Sri Lanka Tamil and Muslim parties form alliance seeking more autonomy

Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking minority parties launched a united front to seek a new constitution granting greater autonomy, reviving long-standing grievances two decades after the end of the country’s ethnic war.

The alliance brings together six parties representing Tamil and Muslim communities. AFP reported that those communities make up more than a quarter of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million.

The move comes as President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist government faces renewed calls to devolve power to Sri Lanka’s regions and address unresolved issues linked to the decades-long conflict.

The war ended in May 2009, when government forces defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who had fought for an independent state in the north and east of the island. AFP reported that the war claimed more than 100,000 lives.

Moderate Tamil parties have dropped separatist demands and accepted regional autonomy instead. AFP reported that successive Sinhalese-majority governments have not fully implemented power-sharing measures promised since the conflict.

Tamil National Alliance spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran told reporters in Colombo that the parties were asking the president to deliver on what was already in his election manifesto. The alliance is also calling for provincial council elections, which AFP reported have not been held for more than a decade.

The councils were created under a 1987 devolution plan meant to grant limited autonomy to Tamil-majority regions, but AFP reported that key provisions were never fully implemented. Sumanthiran said Dissanayake’s government had pledged to hold the elections within a year of taking office in September 2024, but had not yet done so.

The parties are also seeking the return of privately owned land still occupied by security forces in former war zones. Opposition Tamil lawmaker Mano Ganesan said the government must deliver on its own promises to make the country more inclusive. He said the parties in the new alliance were committed to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and opposed separation based on ethnicity.