Although, like so many other Sub-Saharan African countries, it struggles with transparency and corruption, Sierra Leone is now a functioning democracy. However, political discourse is destructive, and partisan rivalries regularly collapse into violence. Especially worrying is the fact that this is committed largely by unemployed young men, particularly ex-combatants.

Yet, though those in positions of leadership have yet to fully shirk violence and poisonous political dialogue, it seems that there is a potentially successful political structure present. The two main parties are those which originally opposed each other in 1955, and the overall political system is one of the most stable in Africa.

Green Shoots of Growth

It is truly remarkable that Sierra Leone has managed to recover as well as it has from the conflict, especially considering the extent to which infrastructure was crippled. Sierra Leone has managed consistent and stable economic growth in recent years, but still suffers from a few key economic disadvantages. There is a lack of diversity in the economy, meaning that the country is very vulnerable to commodity price shocks; infrastructure, especially the quality and penetration of the road network is still not sufficient; there is chronic underinvestment, especially in rural, non-mining areas; economic growth is not fairly distributed.

For example, although natural resources bring in craved foreign investment, much of this is spent on expatriate salaries and does not trickle down to ordinary Sierra Leoneans. The so-called “blood diamonds” which helped finance and propagate the conflict, are now legally exported: between 2002 and 2005 export profits exploded from $26 million to $142 million. However, the distribution of the benefits brought by diamonds is incredibly inequitable, with the miners themselves receiving a minute fraction of the wealth, whilst those in foreign headquarters reap the rewards.

Moving On

Sierra Leonean society is incredibly resilient and very functional. Although its politics is broadly divided along ethnic lines, the Civil War was not fought on a racial or tribal basis and it is largely a country of great religious tolerance. Throughout the past decade there seems to have been a feeling that people just want to leave the trauma of the fighting behind them.  Prevalent poverty also meant for the vast majority that moving on was the only option.

However, one of the chief challenges in progressing from the war has been re-integrating ex-combatants. Besides a handful of top-level commanders, soldiers on both the government and rebel sides were not tried for their crimes after the war. Either ashamed of their previous actions or drawn to the urban lifestyle, many did not return to their local communities and a significant proportion now live in majority ex-military slums in cramped Freetown, the capital. In these slums, drugs, sexually-transmitted diseases including HIV, and unemployment are chronic problems. Ex-combatants, especially the rebel fighters, are still economically and socially marginalised, making them politically both a vulnerable and dangerous group.

Yet, it was not just ex-combatants who have been drawn to the capital. An already cramped peninsula-bound city, Freetown received an influx of people fleeing the fighting in the provinces during the course of the conflict. Hills, narrow streets, and a chronic lack of space make infrastructural investment incredibly difficult, especially with such a rise in population. The slums in Freetown are a breeding-ground for diseases caused by poor sanitation, such as cholera. The war did not cause Freetown’s problems, but it certainly exacerbated them.

Fighting Stereotypes

Much of the Western journalistic coverage of the conflict reported the war’s most shocking atrocities: the amputations of civilians’ hands, the forced mining of ‘blood diamonds’ or the use of child soldiers. Whilst all these examples of barbarism had a direct and horrific impact on ordinary people, arguably these are events which need to be put into context. For example, although civilians did have their limbs amputated, many people, especially combatants, had their legs blown off by landmines. Whilst many hand amputees now receive help from charities and NGOs, sufferers of polio and other debilitating conditions don’t often receive the same levels of support.

Although the war had a direct, long-lasting physical and psychological impact on particular individuals, this suffering has to be put into the context of a country which was not only at war for over a decade, but which had been a victim of horrendous poverty for far longer. The war left its scars, but many of the problems of recovering from the conflict are issues shared by the rest of sub-Saharan Africa: a need for more education, jobs, investment, egalitarian distribution of economic growth, social progress, and transparent, long-lasting political institutions.

The Future

The chief reason why the Sierra Leonean recovery still seems vulnerable is because the original problems which initially sparked the conflict are still prevalent today. Sierra Leonean youths are incredibly cosmopolitan: they listen to Caribbean music, follow British football and watch American television. As Zoe Marks, a researcher at the Oxford University African Studies Unit understands it, “young people in Sierra Leone know how much they are missing out on.” The original promises of the 1980s have been deferred yet again, leaving young people especially to feel marginalised and desperate for jobs, social advancement and prosperity.

Yet it seems that there is cause for hope. Although Sierra Leone’s small size means that it struggles to have its voice heard internationally, it makes its goals of successfully consolidating and improving on the gains of the last ten years achievable. Sierra Leone still has an array of social, political and economic problems, which were either created or worsened by the conflict.

However, its society is incredibly resilient, economic growth has been achieved, and there seems to be a will in the country to put the image of a war-torn African country behind it. In order to achieve this future the youth will be crucial. Such a large and potentially powerful group cannot and will not be marginalised forever. It seems the opportunity is there for Sierra Leone, it’s just a matter of whether such opportunity will be taken.

Kikuyu tribal man. Photo by Retnaw Snellac via Flickr

Few films spur the level of ferocious historical, political, and philosophical debate elicited by the 1966 Italian “shockumentary” Africa Addio. Africa Addio depicts scenes of brutal violence among “primitive” peoples, both real and staged, under the pretense of legitimate ethnographic study. Preposterous as this may sound, the film anchors itself in conventional assumptions of its time. Passing itself off as a dispassionate examination of postcolonial African malaise, the film begins by showing the viewer an independence ceremony in an unnamed African country. What follows is little else than a morbid catalogue of massacres and tortures; this is the real Africa, shouts the film’s notorious tagline, where “black is beautiful, black is ugly, black is brutal!”

Unfortunately, this sort of patronizing discourse remains ingrained in the minds of many Westerners. Western views of Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion stand as a testament to the terrible consequences of this mentality. Framed by both sides of the conflict as a struggle for peace and security, it led to some of the worst human rights abuses of the twentieth century. Although it set the stage for Kenya’s independence in 1963, the conflict divided native Kenyans and left thousands killed, maimed and traumatized. However, many war crimes perpetrated during the conflict were neither resolved nor avenged. The conflict also never underwent a thorough examination, leaving harrowing memories to fester in the minds of survivors for years to come.  

Instead of Africans acquiring greater agency by way of constitutional change, Kenya’s European settlers continued to dominate the country economically and politically well into the 1950s. In the 1950s rural violence escalated and eventually consolidated into the Mau Mau movement. Most Mau Mau fighters belonged to the impoverished Kikuyu ethnic group. The Mau Mau then launched a redoubtable guerrilla campaign that terrorized their opponents, and a ruthless British counterinsurgency campaign ensued. Entire communities soon found themselves besieged by indiscriminate search-and-arrest tactics that often resulted in death, imprisonment, and torture.

Only time can wash away the scars of civil war. Nevertheless, the victims of the Mau Mau conflict continue to seek peace. Viktor Frankl, a world-renowned psychologist and Holocaust survivor, proposed that the last –and most fundamental- of the human freedoms is the ability “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”. Choosing one’s own attitude is first and foremost a question of narrative; therein lies the essence of dignity.

Kenyans siding with the Mau Mau could not express their own narrative. Part of the problem laid with the Mau Mau themselves. Firstly, the Mau Mau did not actively seek diplomatic contacts outside of Kenya, allowing the British to dominate the conflict’s news coverage and later its historiography. For this reason, the outside world perceived the Mau Mau as atavistic terrorists, driven mad with bloodlust. In the eyes of the West, the Mau Mau were less a revolutionary movement to be understood and negotiated with than a disease to be eradicated.  The ruthlessness of Mau Mau guerilla tactics compounded this problem by providing more than enough fuel for the British government’s Manichean discourse, in which they described Mau Mau members torturing and mutilating civilians.

In the eyes of most people, no cause can justify such ghastly violence. How could the British stand idly by as Africans subjected each other to the worst excesses of human cruelty? The truth, however, was much more complicated. Both sides carried out acts of unspeakable violence; civilians of all races suffered immensely until the conflict’s termination in 1960. It would be just as obscene to rank the suffering of these groups as to suggest that the carnage sown by the Mau Mau invalidates its supporters’ wish for a more even-handed representation in history. Their wish remained ungratified until 2010 when Kenya finally recognized members of the Mau Mau as freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for an independent Kenya. Prior to this, the Kenyan government refused to acknowledge the Mau Mau’s contribution to independence. Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s “founding father”, began this policy of forgetfulness. The Mau Mau were, by his account, a disease “which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again”.

One can understand Kenyatta’s attitude better by considering Kenya at the time of his election. Kenyatta’s goal as leader was, first and foremost, to prevent Kenya from succumbing to civil unrest. In a speech made less than a year after independence, Kenyatta implored his countrymen to “never refer to the past,” so that Kenyans might unite in all their “utterances and activities, in concern for the reconstruction of our country and the vitality of Kenya’s future”. 

At that time, Kenya was in a precarious situation. Former Mau Mau lived next door to loyalist Kenyans who, in some cases, had been personally involved in the conflict. Those Kenyans who had been loyal to the British reaped the benefits, living in comparative luxury next to their former adversaries. Furthermore, many British remained in Kenya after independence, where they continued to lead privileged lives.Demands for vengeance abounded, and only Kenyatta, having once faced imprisonment for anticolonial activities, possessed the moral legitimacy to contain the anger.

Kenyatta’s decision to remain a political moderate posed another problem for the construction of a Mau Mau historiography. Even during the conflict, Kenyatta presented himself in opposition to the Mau Mau movement, deeming their guerilla tactics objectionable. After independence, Kenyatta sought to marginalize Mau Mau sympathizers. For instance, when Mau Mau veterans demanded that the Kenyan government return the land that the British had confiscated from them during the conflict, Kenyatta refused, telling them “nothing is free”. Later, Kenyatta would go on to criticize calls for compensation from former Mau Mau as illegitimate. “We are determined to have independence in peace, and we shall not allow hooligans to rule Kenya,” proclaimed Kenyatta while addressing a crowd in the town of Kiambu. Those ex-Mau Mau who continued to speak out were eventually imprisoned.

Kenyatta wanted more than just the creation of a firm Kenyan national identity. In order to win their political and economic support he needed to dispel the fears of the British and the white settler population.. Shortly before decolonization, Kenyatta addressed his toughest audience: the fiercely anti-independence white settler population. “I have suffered imprisonment and detention, but that is gone and I am not going to remember it,” he began, to the relief of his apprehensive white audience. “We want you to stay and farm well in this country: that is the policy of this government,” he concluded. When Kenyatta reached the end of his speech, the whites joined him in chanting his favorite slogan: “Let’s All Pull Together.” Thus a collective amnesia was born that would take years to undo. Yet, some Kenyans continued to fight for the ability to publicly articulate their own narrative, wielding language and memory rather than guns.