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Sri Lanka (Sri Lankâ Prajathanthrika Samajavadi Janarajaya)is a tropical island nation off the southeast coast of India.

The population is about 19 million. It is a democracy, with a strong central government. The formal education system is strong by globo-institutional standards, for a relatively poor country.

Moderately socialist after independence, it has in the last 20 years increasingly engaged in privatization and other capitalist practices. Now Sri Lanka exports and imports a wide variety of items in the global economy, but is still well known internationally for its tea.

Since independence (from the British Empire in 1948), struggles between majority Sinhala-speaking Buddhists and minority Tamils (mostly Hindu) have been a regular feature of Sri Lanka's political life (left-over divide and conquer from the British?). Since 1983 there has been on-and-off civil war, mostly between the government and the LTTE -- the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Tens of thousands have died in that civil war, and perhaps as many more in struggles among Tamil militant groups, and in two brief but bloody uprisings by Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) -- a leftist group of Sinhalese disaffected with their government. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are displaced internally or have fled to Tamil Nadu and around the world. The largest concentration of Lankan Tamils outside the country is in Toronto.

In the 1980s, the different central and state governments of India supported both sides indirectly. India got directly involved, ultimately in support of the Sri Lankan government, from 1987-1990; this is frequently referred to as their Vietnam.

In the mid-1990s, a significant peace movement emerged.

For most of the LTTE's existence, it has demanded a separate nation -- Tamil Eelam -- as the only means for Tamils' rights to be respected. Some Sinhalese demand political unity of the island as a part of Sinhalese identity, or for practical political reasons. In late 2001, an LTTE ceasefire was reciprocated by the government. Peace talks have since begun, with the LTTE now willing to explore measures that would safeguard Tamils' rights and autonomy as part of Sri Lanka.

The Sinhalese trace their lineage back to a prince from somewhere around what is now Bangladesh, and perhaps more importantly to a later king's conversion to Buddhism, and the Buddha's charge that they protect the religion. The Tamils came originally from South India (where there are currently more than 60 million Tamils). Both cultures have been on the island for a long time, but not as long as the Wanniyala-Aetto (Veddahs), the few hundred (?) remaining descendants of earlier cultures. Other minorities include Muslims (mostly Tamil-speaking), Christians (Sinhalese and Tamil), and Burgers (mixed local and European).

From the CIA World Factbook 2000. Not wikified.

• History of Sri Lanka
• Geography of Sri Lanka
• Demographics of Sri Lanka
• Politics of Sri Lanka
• Economy of Sri Lanka
• Communications in Sri Lanka
• Transportation in Sri Lanka
• Military of Sri Lanka

External links:

• http://www.lankapage.com/
• http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/countries/srilanka.html
• http://www.sinhaya.com/
• http://www.tamilnet.com/