Sri Lanka

     The island of Sri Lanka [known formerly during the British colonial era as "Ceylon"] has suffered or enjoyed a number of colonial rulers in recent history, including the Dutch, the Portuguese and finall;y the British who returned the island to independence in 1948, having added to the ethno-religious mix of the population [Buddhist Sinhalese, Tamil Hindu, a smaller population of Muslim/Moors mainly living in the eastern part of the country ] a number of so-called "Indian Tamils" brought in to work in the tea plantations in the central highland area.

     The history of post-independence Sri Lanka has been dominated by the problem of inter-ethnic relations, with the Sinhalese majority asserting its democratic rights as the dominant majority in order to redress what they see as the favouritism shown by the British towards the Tamil minority; and the Tamils attempting to defend their rights and position as a minorty community under assault from a revived Sinhala - and Buddhist -  nationalism. Issues of official languages, quotas for education and government jobs, political influence, devolution of governing power to regional communities,  security have formed the themes of a constant struggle on the island. All of this has taken place within the Sinhalese sense that Sri Lanka should essentially be a wholly Buddhist society, with the Tamils as historic invaders from the north, and the existence of a double minority problem with the Tamil communities on the island seeing themselves as a threatened and increasingly oppressed minority, and the Singalese seeing themselves being threatened by the shadow of 80 million Tamils of southern India in Tamil Nadu, ,geographically "next door" across the Palk Strait  

     The civil war which had caused a huge amount of death and estruction to the country finally came to an end in 2009 with the complete annihiliation of the remnants of the Libertaion Tigers of Tamil Elam [LTTE} by the Sri Lankan security forcss