certainly a bigger peace that you couldn't expect before. but i believe that peace can go to another stage, another level. in the mindset of those who have been impacted by the war, i think there needs to be further work to be done. >> anthony: after world war ii, the british left sri lanka. over time, the buddhist sinhalese majority both excluded and repressed the mostly hindu tamil minority, channeling populist fervor to turn discrimination into law. >> anthony: what is the generally accepted underlying reasons for the conflict in the first place? >> kumar: the main cause, or the main objective was to have a separate land for the tamils. the underlying reason for that being there were discrimination, there were racism, and that basically brought them to this stage. >> anthony: by 1983, the situation reached its boiling point.