Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Review Of The Separatist Conflict In Sri Lanka: Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political Economy, By Asoka Bandarage, Robert Stoddard

Department of Geography: Faculty Publications

Asoka Bandarage, who provides a very thorough discussion of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka, relates the particular issues and perspectives of the contending groups to major conflicts occurring elsewhere in the world. Although the following categories are not utilized specifically by Bandarage, this review considers four general principles that apply both to the Sri Lanka situation and to contemporary conflicts elsewhere. First, when competing groups claim the same land because both have occupied it “traditionally,” how far back in history is meaningful? A second issue concerns how contemporary self-determination is established. That is, what is the appropriate geographic scale …