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Tamil-speaking Muslim minorities want a separation of Jaffna district from the east.
Since the LTTE began fighting for Tamil Eelam, the north and the east of Sri Lanka have become synonymous with the minority Tamils, without addressing the issues looming over other minorities caught in the cross-fire between the Sinhalese majority and the ethnic Tamils.
As the LTTE-controlled areas in the east shrink rapidly in the face of the Sri Lankan military onslaught, Tamil speaking Muslim minorities who make up almost 44 per cent of the population in Ampara, 22 per cent in Batticaloa, and 33 per cent in Trincomalee, want a separation of the Tamil-majority Jaffna district from the east.
The LTTE considers the Tamil-speaking Muslims as their own, after a peace accord in 1987 at India's behest merged the country's north with the east. But the Muslims, who trace their ancestry to the sea-faring Arabs and south India, have always considered themselves distinct from the Tamil-speaking Hindus and the Buddhist Sinhalese.
Traditionally traders and businessmen, they share many practices with the sub-continent's Muslims and venerate ziarrats and pirs. Interestingly, they read the Quranic Surahs and Hadith in Tamil.
After the Tigers targeted the Muslims in the Nineties, their numbers have risen across Sri Lanka, with two-thirds of Tamil-speaking Muslims living in the south, where they are in danger of losing their linguistic heritage.
The Muslim Congress party is pushing for change and wants a separate administrative unit in the east.
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