Sri Lanka is no stranger to bloodshed. In its seven-decade history as an independent nation, it has gone through long spells of violence, losing prominent leaders to suicide bombers—pioneered by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE)—and consumed by a 26-year period of ethnic strife that convulsed Sri Lankan society and tore it asunder. That dark chapter seemed to have ended in 2009, when the Sri Lankan military eliminated most LTTE fighters along with their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, after a protracted civil war.