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Sinhala Sri Lanka's Ethnic Cleansing of Eelam
Tamils
INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
 
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".... suffering in common unifies more than
joy does. Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than
triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort.
A nation is
therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling
of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those
that one is prepared to make in the future..."
What is a
nation? - Ernest Renan, 1882
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Nadesan Satyendra
 Ethnic
cleansing is about assimilating a people. It is about destroying the
identity of a people, as a people. And it often occurs in stages.
The preferred route of a conqueror is to achieve his objective
without resort to violence - peacefully and stealthily. But when
that fails,
the would be conqueror turns to murderous violence and genocide
to progress his assimilative agenda.
In the island of Sri Lanka, the
record shows that during the past sixty years and more, the intent and goal of all Sinhala governments
(without exception) has been to secure the island
as a Sinhala
Buddhist Deepa. Rule by a permanent ethnic majority within
the confines of a single state is the
dark side
of democracy. The Sinhala Buddhist nation
masquerading as a multi
ethnic 'civic' 'Sri Lankan' nation set
about its task of assimilation and 'cleansing' the island of
the Tamils, as a people, by
- depriving a section of
Eelam Tamils of their citizenship,
- declaring the Sinhala flag as the national
flag,
- colonising parts of the Tamil
homeland with Sinhala people,
- imposing Sinhala as the official language,
- discriminating against Tamils students seeking University
admission,
- depriving Tamil language speakers
of employment in the public sector,
-
dishonouring agreements entered into with the Tamil
parliamentary political leadership,
- refusing to recognise
constititutional safeguards against discrimination,
- later
removing these
constitutional safeguards altogether,
- giving to themselves
an authocthonous
Constitution with a
foremost place
for
Buddhism,
- and
changing the name of the island itself to the
Sinhala Buddhist name of Sri Lanka - appropriately enough, on
the 'tenth day of the waxing moon in the month of Vesak in the year
two thousand five hundred and fifteen of the Buddhist Era'.
When these attempts at ethnic cleansing were resisted by the
Tamil people by
non
violent means and
parliamentary struggle,
Sinhala governments resorted to violence in
1956, in 1958,
in 1961 and again in
1977 - a murderous
violence directed to
terrorise the Tamils into submission.
The inevitable rise of
Tamil
armed resistance to State terror
was then met with enactment of laws which were an
'ugly blot on statute book of any civilised
country', with arbitrary arrest and
detention, torture,
extra judicial killings and massacres,
indiscriminate aerial bombardment and artillery shelling,
wanton rape,
and genocide - together with
press censorship, disinformation
and murder of journalists. And
the impunity granted to Sinhala
armed forces,
para
military groups, goondas and
Sinhala thugs, exposed the encouragement, support and direction
given by successive Sri Lanka governments for the crimes committed
against the Tamil people.
In 1987, at the invitation of Sri Lanka President
J.R.Jayawardene, Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force to subdue Tamil
resistance to alien Sinhala rule.
"Over a period of about 20 days (commencing 9 October 1987) , the
Indian Army's direct attack on LTTE positions, and defence from LTTE attacks, was coupled
with the Indian Army's attack and storming of still unevacuated Jaffna - and many villages
and settlements throughout the Peninsula - with widespread (insofar as territory),
indiscriminate (insofar as targeting) and sustained (insofar as intensity) artillery
shelling. Only less widespread, sustained and indiscriminate, there was air-strafing from
helicopter as well. It was not "cross-fire" that incidentally killed thousands
of civilians. The majority were killed unavoidably inside their houses and huts
under shelling, or were shot at random by the roads and on the streets. A large
number of people were "only" wounded - yet, many of them died in the absence of
medical care, especially under the 24-hour curfew over a period of about one month, to
mid-November."
Eduardo Marino, Report to International Alert,
1987
In 2006 and 2007, the President Rajapakse government
pursued the Sinhala assimilative agenda by
reneging on the 2002 Oslo Declaration, by refusing to recognise
the existence of the
Tamil homeland, and by perpetuating a Sri Lankan state
structure within which the Tamil people may continue to
be ruled by a permanent
Sinhala majority. And in January 2008, the Sri Lanka government
unilaterally
abrogated the
ceasefire agreement which it had solemnly entered into in
February 2002 and which agreement had received internationally
recognition.
The genocidal intent of the
President Rajapakse government was reflected
in the war crimes
committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces under the President's
command and by the Sri Lanka para military. They have
raped,
murdered Tamil
Parliamentarians, Tamil
journalists,
executed
Tamil students with impunity,
arbitrarily arrested and detained Tamil civilians, abducted
Tamil refugee
workers, orchestrated
attacks on Tamil civilians and Tamil shops,
bombed Tamil
civilian population centres and
displaced thousands of Tamils from their homes.
The gross, consistent, and continuing violations of the
rights of the Tamil people, by the Sri Lankan government and its
agencies during the past several decades, include grave breaches of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, the
Genocide Convention, and the
Geneva Conventions relating to the humanitarian
law of armed conflict.
These violations by Sri Lanka have been well documented by
several human rights organisations and independent observers as well
as by eye witnesses - and have been the subject of
hundreds of statements and
interventions at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This publication brings together extracts from
some of these reports - including those that cover
Genocide '58, Genocide'83 , Rajiv Gandhi's War Crimes, the Genocidal War '95 to '01,
Sri Lanka's
Undeclared War
on Eelam Tamils in the Shadow of a Ceasefire '02 to '07,
and now
Sri Lanka's
Genocidal War '08
...after Abrogation of the Ceasefire.
The Record Speaks...
"What are we left with (in 1958)? A nation in ruins, some grim lessons which we
cannot afford to forget and a momentous question: Have the Sinhalese and Tamils reached
the parting of ways?"
Tarzie Vittachi: Emergency 1958
"Clearly
this was not a spontaneous upsurge of communal hatred among the Sinhala people.. It was a
series of deliberate acts, executed in accordance with a concerted plan, conceived and
organised well in advance. But who were the planners?... Communal riots in which Tamils
are killed, maimed, robbed and rendered homeless are no longer isolated episodes; they are
beginning to become a pernicious habit." Paul
Sieghart Q.C. Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka on behalf of
the International Commission of Jurists, March 1984
"A government spokesman
has denied that the destruction and killing of Tamils
amounted to genocide. Under the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, acts of murder
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such are
considered as acts of genocide. The evidence points clearly
to the conclusion that the violence of the Sinhala rioters
on the Tamils amounted to acts of genocide."
- Chunnakam massacre and extra judicial killings of
Tamils - 1984
- Events affecting the Judiciary - 1977 to 1984
- The plea that went unheeded - K.V.Nadarajah,
August 1984
- Case Study of Torture, Sri Lanka Style - 1984
- Sri lanka Army terrorises another
Jaffna school - November 1984
- Sinhala army murders Christian priests -
1984/85
- Arbitrary killings and torture - 1985
- Synopsis of extra judicial killings by an
independent law group - 1979 to May 1985
- Sri Lanka Navy murders passengers on Kumithini -
May 1985
- Amnesty Reports on 163 Extra Judicial
Killings of Tamils in May 1985
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An Episode of Persecution - Paul Nallanayagam on
Special Task Force and Extra Judicial Killings
- The Massacre in Tiriyai - the village that died on
15 June 1985
- 52 Tamil villages in Trincomalee area razed to the
ground in two months - September 1985
- Amnesty File on Sri Lanka Torture - October
1985
- Amnesty confronts Sri Lanka's denial of torture -
December 1985
- Iruthayapuram Massacre: eye witness account -
January 1986
- Akkaraipattu Massacre & Arbitrary killing of
Tamils - 1986
- The Kokkadaicholai Massacre - 1987
- Security forces continue to kill, chain and
incarcerate non combatant Tamils - 1987
- UN Commission on Human Rights calls for Red Cross
intervention - 1987
- Indian army intervenes at invitation of Sri Lanka
government - 1987
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Rajiv
Gandhi's War Crimes
"...as an Indian I feel ashamed that under the
Indo Sri Lanka agreement, our forces are fighting
with Tamils whom they went to protect..."I believe that the Indian Government had betrayed its own culture and
ethics...The guilt, therefore, rests entirely on those who sent them to do this dastardly
business of fighting in Sri Lanka against our Tamil brothers and sisters..."
India's
former Foreign Secretary, A.P.Venkateshwaran, speaking in London in
April 1988
"...no Sinhalese, no Sinhalese soldiers were killed... only the Indian
soldiers and the LTTE (were killed). Yes, (I had to invite a foreign army to do this on
our sovereign soil)... I was doing what so many Sinhala kings had done in the past in
similar circumstances." - ex President Jayawardene, Interview with Mervyn de
Silva, Lanka Guardian, 15 July 1990
- Thileepan's fast - and Jaffna, September to
November 1987
- Two Harrowing Weeks in Jaffna -
September/October 1987 - An Eye Witness Account
-
India Must Stop Repression of Tamils
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N. Sanmugathasan
-
Tamils Killed and Injured
by Indian Army in Jaffna
between 10 - 16 October, 1987
-
The Agony of Urumpiray
-
Diwali Day massacre at Jaffna General Hospital -
November 1987
- People Face
Starvation & Slow Death - Citizens Committee to Indian Prime
Minister
-
Case of a Mother and Son murdered in
cold blood by IPKF
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India's war in Jaffna - Eduardo Marino's Report to
International Alert
- Indian army's war crimes - 1987
- Rape of Tamil women by Indian Army - 1987/88
-
3000 Civilians Forced by IPK to
Squat under Scorching
Sun for Nine Hours -
Annai Poopathy's fast for freedom - 1988
- Detention without Trial, Torture - 1988
- Torture & Reprisal attacks by India and Sri
Lanka - 1989
- India's My Lai - the Valvettiturai Massacre -
1989
- Sri Lanka's Deputy Defence Minister on the rule of
law...
- Kannapuram Massacre, July 1990
- Planned genocidal attack on Tamils in the East -
1990
- 180 Tamils butchered at Saththurukondan -
September 1990
- Hundreds of Tamils 'Disappear' after detention by
Sri Lanka - 1990
- Sri Lanka bombs Jaffna Hospital & other Tamil
civilian centres - 1990
- Calculated disinformation campaign by Sri Lanka
government
- Amnesty launches 3 month campaign against Sri
Lanka - 19 September 1990
- Thousands of Tamils extra judicially executed says
Amnesty - 1990
- Tamil detainees systematically tortured -1991
- Kokaddicholai massacre - June 1991
- On the use of Governmental Aggression to Suppress
a Minority's Quest for Self Determination - Deanne Hodgin, July
1991
- Human Rights violations continue at 'an alarming
rate' - 1992
- India's Act of Piracy,
January 1993
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New spate of disappearances & extra judicial
killings - 1993
- The torture of Arulapu Jude Arulrajah - October
1993
- Over 1,000 Tamil civilians
killed in the three years bombing of Jaffna says British Refugee Council, July
1993
- 200 Tamils civilians killed in air
and navy attacks in 1993 alone, September 1993
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"This is organised State terrorism" say
Bishop
D.J.Ambalavanar, Bishop Thomas Saundranayagam
,
and Nallai Thiru Sampandar Atheenam
- Churches and Temples Bombed,
January 1994
- Sri Lanka airforce strafes Tamil villages
- Sri Lanka Airforce Bombs Schools in
Jaffna
- Sri Lanka Airforce targets Tamil civilian population,
March 1994
-
Hospitals bombed in Tamil Homeland
-
Genocide
Genocidal War - 1995 to 2001
The genocidal intent of the Sri Lanka government is proved by -
" A strange low intensity war has been unleashed against us
taking advantage of the conditions of peace effected by the
ceasefire. Disarming the Tamil para-military groups
is an
obligation of the state under terms of the
Ceasefire Agreement.
Having failed to fulfil this crucial obligation the Sri Lanka
state has been utilising the Tamil para-militaries as
instruments of this subversive war against our liberation
organisation. This is a serious war offence. This is similar to
a treacherous act in which one stabs you in the back with one
hand while pretending to embrace you with the other.."
Velupillai Pirabaharan
- Maaveerar Naal Address, 27 November 2005
  
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Violence
in Sri Lanka 
