The Sri Lankan Option and its resurfacing in the Israeli-Hamas Conflict: a comparative analysis of counterinsurgency methods from Sri Lanka to Gaza

During the last phase of the decades-long Sri Lankan civil war against the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam rebel group, the Rajapaksa government implemented a counterinsurgency method that allegedly involved serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as committing war crimes. The Sri Lankan method involved banning the access to combat zones to international humanitarian organisations and independent observers, both the indiscriminate and direct targeting of Tamil civilians, civilian objects (as hospitals and medical centres), journalists and humanitarian workers, and restricting access to humanitarian relief entering the combat zones. The most striking feature of this method was the government’s unilateral declaration of ‘safe’ zones (later dubbed ‘Killing Fields’) where it instructed civilians to cluster, only to be met with deliberate and repeated bombing. As these allegations have never been investigated and punished, it is possible that other governments enact the same method to settle their ethnic conflicts. This thesis aims to show that the Sri Lankan method is again being implemented elsewhere, as the above-mentioned features have resurfaced in the context of the Israeli-Hamas conflict started in 2023, through a comparison of the two case-studies. This finding illustrates the dangers of governments not being held accountable for their crimes, becoming an example for other countries to imitate and endangering civilians.