Which is the best place to look for systematically organized, comprehensive research material on the persisting ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka? India? No; Sri Lanka? No. It is, surprisingly, Oslo, which has no more than a tiny Tamil population of 8000. This is because of an important data base project undertaken by the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo under the competent and committed guidance of Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe, a well known Sri Lankan socially active scholar. This data base has collected more than 5000 documents on the various dimensions of the islands ethnic conflict since it erupted in its ugliest form in 1983. The bibliography under review is a part of the data base project and inspite of its hefty (565 + pages) and exhaustive (2311 entries) appearance, covers much less than half of the wealth of material collected.
An Invaluable Data-base
S.D. MUNI
ETHNIC CONFLICT AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN SRI LANKA: AN ANNO-TATED BIBLIOGRAPHY by Kumar Rupesinghe & Bertha Verstappen Published for the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, by Hans Zell Publishers (London, Munich, New York), 1989, 1989, 565 pp., price not mentioned
Nov-Dec 1989, volume 13, No 6