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INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
Black July 1983: the Charge
is Genocide
23rd Anniversary of Genocide'83
Remembering Black July of the Failed State
Dr J.S.A Jeyaretnam
12 July 2006
The 23rd July 2006 marks the 23rd anniversary of the
state genocidal attack
on the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. This day has left unhealed
scars and will be remembered as the saddest day in the history of
Tamils around the world. The impact of the 1983 communal violence on
the Tamils was catastrophic. Thousands of people were slaughtered,
properties worth billions were destroyed and more than 100,000
people sought refuge in temporary camps set across the country. In
March 1984, Mr Paul Sieghart, QC and Chairman of the British Justice
commented in �Sri Lanka - Amounting Tragedy of Errors�
�July 83 violence was not a spontaneous upsurge�.it was a
series of deliberate acts, executed in accordance with a
concerted plan, conceived and organised well in advance.
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.�
Turning back the leaves of history, ethnic Tamils of Sri Lanka
had been betrayed right from the time the
Soulbury Constitution was introduced in 1946 with a unitary
structure of government. When the freedom for Ceylon was negotiated
in 1946, the British were very keen in making provision in the
proposed constitution for the protection of Tamil rights and
demanded that the Sinhalese should obtain the consent of the Tamils
for the transfer of power to the people. The Sinhalese gave a solemn
promise to the British that they will never use their majority power
to discriminate against the Tamils (State Council Hansard 1946).
In 1948, when Ceylon gained its Independence, the government of
Ceylon changed from British imperialism to Sinhala imperialism. The
Sinhalese government
passed the
Citizenship Act in 1948 resulting in one million up country
Tamils of Indian origin becoming stateless. The Sinhalese majority
started to reassert its dominance and the re-emergence of a separate
national identity was reinforced by the actions of the Sinhalese
which regarded the island as the exclusive home of the Sinhalese.
Tamils are a nation of people enriched with a very
ancient
culture and
art with a
history dating back to 2500 years, and the
Tamil
language is an ancient language (like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit),
but still written and spoken by more than
75 million people all over the world. Tamil language is rich in
literature
dating back to 10th century B.C.
There are over 55 million Tamils in the state of
Tamil
Nadu in India with the other main country that has a significant
number of Tamils being
Sri Lanka.
The ethnic violence of 1983 resulted in a mass exodus of Tamils from
Sri Lanka as refugees to Western Countries such as the
United Kingdom,
France,
Germany,
Switzerland,
Denmark,
Norway,
Italy,
Canada,
USA and
Australia.
History has it recorded that Ceylon was ruled by Tamil and Sinhalese
kings, the Tamil Jaffna kingdom in the North East and the
Sinhalese kingdom in the South. These kingdoms fell to the
Portuguese, the Dutch and the British in succession during the
period at different times from 1505-1948. When the island was in the
hands of the Portuguese and the Dutch, the Tamil kingdom in the
North East was administered as an entity separate from the rest of
the island.
As far back as 1879, Sir Hugh Cleghon, British Colonial Secretary
said that Tamil nation defer entirely in their religion, language
and manners. Tamils and Sinhalese were politically independent of
one another and occupied their traditional homeland until 1883, when
the British united the distinct Sinhala and Tamil nations, as one
for their own convenience.
For more than five decades, the
Tamil community has been disadvantaged by the Sinhalese governments
which under the guise of
democracy effected a program of ethnic cleansing. Tamils were
discriminated in government jobs and in educational opportunities.
The standardization legislation of the government
blocked the Tamils
from entering universities. The redrawing of district and
provincial boundaries resulted in demographic changes.
Colonization was a
deliberate and systematic effort of the Sinhala government to
encroach into the Tamil homeland.
Mr S.W.R.D Bandaranayake
broke away from the United National Party (UNP) and formed the Sri
Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) with �Sinhala only� slogan. This cry was
taken up by Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawela of the UNP, who said
"I want Sinhala to be the sole official language of Ceylon as long
as the sun and the moon last." In
1956, the �Sinhala Only Act� was passed by the Sri Lankan
government. The law mandated Sinhala as the sole official language
of Sri Lanka, ensuring that Tamils became a minority for positions
in the state administration.
The introduction of the
�Sinhala Only Act� attacked the identity of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The peaceful resistance movement from the Tamil parliamentarians was
broken up by Sinhalese hoodlums followed by the 1956 riots,
which was the beginning of a large scale racial violence in Sri
Lanka. Periodically, over the years, since Independence until to
date, whenever Tamils resisted oppressive legislative and
administrative acts through parliamentary agitations and non-violent
protests, they were physically attacked, burnt alive and their homes
and properties were looted and destroyed.
The feelings of
the successive Sinhala governments towards the Tamil population in
Sri Lanka have been appalling. This is evident from the
statement made by
the then President Mr J.R.Jayawardena, which was published in
the Daily Telegraph on 11 July 1983.
�I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people� Now
we cannot think of them, nor about their lives and their
opinion� the more you put pressure in the North, the happier the
Sinhalese people will be..� Really if I starve the Tamils out,
the Sinhala people will be happy.�
The 1983 ethnic violence resulted in thousands of Tamils moving
to safety to their home land in the North and East of Sri Lanka. In
March 1986, Senator A.L.Missen, Chairman of the Australian
Parliamentary Group of the Amnesty International
informed in the Australian Senate that
�some 6000 Tamils have been killed altogether in the past few
years. These events are not accidental. It can be seen that they
are the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the Sri
Lankan government.�
The
invasion of the North by the Sri Lankan forces in 1995
made the situation much worse with the disappearance of young men
and women. The Sinhala armed forces went on a rampage committing
horrendous human rights violations in the form of
torture,
rape and
extra
judicial killings of innocent Tamil civilians. Hundreds of
civilians held in custody without charges or trial disappeared. One
of the Sri Lankan soldiers who went on trial
for the rape and murder of a teenage girl confessed that he was
personally involved in the burial of over 400 bodies of Tamil
civilians killed by the armed forces and brought to the Chemmani
area every night near a military checkpoint. The exhumation
confirmed that these victims have been tortured and killed.
No one can easily forget the
gruesome massacre of
passengers in a ferry by the Sri Lankan navy. On 15 November
1985, the passenger ferry �Kumudini�, the only sea transport
available for the people of Delft island, off the Northern tip of
Sri Lanka was stopped at mid-sea by the Sri Lankan navy and all 46
passengers on board including women and children were brutally
bludgeoned and cut to death with knifes, swords and axes by the Sri
Lankan navy.
As part of the ethnic cleansing, murdering of
religious dignitaries and laymen inside and outside the places of
worship has also been taking place repeatedly over the years. In
1985, Rev. Fr. Mary
Bastian, a native of Vankalai and about 20 others were killed by
the security forces. On 25 August 1997,
Rev.
Arulpalan was taken into custody by the Sri Lankan army and
subsequently his body was found on 9 September 1997. This has been
confirmed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In yet another incident in May 2000,
nine
children from an orphanage in Ayithiyamalai when travelling to
the town accompanied by the parish priest, Jeyachandra to view
decorations put up to celebrate Buddhist Vesak day were shot and
killed by the security forces who fired at the van killing all and
wounding the priest who pleaded �please don�t shoot the children;
shoot me instead.�
The extra judicial killings and violations of civilian rights
can also be seen by the abduction, rape and murder of
Tharshini
Ilayathamby (20)
by the Sri Lankan navy in December 2005. Her body was found
dumped into an abandoned well in Pungudutivu, an islet in the North
of Sri Lanka. This reminds of another
brutal
killing of Sarathambal Saravanabavanathakurukal (29) a Hindu
Brahmin woman at Pungudutivu in December 1999 who was dragged out of
her home by the Sri Lankan navy soldiers before she was gang-raped
and murdered in cold blood.
The situation in Sri Lanka at present no doubt reminds of the
ethnic cleansing of July 1983. The nation�s security system has
deteriorated immensely within the past few months with continued
brutal violence, rape and murder of innocent Tamil civilians of Sri
Lanka. The
genocidal
attacks in the past year make one wonder whether the island of
Sri Lanka is heading for another July 83.
The
execution style killing of five Tamil students on 2 January 2006
at Trincomalee town was carried out by � a team of Police Special
Task Force (STF) commandos� said the Sunday Times in its 8th January
edition. The paper further mentioned the deployment of the STF was
ordered by �A retired police official who has now been named as
advisor in the Defence Ministry.�
On 25th April 2006,
many villages in Trincomalee were indiscriminately bombed
and shelled from land and sea by the Sri Lankan army and navy
targeting civilian areas resulting in over 40,000 people fleeing for
safety. One of the bombs directly hit an orphanage where 40 children
were housed after the Tsunami. This is one of the recent examples of
pre-planned bombing and shelling of civilian areas.
The bombing of
St Peter�s
Church in Navaly, in the Jaffna District on 9 July 1995 killing
over 100 innocent civilians including 13 babies in their mothers�
arms and wounding almost 150 people cannot be forgotten by the Tamil
people. This pre-planned attack by the Sri Lankan air force took
place after leaflets were dropped asking civilians to move to places
of worship. Following this incident, the then Bishop of Jaffna, Dr
Thomas Savundranayagam called upon the President of Sri Lanka,
Chandrika Kumarathunga to stop attacks on churches, temples and
schools where displaced civilians sought shelter.
On the
night of 13th May, 2006, eight Tamil civilians including a 4 month
old baby and a child along with their parents were shot and killed
in an
execution style massacre by the Sri Lankan navy at Allappiddy in
the North of Sri Lanka. Amnesty International reported that it
received credible reports that Sri Lanka navy with the Eelam Peoples
Democratic Party (EPDP), a paramilitary group were present at the
scene of killings.
Within a month of this brutal killing,
another family of four were tortured and hacked to death at Vankalai
in the North-Western District of Mannar. Their bodies were found
hanging inside their home. It was reported that �the intestines of
the seven year old boy were seen protruding. The vaginal area of the
twenty-seven year old mother and nine year old daughter were
extremely bloody.
Only people crazed with callous hatred or those whose senses had
been distorted through narcotics could have inflicted such gruesome
cruelty.� It was suspected that the mother was raped before she was
murdered. Many residents and the Catholic Bishop of Mannar blamed
the army, reportedly saying some soldiers were in the area on the
day of the killing.
The Bishop of Mannar, Rev. Dr Joseph
Rayappu in his letter to the Vatican informed that the exchange of
fire between the armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE), made people numbering 6000 to take refuge in the
Church of Our Lady of Victory in Pesalai. He further said that
according to eye witnesses, on Saturday, June 17, 2006, the Sri
Lankan navy set fire and gutted several huts belonging to the fisher
folks along with their fishing nets, outboard engines and other
valuables. The refugees inside the church could not escape from the
perpetrators.
The
Sri Lankan troops stormed this Church shooting, throwing grenades
and then attacking fishermen in an assault that killed 5 people and
injured 47 more.
Churches and temples where people seek
refuge have been the target of massacre for the armed forces. Mr
Joseph Pararajasingham,
a Tamil parliamentarian was gunned down on Christmas eve, 2005
while he was attending Christmas mass with his wife at St Michel�s
Church in Batticoloa. It was alleged that military intelligence and
paramilitaries controlled by them were involved in this killing. On
7th June 2006, the body of Venkata Krishna Sharma, a Hindu priest
(50) who went missing on 26th May 2006 was discovered 200 meters
inland from the Kaithady Bridge in Jaffna near an army checkpoint.
The discovery of his body led to the exhumation of three more bodies
in the vicinity.
The recent climate of terror with massacres
carried out by the armed forces has compelled most of the Tamils in
the North and East of Sri Lanka to become internal refugees while
few have managed to flee to other countries including the
neighbouring India by boats, risking their lives in the high seas in
desperate attempts. Over 4000 Tamils have fled to India in the
recent past and more than 10,000 are awaiting to leave. As a result
of the
ethnic cleansing
from 1983 to 1987, more than 130,000 Tamils have sought asylum in
Tamil Nadu, India while over 70,000 asylum seekers have moved to
Europe and North America.
The atrocities unleashed by the
government of Sri Lanka against the Tamil civilians have pushed the
nation to a failed state. Sri Lanka has been rated as the 25th
nation in the list of failed states next to Rwanda (24), ahead of
Ethiopia (26) and Colombia (27) in the Second Annual Failed State
Index, 2006. The continued violence and genocide committed by the
armed forces during the past few months against Tamil media
reporters, parliamentarians, students, men, women and children
undoubtedly would continue to push Sri Lanka to the top 10 failed
states in this �Failed State Index.�
Sir John Foster and
his associates in a letter to the London Times as far back as on
20 September 1977 said, that
�at a time when the West is wake to the evils of racialism,
the racial persecution of the Tamils and denial of their human
rights should not pass without protest. The British have a
special obligation to protest, as these cultivated people were
put at the mercy of their neighbours less than thirty years ago
by the British Government.�
Mr Nagendra Nath Jha the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo in a
statement to the Island News paper in February 1992 said �Every one
is tired of conflicts�Emphasis should now be on giving full thought
to solving of the problem� I am sure that there may be better ways,
is to see the writing on the wall and to recognize it for what it is
and try to work out some form of Federal set up in which certain
powers are guaranteed which means the Tamil unit will have its own
entity or fully established identity.�
Further more, the
views of the Former Prime Minister of Singapore, Hon. Lee Kuan Yew
on the ethnic conflict of Sri Lanka suggest that the country failed
because they had weak or wrong leaders. In his comments published in
the book �The Man and His Ideas� in 1998,
Hon. Lee Kuan Yew states that
"We have got to live with the consequences of our actions and we
are responsible for our own people and we take the right decisions
for them�
One-man one-vote led to the domination of the Sinhalese majority
over the minority Tamils who were the active and intelligent
fellows who worked hard and got themselves penalised. And English
was out. They were educated in English.
Sinhalese was in.
They got quotas in
two universities and now they have become fanatical Tigers. And
the country will never be put together again. Somebody should have
told them - change the system, loosen up, or break off. And looking
back, I think the Tunku was wise. (The reference is to Tunku Abdul
Rahman the Malaysian Prime Minister under whose rule Singapore
separated from Malaysia). I offered a loosening up of the system. He
said: "Clean cut, go your way". Had we stayed in, and I look at
Colombo and Ceylon, I mean changing names, sometimes maybe you
deceive the gods, but I don't think you are deceiving the people who
live in them. It makes no great difference to the tragedy that is
being enacted.� |
