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  INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
The Charge is Ethnic Cleansing
AKKARAIPATTU MASSACRE
-19 FEBRUARY1986
 "Upto 80
people mainly Tamil farm workers are said to have been
killed and their bodies burned in a massacre in eastern
Sri Lanka. The killings happened on Wednesday (19
February 1986), but confirmation of the incident was made
only yesterday after community leaders had visited the
remote spot near the town of Akkaraipattu, where the farm
workers were shot.
According to community leaders, the farmworkers were
threshing the paddy fields when troops appeared from the
jungle firing into the air. The women were freed, but
the soldiers rounded up the men, tied their hands and
made them sit on the road while the soldiers reportedly
moved into a nearby village and looted the shops.
The farmworkers were taken back to the paddy fields
and shot. Several empty cases of ammunition have been
found in the field. The bodies were piled on top of the
dry rice harvest and burned.(Humphrey Hawksley
reporting in the Guardian, 22 February 1986)
"There is very clear evidence now emanating that
violence directed against the Tamil minority is
indiscriminate and makes no distinction between those
engaged in conflict and innocent civilians...
....Over one hundred and twenty five thousand Sri Lankan
Tamils have sought refuge in India, and around forty five
thousand more, here in Europe... The stories related by
the hapless and tormented refugees arriving on our shores
make it clear that the actions of the Government of Sri
Lanka have resulted in serious violations of the human
rights of Sri Lanka's Tamil citizens living in the
Northern and Eastern provinces in that country.
The blatant killings of innocent civilians, through
ground, naval and air actions are beginning to look like
victimisation of the entire community of Sri Lankan
Tamils by the Sri Lankan security forces. Attacks on
innocent civilians have been repeated too often, with
ever increasing severity. They have been picked up on
mere suspicion, brutally tortured and some even killed.."
- D.S.Dhillon, Leader of Indian Delegation at 42nd
Session of the Commission on Human Rights, March
1986
"Some
6000 Tamils have been killed altogether in
the last 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...Democracy in Sri Lanka does not exist
in any real sense.
....The democracy of Sri Lanka has been described in
the following terms, terms which are a fair and
accurate description: 'The reluctance to hold
general elections, the muzzling of the opposition
press, the continued reliance on extraordinary powers
unknown to a free democracy, arbitrary detention
without access to lawyers or relations, torture of
detainees on a systematic basis, the intimidation of
the judiciary by the executive, the disenfranchisement
of the opposition, an executive President who holds
undated letters of resignation from members of the
legislature, an elected President who publicly declares
his lack of care for the lives or opinion of a section
of his electorate, and the continued subjugation of the
Tamil people by a permanent Sinhala majority, within
the confines of an unitary constitutional frame,
constitute the reality of 'democracy', Sri Lankan
style.'" - Senator A.L.Missen, Chairman,
Australian Parliamentary Group of Amnesty
International, Australian Senate Hansard, 13 March
1986
"Arbitrary killings of hundreds of Tamil civilians,
often in reprisal for attacks by armed Tamil groups,
continued to be reported as armed conflict between such
groups and government forces intensified. A major concern
was the 'disappearance' of well over 300 young Tamil men
during the last three years; a number of them were feared
to have died as a result of secret shootings in army or
police custody or as a result of torture...
....In one case, eye witnesses reported that at least 28
young men were taken away...on 17th of May by
(government) STF personnel. There was evidence that the
STF shot and killed them and disposed of their bodies in
secret..." - Amnesty International Annual Report, 1987
for period January to December 1986
"In the light of the consistent, serious
allegations of torture and killings brought by
responsible Non Governmental Organisations... is it
credible to believe that an objective inquiry would not
reveal a single instance of ill treatment of suspects, as
the Sri Lankan courts have apparently concluded? Is it
credible that not a single unlawful action by the
security forces has been judicially condemned?...
.....The Government of Sri Lanka has suggested, publicly
and privately, that interest in the human rights
situation in Sri Lanka will in some way support
separatism and terrorism... Without denying the relevance
of separatist demands to the conflict in Sri Lanka, in
the context of the (UN Human Rights) Commission, this is
simply a false issue raised by the Government in order to
deflect the legitimate concern with human rights." -
Intervention of Hurst Hannum, Procedural Aspects of
International Law Institute at 42nd Session of the
Commission on Human Rights, March 1986
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