The All Party Conference in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka's experience differed from that of many of her South Asian neighbours in the post-independence period, particularly in maintaining relative social and political stability. Some of these states faced acute problems of legitimacy in the post-Independence period. The comparative stability which Sri Lanka enjoyed for several decades are disturbed, and the outbreak of communal violence, on an unprecedented scale, in 1983 established a pattern in regard to political violence in Sri Lnaka. Since then, political violence has become a major element- a de-stabilising element- in the Sri Lankan political system, and the growth of political violence, in the last one year, developed into massive proportions threatening the very foundations of society and state.