Sri Lanka, an island country about twenty miles off the southern India, has been stricken for the last twenty six with off-and-on civil war between the government and separatist militant organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE is now forcibly recruiting children as young as fourteen years old to join their forces. They are shooting and killing those trying to flee Sri Lanka's war, which is now one of the longest-running wars in Asia. According to the United Nations, "there were also reports civilians had been killed in fighting inside a newly demarcated no-fire zone on the Indian Ocean island's northeastern coast" (Article). Peace is actively trying to be established in Sri Lanka by the UN, but the LTTE is not responding, continuing to violate the UN's cease fire declerations. The number of civilian deaths since this civil war started in 1983 is mounting. Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said, “We are outraged by the unnecessary loss of hundreds of lives and the continued suffering of innocent people inside the LTTE-controlled areas" (Article 2).
The conflict in Sri Lanka is a classic example of angency and oppression. The Agency that the LTTE pocesses is being used to oppress the civilians of Sri Lanka. The civilians are being oppressed by having their homes destroyed and their friends and relatives innocently killed because of this destructive, drawn-out war. What will it take to stop this case of agency and oppression?
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