U.S.A.
We further complain on reliable knowledge that the Government of Sri Lanka
has committed (a) genocide (b) conspiracy to commit genocide (c) direct and
public incitement to commit genocide (d) attempt to commit genocide and (e)
complicity in genocide, which acts are punishable under Article III of the said
convention to which Sri Lanka is a party.
A systematic pattern of genocide - to do away with the Tamils of Sri Lanka,
their language, culture, their way of life and their rights-can be seen from
some of the major schemes listed below:
Since Independence the Sinhalese who form the bulk of majority of the
population started using the powers of the state to almost eliminate the Tamils
altogether.
By the above measures the position of the Tamils was weakened and the
Sinhalese representation in Parliament became predominant. Using this ill-gotten
advantage the Government passed the 'Sinhala
only Act,' making the Sinhala language as the sole official language
to demote the Tamil Language, the mother-tongue of the Tamils, and to drive
the Tamils out of public employment. It is pertinent to note that before
Independence Sinhala and Tamil were the official Languages of the state.
Further a consistent pattern of genocide can be seen in the many out-breaks
of ethnic violence that have taken place in the Island of Ceylon from the year
1956. Such major outbreaks are listed below:
1956:
Anti-Tamil riots erupted prior to and after the passing of the Official
Language Act in 1956, causing several deaths and loss of property to
hundreds of Tamil residents in Sinhalese areas. The Sinhalese dominated
police-force stood by as silent onlookers.
1958:
Anti-Tamil riots broke out in May /June 1958 resulting in several deaths by
mutilation , burinings and rape as well as loss to property by plunder and
looting.
1961:
Police and Military personnel unleashed violence on peaceful satyagrahis
(civil disobedience campaigners) who were protesting the imposition of
Sinhala as the official language in the Tamil-speaking areas. The Tamil
speaking areas were placed under military occupation for several months
thereafter. Several hundreds of persons were placed under preventive
detention without charges being brought against them. The International
Commission of Jurists published a statement on the position of the Tamil
minority as a result of these developments.
1966: Anti-Tamil violence was stirred up, and organised by the opposition
parties led by Mrs. Srimao Bandaranaike against the Tamil Regulations
adopted by the Dudley Senanayake Government in January, 1966.
1972-77:
This was part of the period when the entire Tamil-speaking areas of the
north and the east were placed under virtual military rule. This was
accompanied by arbitrary arrests, meaningless detentions without trial for
indefinite lengths of time of innocent persons, harassment and looting of
the civilian population by the military and the police.
A peak in the
abuse of power was reached when on 10th January 1974 during the 4th
International Conference of Tamil Research held in Jaffna, the northen
capital city of the Ceylon Tamils, the police launched "a violent and quite
an unnecessary attack on unarmed citizens". An unofficial commission of
inquiry headed by a non-Tamil retired Judge of the Supreme Court of Ceylon,
(O.L.De Kretser) commented on "the tragic loss of lives, and the physical
injuries and indignities to which men and women had been subject to on this
night of terror" as a result of police action.
1976: Police firing at Tamil-Speaking Muslims, in a Mosque in Puttalam
resulted in a number of deaths. Further incidents were reported against
Muslims in other parts of the country. The Government declined to hold an
inquiry.
1977: In
August, 1977 the Tamils faced the worst violence so far. Due to the
overwhelming support by the Tamil people for the formation of a separate
State, as evinced by the result of the general elections held in July 1977.
The hands of many Government supporters were seen in many instances of
violence. The explosion of violence took place on the 19th of August soon
after the speech of Mr.Jayewardene, then Prime Minister, in the Parliament
on 18th August, 1977, offering "War" to the Tamil People, which was repeated
every half-an-hour on the Government controlled radio.
In 1977 even the plantation workers were not spared. Their line rooms
were burnt, their women were 'gang raped', their little possessions were
looted. Evidence of some brutal 'gang rapes' have been recorded before the
Commission that inquired into the events of 1977. Hundreds were killed and
over 200,000 fled for safety to the traditional homelands of Tamils. Over
40,000 of the Plantation workers became destitutes and refugees. Nearly 100
temples were destroyed. The Tamils lost several hundreds of millions rupees
worth of property.
The most significant fact in the 1977 pogrom was the participation of the
security forces. In the south, Sinhalese people carried out the attack which
the security forces encouraged, or failed to stop. In the North and East the
security forces were the attackers and every principal town in the Tamil
areas was attacked. The radio net work of the police was used to incite
violence all over the island. Thus the Tamils were no longer safe even in
their own traditional homelands.
1979: It
is a matter of record that on the 11th July, 1979, Mr.J.R.Jayewardene, by
then the President of Sri Lanka, issued a Hitler-like order to the Army
Commander in charge of the Northern Region it will be your duty to eliminate
.... the menace of terrorism — more especially from the Jaffna district....
This task has to be performed by you and completed before the 31st December,
1979" and then they proclaimed a state of emergency under the Public
Security Act and gave the Police and Armed forces the Power to dispose of
the dead bodies without an inquest. This resulted in the indiscriminate
arrest and torture of Tamil youths in Jaffna resulting in the death of 3 and
the disappearance of another three. Police /Army set up a torture camp in
the same residence as that of the commander (who is now the Commander of the
Army). Hundreds of innocent Tamil youths who were politically active were
rounded up, detained incommunicado and subjected to severe torture, and
released after months as they were all innocent.
1981: The
pattern of genocidal violence began to show clear evidence of State planning
from 1981. Under the cover of the
Prevention of
Terrorism Act (modelled on the Terrorism Act of South Africa) many
Tamils were taken into custody by groups of heavily armed police and Army
personnel and beaten up in the presence of their family members, and
subsequently taken to and detained incommunicado indefinitely in Army Camps
and subjected to the worst forms of torture. The pogroms that took place in
May/ June 1981 and August 1981 were planned and led by Government Ministers
and members of Parliament.
On the 31st of May 1981 after an incident in which some unidentified
persons opened fire on Police personnel during an election meeting, the
police went on a rampage and burnt a part of Jaffna town, the house of the
member of Parliament for Jaffna, and the office of the party of the Tamils
called Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) as a reprisal. The Police also
desecrated a Hindu temple and set fire to it. Innocent persons who were on
the streets were indiscriminately assaulted. The fury of the Police
personnel would appear to have cooled down when on the 1st June, the
Inspector General of Police, the Secretary to the Cabinet and the Secretary
to the Minister of Internal Security were sent by the President ostensibly
to study the situation and help to bring it under control. However, on the
night of the 1st June, Police personnel set fire to the PUBLIC LIBRARY of
Jaffna, the best library in the Tamil areas and irreplacebale documents
relating to Tamil Culture and History were destroyed.
The presence of high government officials and Ministers in Jaffna leads
to the inference that it was government sponsored. This is nothing but an
attempt at Cultural Genocide.
The plan also envisaged the destruction of the only Tamil Daily printed
in the Tamil areas. These acts indicate that the destruction was not the
result of mere rage, but a calculated one. A senior Minister .of the
Government as reported in the Hansard, conceded in Parliament that the
Public Library had been burnt by the Police.
1981 - Local Election
On the 2nd June, 1981, Minister Cyril Mathew and another Minister were in
Jaffna to assist in the elections. On the 3rd night/4th morning 4 persons
were shot and killed by Army and Police. Mr. Amirthalingam, Secretary of
TULF and three other Members of Parliament were arrested and taken to an
Army Camp. There is evidence that the Government planned to rig the
elections to the Jaffna Development Council which however proved fruitless.
A no confidence motion brought against these two ministers has not yet been
debated.
1981 - August Pogrom
In August 1981 again there was serious violence in the Batticaloa and
Amparai Districts. The Sinhalese colonists attacked the adjoining Tamil
Villages and thousands living there were made homeless and they took refuge
in temples and churches in other parts of the Tamil areas. In areas near
Colombo the Tamil businessmen and workers were attacked. The worst attack
was in the Ratnapura District. The victims were mainly the Plantation
Tamils. The attack was well planned. The attackers were even in uniform and
were led by prominent members of the ruling party. The display of brutality
was difficult to surpass. "Gang raping" was again carried out. In one
incident a group of persons who took refuge in the church at Kahawatta was
attacked by a group of racists led by Police constable Gunapala and several
were injured and some killed. In that attack a Sinhala racist known as "Mala
Redda" cut up a Kahawatta trader by name Perumal, and drank his blood.
Though Perumal was killed there are eye witnesses who speak to this
incidents.
Over 40,000 plantation Tamils were displaced and most of them fled into
the jungle between Ratnapura and Bogawantalawa.
1,000 families were helped by the Indian Government to leave the country.
Several hundred moved to the North or the East as refugees. This attack on
the Plantation Tamils was planned by Cabinet Ministers and other racists in
the Government to terrorise
May 1983: In 1983 the scale of violence escalated beyond anyone's
expectation. From the beginning of that year, there emerges a plan of
violence against the plantation Tamil refugees in Vavuniya and the Tamils in
the Trincomalee District with the object of driving the Tamils out of the
Districts of Vavuniya and Trincomalee. Houses occupied by Plantation Tamil
settlers in the Trincomalee District were set on fire by Government
officials, and these persons were rendered homeless. Plantation Tamil
settlers in the Vavuniya and Trincomalee Districts were also subjected to
regular acts of intimidation and harassment so that these persons who had
earlier been displaced as a result of communal violence in the plantation
areas, would opt to leave India.
In May 1983 soon after a confrontation between some unknown youths and
the Army, the Army went on rampage and burnt over 130 houses and 60 vehicles
and other motor vehicles in the Kantharmadam area in Jaffna. They looted
property valued at more than 71/2 million rupees and burnt a part of the
Jaffna Bazaar (for the third time) and attacked every Tamil seen on the road
and even fired into the Jaffna hospital.
Violence of an unprecedented nature broke out in the Universities in May,
1983. The Tamil students were mercilessly attacked, their belongings
including books and notes were burnt by Sinhala students and driven out.
This was repeated at the Engineering Faculty at Katubedda, Moratuwa and the
Medical Faculty at Colombo. The object of the attack on Tamil students was
to compel them not to compete for admission to the above universities, so
that all places would be available for the Sinhala students.
June, 1983
In June 1983 Members of the armed forces and the Police burnt (it was
burnt by the Police in 1977) and destroyed the office of the Gandhiyam
society and the orphanage managed by them, The Gandhiyam Society is the main
voluntary organisation helping the Plantation Tamil Refugees, the victims of
August, 1977 and '81 pogroms. The Government wanted to destroy even these
humanitarian organisations helping the refugees.
In June there were attacks on Tamils and their establishments by the
Sinhalese people in several towns in the South. The trains and coaches
plying to the North or East were attacked and looted.
It is clear that the final assault on the Tamils was planned for
June/July, 1983. The killing of Tamils was greatly facilitated by the
President proclaiming an Emergency Regulation under the Public Security Act,
empowering the Police to dispose of dead bodies, even without an inquest.
From that day onwards killings of Tamils went on unabated with many persons
killed at Kurunagala, and Ratmalana. A prolonged pogrom was set in motion in
Trincomalee which went on until the end of the month of July resulting in
death of many Tamils and including women and children which has been
recorded among many other deaths, and the destruction of over 600 houses, as
well as shops and business premises and the destruction of many places of
Hindu worship. These acts were done mainly by Sinhalese persons encouraged
by the Police and Armed Forces.
July,
1983
The final phase of the State planned genocide on Tamils in Sri Lanka
commenced with the arrest and rape of Six young Tamil girls at Mathagal in
Jaffna by the Army. Three of the girls committed suicide. In anger the Tamil
youths attacked the Army convoy from the Palaly Army Camp. In the shoot out,
13 of the Army men and one Tamil youth died.
On the 24th of July commenced the holocaust with the indiscriminate
killing of 53 innocent Tamils in Jaffna by the Army. In certain places
students were lined up and shot and killed by the army personnel. In certain
other areas they were just pumping bullets at passing vehicles crowded with
people and people in those vehicles died. In certain places they shot and
killed people in their beds - a University lecturer by name
Kalaparameshwaran and his aged father-in-law were killed, while they were
sleeping in their house and even women were shot and killed this way.
On 24 July army personnel stopped a bus at Manipai near Jaffna, forced
the passengers to get down and shot at them.
In another incident a bus coming from Colombo with tourists from Tamil
Nadu, India was stopped near Jaffna hospital and attacked by armymen.
Houses of Tamils were attacked and ransacked by police and armymen at
Kandarmadam and Tinnaveli in Jaffna district. The attack on the Tamils in
Trincomalee started long before the violence in the rest of Sri Lanka broke
out. It commenced on June 3, it was started by the army, and the police and
the hoodlums were drawn in whenever it was necessary.
In certain instances the navy personnel acted directly; in certain places
they had gone for some sort of investigation, ahead of the thugs, and made
sure that there was no likelihood of any resistance, and arrested any young
fellow who could offer any resistance. Then immediately, hard on their
heels, thugs followed and set fire to houses.
There are evidences to show that one of the Assistant Secretaries of
Mr.Cyril Mathew, the Minister of the Government of Sri Lanka was present and
had discussions with the army and police personnel at the height of the
troubles in Trincomalee.
On the night of the 24th the shops and houses of Tamils in Colombo in
close proximity to the residence of the President, Mr.J.R.Jayewardene, were
attacked by an organised group of racists. The police and all other service
personnel not only did not maintain order but also joined in the attacks and
most shops and houses in the Borella area in Colombo were looted and
destroyed and the inmates were attacked. The army people gave hand-grenades
to the Sinhalese and instigated them to attack the Tamils. Petrol was
sprinkled over the bodies of the victims and they were set on fire on the
streets.
In Colombo, in Badulla and other places wherever the looters were
repulsed by the Tamils the Army intervened and shot and killed those who
resisted the looters. This happened in Badulla where in front of a business
place called Yogam Stores, 14 people who resisted - one Sundaram and his
four sons and others - were shot and killed and tyres were piled on their
bodies and they were all burnt beyond recognition, by the Army.
Here is a first-hand account of the massacre in Badulla in which the army
and police were involved in the murder of 14 people, according to a
survivor, Mrs. Silvamany Ganesan , aged 36, a mother of three children:
At about 10 A.M. on July 27, a crowd gathered outside a bus depot 100
yards away from her house attacking passing vehicles. When the police were
telephonically informed to evacuate them no action was taken. The crowd then
began to attack the home of her neighbour, Mr.Ramanathan -well-known locally
as a camphor dealer. He fired at them without appearing to hit any one. A
son of Mr.Ramanathan, aged 15, climbed on to the roof of their house
carrying an umbrella - it was raining - and was shot by a soldier from
the street and fell to the ground. She fled to her aunt's house nearby
with her children, hiding with them in the bathroom. She 'heard firing from
outside and then an explosion. They ran out of the bath-room to find that
the house was on fire. On the main road in front of Mr.Ramanathan's house
there was a pile of bodies, including those of her husband, brother-in-law,
father-in-law and her sister-in-law's husband. They all appeared to have
gunshot wounds and she and her children - two daughters aged nine and seven
and a son of five - were able to see her husband's intestines falling out
and his head staved in. Her crippled and bedridden father-in-law and other
relatives were shot and killed by the soldiers. The Ramanathan's menfolk had
been hacked and beaten to death by the racist crowd. She and her children
are willing to testify.
By early morning of 25th July, 1983 the organised racist group had
attacked most Tamil shops and houses in Borella, Damatagoda and Narahenpita
and the dead bodies of Tamils were seen on the roads but no action was taken
to stop the violence.
On the morning of the 25th, members of the Government's paramilitary
organisations from various parts of the country arrived in and around
Colombo in Government vehicles with carefully prepared lists which gave
details of all Tamil households and Tamil-owned business premises in Colombo
and its suburbs. These groups having alighted from their vehicles stopped
cars and collected petrol from them and went to Tamil shops and houses and
attacked the inmates and set fire to them. In the process many by-standers
joined in the violence and looted the shops and houses. All this went on
with the police either looking on or actively encouraging the arsonists and
looters .
A mini-bus of about 20 Tamils was stopped by the Sinhalese who poured
petrol over it and set it on fire. All the doors were kept closed and
several hundred Sinhalese watched the Tamils burning to death.
In many places the house-holders were thrown into the flames along with
their belongings. Those who resisted or attempted to defend their property
were dealt with by the armed forces and the police, who conveniently
labelled them as tigers (i.e. members of the Tamil Liberation Movement) and
shot or bayonnetted them to death. In the Sea Street area of Colombo there
was an incident on the 29th where 21 Tamils who defended their property were
gunned down by the Army and there are eye witnesses to the incident.
Despite the stringent censorship, and the fact that foreign
correspondents were not allowed into the interior and hill country regions
of Sri Lanka, the world press was able to report some of these gruesome
episodes. Tourists too have made video recordings of some of the incidents
such as the burning of 7 Tamils who were tied to the rail tracks and burnt
to death at the Fort Railway Station. The presence of a well laid plan is
substantiated by the fact that shortly after the organised groups commenced
their attack in Colombo on the morning of the 25th, similar organised groups
commenced attacks in various parts of the country and the pattern was the
same for everywhere.
Thus was enacted on the 24th night a Crystal Nacht as in Nazi Germany.
The collusion of the President and the Government was evidenced by the fact
that while the town burnt through out the morning of the 25th, the
Government's paramilitary men were rampaging through the city, and the
Tamils were being openly butchered and killed on the streets and no curfew
was imposed nor did the Government call upon the military or the Police to
desist from participating in the orgy of violence or to restrain the mobs
from doing so.
Although a curfew was finally imposed on the afternoon of Monday this was
observed in the breach as the mobs sponsored by the Government during curfew
hours continued to burn houses and business establishments of the Tamils
that were not so far destroyed while looters followed behind taking away
whatever was left undestroyed.
The violence that commenced on the 24th left many Tamils killed,
thousands critically injured and more or less all the Tamils living in
Sinhala areas (except in the estate areas in the hill country where there is
a high concentration of Tamil population) displaced from their homes and
living as destitutes in Refugee camps and all other places of temporary
shelter.
The attitude of the Government and its official condonation of the
genocide was explicitly conveyed by the President of the Republic of Sri
Lanka when in a televised message to the nation (breaking his silence which
had lasted 4 days since the orgy of violence began) , the President without
expressing a single sentiment of sorrow for the sufferings endured by the
Tamil people, and without a single word of condemnation of the hideous crime
committed against humanity in the shape of an attack on innocent men, women
and children only for the reason that they belonged to a particular ethnic
or racial group, said that it was a just retribution for the killing of the
13 Sinhalese soldiers by members of the guerilla Tiger Organisation, and
announced a new stringent law called the 6th Amendment to the Constitution
making any demand for separation as offence, which in itself was a violation
of not only the Right of Self Determination, but of Human Rights in general
(as the new law provided for the provisions such as loss of property,
inability to hold a passport, or sit for a public examination for anybody
who did not sign a declaration disavowing separation) saying that it was now
necessary for him to appease the Sinhala people.
Thus making it clear to the whole world that he no longer considered
himself the President of the whole country but only of the Sinhala people,
thereby explicitly showing to the world that the Government of Sri Lanka was
committed to the policy of genocide as it no longer considered the members
of the Tamil ethnic group as being a part of the nation, or as entitled to
even the basic requisites of security of life and limb let alone the other
human rights which have been set out in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and in the Covenants of Human Rights and which the civilised world
now recognises as forming part of the international law which binds all
nations.
As a consequence of the televised speech the Sinhala mob who now found an
explicit affirmation and approval of the violence of the last few days
unleashed on the 29th another wave of terror in which further hundreds of
Tamils were killed. For example nine Tamils were burnt alive at Colombo's
main railway station. All nine died under horrific and agonising
circumstances. Four more Tamils were burnt alive in two Colombo suburbs, two
of them Edehiwela and two in Panchikawatha.
Mobs then went on the rampage seeking out and killing with swords and
knives any Tamil person whom they could find, stopping cars on the roads,
and pulling out persons who they found to be Tamils. In one instance a man
taken out of a car was tied and his car was driven over him; a Catholic
priest who is a monsignor of the Church was a witness to this episode. The
orgy of violence then spread to the Hill country particularly to Badulla and
Nuwara Eliya where hundreds of Indian Tamils were similarly beaten and
killed and their homes and business establishments were burnt and looted.
While this orgy was going on violence against Tamils erupted even in the
Tamil areas. On the 26th July the Navy personnel in Trincomalee had carried
out a full scale attack on the Tamil inhabitants of this strategic town,
including an attack on the house of the member of parliament. In
Trincomalee, the navy personnel had gone on a planned rampage and within six
hours, from 9.30 in the night to 3.30 in the early hours of the morning 150
navy personnel destroyed every Tamil-owned business establishment.
The object was to terrorise and chase out the Tamil inhabitants and
change this town into a Sinhalese town with a well laid plan of making it no
longer inhabitable by the members of this ethnic group and therefore falling
within the definition of genocide set out in Article 2(3) of the convention.
It must be noted that not only did the navy personnel who led this attack
together with the assistance of the army and police, destroy hundreds of
Tamils business places and shops, and render thousands of people homeless
but they also forcibly removed about 600 of the refugees in vehicles and put
them back in the upcountry plantation districts from which they had
emigrated after the pogrom of 1981.
In the course of this manoeuvre many families were separated, great
sufferings were caused to these people who were left destitutes in the
aforementioned areas either for the purpose of forcing them once again to
work as slaves on the plantations from which they had been earlier driven
out, or to make them once more victims of further racial violence. This
action indicates that it was not merely an attack carried out in the heat of
a riot, but part of a calculated plan to rid the Trincomalee District of
Tamils.
Among the early victims of Sinhala violence was Mr . Sivasithambaram ,
Member of Parliament, Nallur and President of the Tamil United Liberation
Front. His house and belongings in Colombo together with his vehicle were
burnt to ashes.
The magnitude of the June/July 1983 pogroms against the Tamil people was
colossal. Almost all industries of all Tamils and Indian Industrialists in
and around Colombo were completely destroyed. The majority of the Tamil
Business centres in Colombo was also destroyed. The total loss of life has
been estimated to be several thousands. The Government figure of around 400
is ridiculously low. Several hundreds of persons originally said to be
missing are. now confirmed to be dead.
One of the most abhorent acts committed in the course of the Government
sponsored killings of Tamils was the killing of the 53 political Tamil
prisoners in Welikade Prison on 25th July and again on 27th July, 1983. This
act clearly shows the collusion of the Government, particularly in view of
the fact that there was a second round of killings two days after the first.
One of the prisoners killed was Mr.Kuttimani. His eyes were gouged out and
one Sinhalese cut his tongue and drank his blood. They were all tortured and
done to death by homicidal violence with the aid and approval of the State
agencies. Those who escaped death are willing to testify. T
he story given out by the Government that the Sinhalese prisoners had got
out of their cells and murdered the Tamil prisoners cannot be substantiated.
It is also strange that the jailors did not do anything to restrain the
killers. The attitude of the Government is shown by the fact that when a few
days later some Tamil prisoners in Jaffna tried to escape, four of them were
shot dead. The condonation of the Government in the killing of the Tamil
prisoners was expressed by a Senior Minister of the government Mr.Lalith
Athulathmudali, who stated at a refugee camp , and for which statement,
there are a number of witnesses willing to give evidence, that the Sinhalese
people were pacified only after the massacre at the Welikade Prison.
In the first week of September about 700 Sinhalese went to Vadamunai in
the eastern district of Batticaloa in 40 Government vehicles and attacked
Tamils of Indian origin from the plantations who had settled down there
after the 1977 riots with the help of social service organisations. The
raiders drove out 30 Tamil families and occupied their properties. Tamil
leaders allege that the attack was directed by the ruling party's Member of
Parliament from Uva.
The Government of Sri Lanka has taken over all the damaged and abandoned
properties of the Tamils by an executive fiat, subsequently approved by
parliament. If press statements issued by influential Ministers are any
indication, the Government intends expropriating business and industries and
other immovable properties of the Tamils and hand them over to the Sinhalese so
that the "preponderence of Tamils in the commanding heights of our economy may
be a thing of the past". This is an arbitrary deprivation of wealth of the
Tamils with a clear intention to limit their resources, means of livelihood and
enjoyment of income.
It is relevant to point out that the Ceylon Workers Congress which is the
organisation representing the plantation workers of Indian origin who constitute
one million persons and which is a constituent part of the Government
represented by a cabinet minister, has made a statement saying that all the one
million Tamils of Indian origin wish to be taken back to India as they fear that
the Government is unable to provide them with security of person and property.
The genuine fear of these one million people of their deliberate and systematic
genocide by the State should be taken note of by the U.N.
Furthermore we aver that the victims have no remedy in the courts of Sri
Lanka, in as much as the State itself is responsible for the violations of human
rights and acts of genocide.
Thousands of Tamil people have been killed and tens of thousands of them have
been under murderous attack and on the run for their lives. The brutality took
the form of massacre of unarmed people outside and within prison walls, torture,
targeted attacks on property including means of livelihood. What is worse, the
timing of the 6th Amendment of their Constitution is such as to proclaim a
decision to liquidate then and there the political organisation of the Tamil
population which is a total suppression of an opposition party and a minority
ethnic group.
In as much as genocide is a crime against Humanity, considering the
declaration made by the Central Assembly of the UN in its resolutions 98 (i)
dated 11th December, 1946 that genocide is a crime under international law,
contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations, and condemned by the
civilized world, and furthermore considering that the Draft Convention on State
responsibility which has been recently drawn up by the International Law
Commission affirms that a state can be responsible at International Law for both
international crimes and international delicts and that genocide has been
specifically categorised therein as an international crime for which the state
is internationally responsible.
We call upon the Secretary General to take cognizance of the fact that the
crime of genocide has been committed and is being continued and that the
Government of Sri Lanka is either directly involved or is guilty of complicity
in such genocide. These acts can have international repercussions as the same
ethnic group is also found in the state of Tamil Nadu in India.
a) that the Secretary General take action under Article 99 of the Charter of
the United Nations.
b) in the alternative we request that this complaint be referred to the Human
Rights Commission under the procedure set in ECOSOC resolution 1503 and that a
fact finding body be constituted to go to Sri Lanka and make an on the spot
investigation and submit a report.
c) in the event of such body giving a finding that the complaint of genocide
is true, we ask that this report be submitted to the General Assembly and the
Security Council, and sanctions be imposed on the guilty state under Chapter VII
of the charter of the United Nations.
d) we also request that in the light of the complaint of genocide which makes
it impossible for the Tamil people of the Island of Ceylon to live within the
Sinhala state, the United Nations to call upon the Government of Sri Lanka to
allow a plebescite to be held in the tradition Tamil homelands so that the Tamil
people of Sri Lanka may exercise their right of self determination, which is one
of the rights granted under the Human Right Covenants, to both of which Sri
Lanka is a Party; and that such plebescite be held under the auspices of the
United Nations.
Further, we request you to intervene and stop genocide of the ethnic
minorities viz. the Tamils. in Sri Lanka and ensure protection of the lives,
liberty and property by using if necessary sanctions on Sri Lanka.
Pray for United Nations immediate inquiry and punishment of persons
responsible for genocide in Sri Lanka.
This Complaint is made after reliable knowledge of those incidents told and
retold to many of us by those victims who escaped the genocide from Sri Lanka.
The contents of this , complaint were explained in the local language to those
millions who have put their signatures.
Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of the Tamils of Sri Lanka.
I,
