The Island of Sri Lanka lies 3 degrees north of the equator, 82 degrees east of Greenwich and 32 KM southeast of India. She occupies 65,610 sq Km (approximately 25,000 sq miles). She possesses tropical beaches, ancient monuments, rain forests, gorgeous waterfalls and many places to delight any person. The typically tropical climate with an average temperature of 270C fluctuates between 150 C in the highlands to 350C in certain areas of the lowlands.
Sri Lanka is mainly an agricultural country. She is self sufficient in her staple diet rice which is the largest cultivation. Tea, Coconut and Rubber are the main economic agricultural crops. Tea brings beauty as well as the foreign exchange to the country.
Sri Lanka, according to historical sources was settled by Indo-Aryans in the 6th century B.C. These Indo-Aryans were the first Sinhalese, who are 74% of the population today. The Indo-Aryans assimilated the indigenous inhabitants who are called Yakkhas in the historical chronicles. While the country had contacts in historical times with various foreign races, the Tamil and Muslim minorities of the present day had no settlements in the island until about the 10th century AD; that is to say about 1,500 years after the Sinhalese settlement.
From the 19th Century however, Tamil minority leaders have put forward various claims to political rights unsupported by fact or principle. From the early 1970s the Tamil political leadership has sought to enforce even more extreme claims with the use of violence. From 1949 the Tamils have been claiming the right to establish a Tamil state in over one third of the island. A Muslim theocratic party, the only such in a non-Muslim country, was formed in 1985 with the objective of establishing a Muslim political region in the island. The Indian Tamils, the first of whom were brought in the 19th century as labour by the British, were a floating population until the end of the Second World War. Though they were all entitled to Indian citizenship under Article 8 of the Indian constitution, they have been indiscriminately granted Sri Lankan citizenship by various Governments of independent Sri Lanka. The Indian Tamil leaders now expect to establish an Indian Tamil autonomous region in the heart of the country.
Minority politics particularly Tamil terrorism seek to wreck the political, financial and cultural life of the country and there is serious disruption already.
