INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA

Black July 1983: the Charge is Genocide

There is no time limit within which a prosecution
for genocide may be launched - those responsible
for Genocide '83 both within the then Sri Lanka Cabinet of Ministers
and outside it, must be charged and punished according to law.

Genocide is a crime which transcends national frontiers. Furthermore, there is no time limit within which a prosecution for genocide may be launched. Those who committed the crime of genocide during the Second World War continue to be hunted down today.

The matters presented in this publication constitute, at the lowest, prima facie evidence, sufficient to warrant an indictment for genocide against the Sri Lanka authorities.

To recapitulate, Black July '83 was admitted by all sides, including the Sri Lanka government to have been planned attack. Who then were the planners? Who were the planners of this contingent plan which was worked out long before the ambush of 13 soldiers in Jaffna on 22 July 1983? Who were the planners of an attack which was neither directed against the government nor directed against big business but was directed against the Tamils?  The features of the planners of the planners emerge from the nature of the plan.

• The planners were persons who (to use the words of Sri Lanka  President Jayawardene on 11 July 1983)  had little regard for the opinion or the lives of the Tamil people.
   
• The planners were persons who were in a position to command considerable organisational resources.
   
• The planners were persons who were in a position to mobilise an existing strong arm net work at short notice.
   
• The planners were persons who were able to assure the goondas that no harm would befall them and that the army and the police would look the other way.
   
• The planners were persons who occupied positions of power which rendered such assurances credible.
   
• The planners were persons who were in a position to influence and direct the police and the army to look the other way and ensure that such directions were not countermanded.
   
• The planners were persons who were secure in the knowledge that they themselves would be safe after the event - that the thousands who implemented the plan would not and could not 'tell on them'.
   
• The planners were persons who were secure in the knowledge that there would be no investigation by the government - because the planners themselves were persons who were in a position to direct and influence government action.

The circumstances taken together are consistent only with the conclusion that the Sri Lankan Government as well as leading members of the ruling United National Party were the planners of Genocide '83. They are not consistent with any other conclusion.  Furthermore,

• the attempt by the Sri Lankan government to explain away the violence wreaked on the Tamils as a 'left inspired plot';
   
• the statement of Sri Lanka's Ambassador in Geneva that the violence was a 'spontaneous reaction';
   
• The statement by the Minister of  State, Mr.Anandatissa de Alwis that the violence 'was part of an international conspiracy to destabilise us... Behind all this is the foreign hand: the KGB, to be precise..."
   
• the declaration by Minister Cyril Mathew that if the Sinhalese are the majority they must act as the majority;
   
• the failure of President Jayawardene to offer a single word of sympathy to the victims of the attack;
   
• the assertion by President Jayawardene that the violence was but a 'clamour and a natural request' of the Sinhala people; and
   
• the failure of the Sri Lanka government to establish an independent commission of inquiry despite the pledges given by Sri Lanka to the UN Commission on Human Rights and the requests made by Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists

points the finger of guilt firmly to those in the seats of power in the Sri Lanka government.

Seventy years after the massacre of around one million Armenians on orders of the Turkish government, the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (successor to the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Vietnam) held a special hearing in Paris. The Tribunal's jury included three Nobel Prize winners -Sean Macbride, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Professor George Wald. The verdict on 16 April 1984 was that 'there was no doubt regarding the reality of the physical acts constituting the genocide' of the Armenian people. The Tribunal declared:

'The fact of the murder of members of the group, of grave attacks on their physical or mental integrity, and of the subjection of this group to conditions leading necessarily to their deaths, are clearly proven by the full and unequivocal evidence submitted to the Tribunal...''

''It is further observed that the authorities generally refrained from intervening to prevent the slaughter, although they had the power to do so... This attitude amounts to incitement to crime and criminal negligence, and must be judged as severely as the crimes actively committed and specifically covered by the law against genocide...''

''The Tribunal finds that the charge of genocide of the Armenian people brought against the Turkish authorities is established...The fundamental rights of this (Armenian) people are of direct concern to the international community, which is entitled and duty bound to ensure that these rights are respected, particularly when they are openly denied by one of its member states.''

Equally, even apart from the direct involvement of the Sri Lankan authorities in the planned attack on the Tamil people in July 1983, the failure of the Sri Lankan authorities to intervene 'to prevent the slaughter, although they had the power to do so... amounts to incitement to crime and criminal negligence, and must be judged as severely as the crimes actively committed and specifically covered by the law against genocide.'

How else, indeed. Those responsible for genocide '83 both within the then Sri Lanka government and outside it, must be charged and punished according to law.