Swiss Federation of Tamil Associations
to the Australian
Foreign Ministry
15 November 1995
15 November 1995
Mr.John Oliver,
Acting First Assistant Secretary,
South and South Asia Division
Department of Foreign Affairs,
Canberra , Australia.
Dear Mr.Oliver,
Appeal for Humanity and Justice
We thank you for your letter of 6 October on behalf of Senator Evans and the careful
consideration that you have given to our views about the situation in the island of Sri
Lanka. We are particularly encouraged by your statement that:
"Australia is prepared to consider assisting a genuine peace process in any way
that would be useful and acceptable to both sides".
We are, however, not surprised by your further statement that:
"…following recent discussions between Senator Evans and the Sri Lankan
Government, there appears to be no obvious role for third party involvement at
present."
We are not surprised because during the past several years, Sri Lanka has consistently rejected offers of international
involvement with a view to resolving the conflict in the island.
We recognise that the strategy of the Sri Lanka government is to wage war against the armed resistance of the Tamil people, at
whatever cost in Tamil civilian casualties; annihilate Tamil resistance, proclaiming
that it is necessary to 'weaken' it; and in this way create the frame for Sri Lanka to
impose its own 'political solution' on the Tamil people, so that Sinhala rule may be
perpetuated in a 'more acceptable form'. We also recognise that whilst Sri Lanka is
engaged in this effort, it may well see no 'obvious role' for third party involvement -
except, of course, as silent bystanders who do not impede Sri Lanka's continued genocidal
onslaught on the Tamil people.
However, the political reality is that third party involvement (silent or
otherwise) has always existed in relation to the conflict - and continues to exist.
For instance, the Aid Consortium, meeting annually in Paris
during the past several years, has propped up the tottering Sri Lanka economy - recently
to the tune of 30 billion rupees. Today, Sri Lanka's defence budget exceeds its education
budget plus its health budget. However, the militarisation of Sinhala society and the
swelling ranks of Sinhala Army deserters has not secured stability - it has done the
reverse.
Again the influx of Tamil asylum seekers to Australia,
Europe, Canada and elsewhere is also a part of this larger 'third party involvement.'
Further, it cannot be gainsaid that 'third party involvement' by way of arm sales (both
lethal and non lethal, covert and open) continues to feed Sri Lanka's unjust war against
the Tamil people.
We respectfully suggest that it surely cannot be in the interests of the international
community to be seen to support the genocidal actions of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's
government - because, even apart from everything else, genocide is not the path to
stability - it will only broaden and deepen resistance to alien rule and domination - and
without stability there will be no climate for economic development.
UN Secretary General calls for humanitarian aid for
400,000 Tamils
May we also say that we do not use the word 'genocide'
lightly. The recent intensified attacks by the Sri Lanka armed forces in the densely
populated Jaffna peninsula has resulted in upto 400,000 Tamils being displaced from their
homes and living in appalling conditions which threaten starvation and disease.
Here, we seek your open support for the appeal
made by the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, on 4 November 1995 for urgent
humanitarian aid for up to 400,000 Tamil refugees fleeing their homes as Sri Lanka
government troops invade the Jaffna peninsula. Dr Boutros-Ghali has said that humanitarian
aid on a significant scale was needed to minimise the suffering of the Tamil people.
We may mention in this connection that on 11 November thousands of Tamils and
supporters of the Tamil cause participated in demonstrations in Europe urging support for
the appeal made by the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. We annex hereto a copy
of the Press Briefing given at Berne by the Swiss Federation of Tamil Associations on 10
November 1995.
Though Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga has sought to justify the invasion of
the Tamil homeland as a war to 'liberate' the Tamil people from the Liberation Tigers, the
fact is that the Tamil people have fled in their thousands from their would be
'liberators', leaving behind them their homes and hard earned belongings.
Further, though President Chandrika Kumaratunga has claimed that the Sri Lanka security
services have endeavoured to minimise civilian casualties, the undeniable fact is that the
invading Sinhala army has indiscriminately bombed and shelled the Tamil homeland; that
hundreds of Tamil civilians had been killed and thousands maimed; that houses had been
flattened and farmland destroyed; and that the economic blockade imposed by Sri Lanka had
prevented food and urgently needed medical supplies reaching the peninsula.
On 1 November, the Government's own representative in the peninsula urged the Sri
Lankan Defence Ministry to stop bombing civilians and refugees in Jaffna and has told
President Kumaratunga that civilians in refugee camps were being killed by aerial raids
and appealed for safe areas to be set up.
Thousands of people have fled Jaffna with the spread of disease causing concern among
relief agencies. Relief workers have said that the few hospitals in the peninsula are
dangerously low on anaesthetics for surgery and several drugs essential to stopping the
spread of diseases and treating war casualties. Without clean water and proper latrines,
an epidemic could hit in a matter of days and the world probably wouldn't see it happen.
Gerard Peytrignet, who heads the International Committee of the Red Cross in the island
has said that about half of the 400,000 Tamil refugees are living and sleeping outdoors in
heavy monsoon rains. He added: "The rest are holed up in churches, schools and
relatives' homes. The refugees have very little food or proper sanitation. Doctors are
already seeing cases of dysentery and eye infections, and while cholera hasn't struck yet,
the conditions are perfect for a deadly epidemic.. Of course, in this type of situation,
anything could happen, quick action is needed."
The attack by the Sri Lanka armed forces has taken place under cover of a press
censorship imposed by Sri Lanka on September 21. The press censorship has prevented full details of
Sri Lanka's genocidal attacks on the Tamil people from reaching the outside world.
At the sametime, Sri Lanka has used the cover of the press censorship, to manage news
of the war to the outside world and plant malicious propaganda concerning alleged attacks
by the LTTE on armed Sinhala settlements in the Tamil homeland in the East.
The Canadian Toronto Star reported on 5 November:
"Relief workers are so afraid of making the government angry, they refuse to
photograph or shoot video of the refugees' suffering and smuggle pictures out to the
reporters… Few were willing to criticise the government publicly because they are
afraid it will shut down their relief operation in retaliation… 'I think they don't
want an International presence there to witness what's happening,' a senior Western relief
official said."
The conclusion is inescapable that the Sri Lanka armed forces are acting in accordance
with the dictates of their commander in chief President Kumaratunga who said in an
interview with an Indian journal on 30 April 1995:
"Q. Where do you go from here?
A. ...To defeat the LTTE you have to launch an all out attack (which would mean a lot
of Tamil civilian casualties) and the place (Jaffna) will be wiped out.
Q. Is that possible? Can the Sri Lankan forces do it?
A. Ofcourse it is possible. That is what the IPKF tried to do."
President Kumaratunga's words are at one with the words of her predecessor, President
Jayawardene to a British newspaper, a couple of weeks before the 1983 genocide of the
Tamil people in Colombo and elsewhere:
"I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people... now we cannot think of
them, not about their lives or their opinion... the more you put pressure in the north,
the happier the Sinhala people will be here... Really if I starve the Tamils out, the
Sinhala people will be happy."
In this context, the claim of the Sri Lanka government on 4 November that the exodus of
Tamil civilians was somehow 'contrived' to deprive the government of 'the stated rationale
for its military action, namely to liberate the people of the peninsula from LTTE control'
would be farcical if not for its callous disregard of the unfolding human tragedy in the
Tamil homeland, caused by the wanton actions of the Sri Lanka armed forces.
The truth now stands exposed by Paul Watson from the Asian Bureau in a report in the
Toronto Star on 5 November that "while Sri Lanka's army fights to crush Tamil rebels,
its battling on another front against foreign relief workers trying to care for 400,000
war refugees." He reported:
" Western relief agencies accuse the military of blocking desperately needed aid.
Tight restrictions are preventing the delivery of drugs, tents and blankets as well as
equipment to build latrines, said frustrated aid officials, who spoke on condition they
not be named…More food won't end the refugees' suffering or stave off disease because
most have no shelter from the rain, proper toilets or safe water, relief workers said.
While the government is announcing the new food of deliveries by sea, its army was
blocking a small convoy of relief trucks that was supposed to cross into rebel territory
yesterday."
President Kumaratunga declared recently at the UN: "Concerted
international action is essential to combat terrorism and to compel the terrorists to
renounce violence and enter the democratic process. Unfortunately, effective action to
that end has been frustrated through sterile philosophical debate about the nature of
terrorism."
That Sinhala chauvinism should assert that discussion about the
nature of terrorism, is 'sterile' and 'philosophical' is not altogether surprising. On the
one hand, Sinhala political parties (who had 'entered' the so called 'democratic process')
have during the past four decades sponsored and actively encouraged terrorism against the
Tamil people. On the other hand, President Kumaratunga seeks to demonise the lawful armed resistance of the Tamil people to decades
of oppressive Sinhala rule as 'terrorism' and provide a legitimising facade for her
current genocidal attack on the Tamil people.
We agree that concerted international action is essential to combat terrorism. But the
fact is that it is in Sri Lanka, that state terrorism was consolidated and refined as a
way of political life by the J.R. Jayawardene government, and later by President Premadasa
and President D.B.Wijetunga. And this continues under President Kumaratunga today.
On 9 August 1995, 21 non governmental
organisations in a joint statement to the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities expressed their grave concern at the
'impunity with which the Sri Lanka armed forces continue to commit gross and inhumane
violations of human rights and humanitarian law' and went on to condemn such actions as
being 'intended to terrorise and subjugate the Tamil people'. The Statement added:
"In May this year, President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared
that it may be necessary to launch an all out attack in the Jaffna peninsula and that this
'would mean a lot of civilian casualties' and the 'place would be wiped out'. In May, June
and July the Sri Lanka armed forces launched a genocidal onslaught on the Tamil people in
the Tamil homeland in the North-East…
The aerial bombardment of civilian population centres and places of worship follow a
pattern set by the Sri Lanka armed forces over the past several years and President
Kumaratunga's belated promise to investigate the recent violations, must ring hollow in
the ears of the Tamil people whose kith and kin have lost their lives or their limbs in
the bomb outrage."
Collapse of the Peace Talks
President Kumaratunga has sought to justify her current military operations by
asserting to the international community that it was the withdrawal of the LTTE from the
peace talks in April 1995 which led to Sri Lanka's current 'war for peace'. Here, we also
note your statement that the Australian Government has 'expressed strong disappointment at
the unilateral decision of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to withdraw from
the peace talks and resume armed conflict' and your further statement that -
"The LTTE's justification for ending the Cessation of Hostilities… was not
convincing and served to cast considerable doubt on the sincerity of LTTE's stated desire
for a peaceful settlement to the ethnic conflict."
On the question of sincerity and good faith, may we point out Sri Lanka President
Kumaratunga's frank admission in the Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Sunday Times on 20 August
1995:
"I have studied and acquired considerable knowledge on guerrilla warfare when I
was a student in Paris, and we knew how they would behave. We conducted talks on the basis
that the LTTE would not agree to any peaceful settlement and lay down arms."
Whilst it is significant that President Kumaratunga's Paris education had not extended
to a study of the Kissinger negotiations which ended the conflict in Vietnam or for that
matter the London negotiations which ended the guerrilla war in Zimbabwe what is more
significant was her frank admission that she did not participate in the peace talks in
good faith with the object of reaching a 'peaceful settlement' because her Paris studies
had convinced her that this was not possible with a guerrilla movement. President
Kumaratunga's hidden agenda was exposed by her own appointee as Chairman of the Sri Lanka
state television, Rupavahini, Mr.Vasantha Rajah, who wrote with the knowledge of an
insider in the Sri Lanka state controlled Sunday Observer on 25 June 1995:
"... a hidden agenda seeped into the government's peace effort. Instead of making
a genuine effort to cultivate confidence and trust with the Tiger leadership and exploring
'common ground', the government got side tracked by a different strategy: to try and
isolate the Tiger leadership from the Tamil masses so that the military could corner and
defeat them. The military establishment, together with most Sinhala intellectuals and left
wing politicians... had been preaching this was for some time. This became the aim of the
Presidential initiative too. In other words the peace process began to resemble a tactical
episode in the government's strategy to crush the Tigers. Indeed President Chandrika even
spoke about such an intention publicly."
You also state in your letter:
"The ending of the peace process did nothing to resolve understandable complaints
from the Tamil side about the pace of the talks, the level of the dialogue, and the delays
in the lifting of fishing restrictions and the supply of fuel and other commodities to
Jaffna. These issues should have been pursued through continuing dialogue, not abandoning
it."
Here, the words of Velupillai
Pirabaharan, the Leader of the LTTE in a BBC interview on 30 April 1995 are apposite:
"In so far as the day to day problems of the Tamil people are concerned the
Government dragged its feet for more than six months. On these issues, there were four
rounds of talks and more than forty letters exchanged. Furthermore, we gave a two weeks
deadline and that was further extended to three more weeks. If there was a genuine will on
the part of the Government it would have lifted the bans and proceeded with the
implementation within 24 hours. I think that if the Government had been sincere there
would not have been any delays or difficulties."
The failure of the Sri Lanka government (for a period of six months and more) to
address what you have described as the 'understandable complaints' of the Tamil side
served to expose the 'hidden agenda' of a government whose President now admits that she
did not engage in the so called 'peace talks' with a view to reaching a peaceful
settlement.
The fact is that the so called peace process failed not because
of so called LTTE intransigence, but because President Kumaratunga sought to use the talks
as a mere 'tactical episode' in her attempt to quell Tamil resistance.
President Kumaratunga's "Devolution Proposals"
President Kumaratunga has also sought to buy the silence of the international community
to her genocidal onslaught on the Tamil people by claiming that she has presented 'radical
and wide ranging proposals' for constitutional reform. We note the statement in your
letter that:
"Australia welcomed the announcement on 3 August by President Kumaratunga of
radical and wide ranging new proposals for constitutional reforms, which would devolve
significant powers from the central government to regional administrations. The proposals
address underlying causes of ethnic conflict and aspirations of the Tamil
population."
However, the fact is that the 'political package'
that President Kumaratunga announced on 4 August, one month after the launch of the
intensified attacks on the Tamil homeland, in July 1995, and one month before President
Kumaratunga renewed these attacks in September 1995, was simply a 'mask' to cover her
government's military strategy. Two days before the official unveiling of the 'political
package' on 4 August 1995, President Kumaratunga had met with the Buddhist High Priests in
Kandy and promised that the package will not be finalised until the war against the
LTTE is won.
As for the proposals which have been touted to the international community as 'wide
ranging and radical' and devolving 'significant powers from the central government to
regional administrations', President Kumaratunga herself exposed its true nature in the
Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Sunday Times reported on 20 August 1995:
"Defending the devolution package, (President Kumaratunga) said in no way would it
erode the supremacy of (the central) parliament... The President said that since Policy
Planning was a subject for the centre, the central government had a hold in every subject
a region handled... the President said, even if a Regional Council opposes, the centre has
the power to go ahead and allocate land for its purposes. The President also moved to
allay fears of a North-East merger saying that the government did not have any idea of
merging the North with the East."
The ex Chief Justice of India, V.R.Krishna Aiyer
commented in the Hindu on 6 September 1995 on the failure of the Chandrika proposals
to recognise the existence of the Tamil homeland::
" It is beyond argument that the North-East is the homeland of the Tamils and an
unconditional acceptance of their integrated existence as a provincial unit is basic. To
treat the Tamil region just like any other region is to miss the categorical imperative
that the North and East is an entity with a higher autonomy and foundational features, as
distinguished from the other provinces. To carve out other areas and glorify them as
regions may be a stroke of federal realism but the North-East is a "quasi-Eelam"
with more sub-sovereign powers and less Central presence than the other regions.
Otherwise, the whole course of the decade-long bloody history will come to nought...
The Chandrika vision of Sri Lanka with all communities living in safety and security,
human dignity and equality, together with a string of platitudes regarding human rights
and fundamental freedoms does not take note of the core of the controversy… The
sharing of power of all regions cannot be alike since that obliterates the relevance of
the Tamil struggle which entitles them to a far larger protection regarding human rights,
coexisting, as they are, with a snarling Sinhala majority..
The contiguous Tamil territory, with its integrity restored as before the
disintegrative process during the last decade began, is important. Even the powers,
administrative, legislative, and judicial have to be wider, deep-rooted and beyond
manipulation by a majority in Parliament. The grievous error in the "Chandrika
package" is its failure to install the North-East as a special category."
Again, predictably even the original devolution package announced by President
Kumaratunga on 4 August was further watered down and eventually, the presentation of the
draft legislation spelling out the specifics of the 'devolution package' to the
Parliamentary Select Committee was also deferred. In addition the main Sinhala opposition
party, the United National Party, has withheld expressing its views until the Government
presents a draft of its detailed legislation.
The response of the Liberation Tigers to the so called 'devolution package' was a
measured one. LTTE spokesman, Mr.Anton Balasingham addressing a Press Conference in Jaffna
on 11 August 1995 said:
"The so called political package is a mask to conceal the government's military
intentions.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga has already promised the Buddhist Maha Nayakas that she
would not finalise the proposals until the Liberation Tigers are militarily defeated and
the war brought to a finish. Under these conditions, how can she resolve the conflict
through political means or bring durable peace to the country?...
It is being said that under this package, areas that were forcibly colonised by
Sinhalese will be excised from the North-East region. It is also being said that this is
not a package to devolve power to the Tamil people but to all the regions in the island.
The package has to be placed before the Parliamentary Select Committee. After the
Committee sits on it, it has to go before Parliament which must pass the bill with a
two-thirds majority. The Peoples Alliance government has only a wafer thin majority in
Parliament and within the Alliance itself there is opposition to the proposals. Having
passed all these hurdles, the Sinhala people have to approve the proposals at a
referendum.
We say that the Tamil people have the right to determine their own future. If any
attempt is made to impose an arbitrary political settlement on the Tamil people through
military means, the LTTE will resist it....
... even today when the Chandrika government has closed its doors on peace, we have not
given up hopes of exploring a peaceful settlement. Whether it is peace or war, we are
ready for both. If the government halts its military operations and creates the necessary
atmosphere for peace by showing concern for the day to day living needs of the Tamil
people, we are still prepared for political negotiations…"
The political reality is that the proposals presented by President Kumaratunga far from
addressing the 'underlying causes of ethnic conflict and aspirations of the Tamil
population' seek, on the contrary, to perpetuate Sinhala rule in a rather more
sophisticated manner.
We respectfully agree with the Australian government that a negotiated
settlement, is ultimately the only logical course to achieving a durable solution to the
conflict. But the short point that we seek to make is that a peaceful resolution of the
armed conflict in the island demands also a recognition that the armed resistance of the
Tamil people, led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, arose as a response to decades
of oppressive rule by a Sinhala dominated Sri Lanka state and that that armed resistance
is both lawful and just.
It is not that representatives of two peoples cannot engage in peaceful dialogue and
work out structures within which they may associate with one another, in equality and in
freedom. They can. But such a dialogue must surely begin with the recognition of the
existence of two peoples in the island living, in the main, in two different territories.
Eighteen non governmental organisations consisting of the International Organisation
for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, International Educational
Development, Centre Europe Ties Monde, International Indian Treaty Council, Fedefam,
Association paur la Liberte Religiose, Codehuca, World Christian Community, Pax Christie
International, International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, Movement
contra le Racisme, International Association of Educadores for World Peace, International
Association against Torture, World Confederation of Labour, and International Movement for
Fraternal Union among Races and Peoples, put it well on 8 February 1993 at the UN
Commission on Human Rights:
''We are of the view that any meaningful attempt to resolve the conflict (in the island
of Sri Lanka) should address its underlying causes and to recognise that the armed
struggle of the Tamil people for self determination, arose as a response to decades of an
ever widening and deepening oppression by a permanent Sinhala majority, within the
confines of an unitary Sri Lankan state.
It was an oppression which included the disenfranchisement of the plantation Tamils,
systematic state aided Sinhala colonisation of the Tamil homeland, the enactment of the
Sinhala Only law, discriminatory employment policies, inequitable allocation of resources
to Tamil areas, exclusion of eligible Tamil students from Universities and higher
education, and a refusal to share power within the frame of a federal constitution. It was
an oppression by an alien Sinhala majority which consolidated the growth of the national
consciousness of the Tamil people.
During the past several years the Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan government has attempted
to put down the armed resistance of the Tamil people and has sought to conquer and control
the Tamil homeland. The record shows that in this attempt, Sri Lanka's armed forces and
para military units have committed increasingly widespread violations of the rules of
humanitarian law.
In the East whole villages of Tamils have been attacked by the Army and by the so
called Home Guards. Many Tamil residents in these villages were killed. Others have been
tortured. Those Tamils who were detained by the Sri Lankan authorities have had little or
no hope of coming out alive. The attacks on the Tamil homeland have been coupled with the
declared opposition of the Sri Lankan Government to the merger of the North and East of
the island into a single administrative and political unit.
However, despite the sustained attacks of Sinhala dominated governments over a period
of several decades, the territorial integrity of the Tamil homeland in the North and East
of the island has remained. The Tamil population in the North and East, who have lived for
many centuries within relatively well defined geographical boundaries, share an ancient
heritage, a vibrant culture, and a living language which traces its origins to more than
2500 years ago.
A social group, which shares objective elements such as a common language and which has
acquired a subjective consciousness of togetherness, by its life within a relatively well
defined territory, and its struggle against alien domination, clearly constitutes a
'people' with the right to self determination.
Today, there is an urgent need for the international community to recognise that the
Tamil population in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka are such a 'people' with
the right to freely choose their political status. It is our view that such recognition
will prepare the ground for the resolution of a conflict which has taken such a heavy toll
in human lives and suffering during the past several years."
We respectfully commend these views for the consideration of the Australian Government
and urge that the desire to retain the territorial integrity of existing states should not
prevent the international community from recognising, as events in the old Soviet Union
and in Eastern Europe have shown, that national identities rooted in language, culture and
history have proved to be long enduring and the attempt to suppress such national
formations serve only to consolidate resistance to alien rule.
In an increasingly small and interdependent world, concepts of 'sovereignty' and
'territoriality' are themselves undergoing change. Significantly as long ago as 1992,
Velupillai Pirabaharan, the leader of the LTTE declared:
"It is the Sri Lanka government that has failed to learn the lessons from the
emergence of the struggles for self determination in several parts of the globe and the
innovative structural changes that have taken place."
International humanitarian law
You state in your letter that the 'Australian Government hopes that the Sri Lankan
Government will exercise restraint in any military response it pursues.' May we point out
respectfully that the matter is not simply a matter of 'restraint' but also of complying
with the international law relating to non international armed conflicts.
For instance, the facts as vouched for by the International Red Cross show that the
bombing of Navaly Church, several miles away from the front line of battle cannot be
explained away as a 'tragic incident where non combatant Tamil civilians have been killed
in (so called) military exchanges.' The Navaly Church was deliberately bombed with at
least six bombs. In a Press Release from Geneva dated 11 July 1995, the Red Cross said:
"On 9 July the Sri Lankan armed forces launched a large scale military offensive
against the positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) north of the city of
Jaffna. The operation involving intensive artillery shelling and air strikes, immediately
forced tens of thousands of civilians to leave the area. Many of the displaced sought
shelter in churches and temples, including several hundred people who took refuge in the
Church of St.Peter and Paul in Navaly.
According to eye witness accounts, this church and several adjacent buildings were hit
by further air force strikes at 4.30 p.m. the same day. During the attack 65 people were
killed and 150 wounded, including women and children. That evening and into the night Sri
Lanka Red Cross staff evacuated most of the wounded by ambulance to the Jaffna Teaching
Hospital. Delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) present the
next morning at the scene of the attack noted the widespread damage and measured the
extent of the tragedy. Many of the bodies had not yet been removed from the rubble.
Deeply concerned by the series of violent acts that have claimed innocent victims, the
ICRC call on the parties involved to respect civilian lives, property and places of
refuge. It also urges them to respect the protected zone around the Jaffna Teaching
Hospital and to refrain from attacking any other medical facilities."
In a report dated 18 August 1995, Marco Altherr, head of the ICRC delegation to Sri
Lanka added:
"It is not quite sure how many bombs fell, as only one hit the ground (a crater),
the others hitting concrete, but six is a fair estimate. The church itself was not
directly hit, but damaged by the blasts and shrapnel. More than 1000 people were gathered
in the compound, busy to prepare food for dinner and accommodation for the night."
Further, the conduct of the Sri Lanka government subsequent to the Navaly bombing
reinforces its culpability. Sri Lanka initially denied knowledge of the bombing. Later,
Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar blamed the Red Cross for 'not informing
the Sri Lanka government before issuing a statement'! Subsequently, Sri Lanka's Foreign
Minister promised to hold an inquiry. But, later still, President Kumaratunga denied
responsibility and with a callous disregard for the victims of the attack, declared that
inquiries should be addressed to the Red Cross because it was they who seem to know about
the attack.
We have referred to some of these matters in some detail because the failure of
Governments with a strong commitment to human rights and humanitarian law, such as
Australia, to openly condemn these crimes against humanity has led Sri Lanka to act with
impunity. We are mindful that real politick may sometimes demand a circumspect approach.
But the price of silence is that more and more Tamil civilian lives are lost day by day.
We believe that the Australian government can help save Tamil lives by giving public
expression to its concerns about Sri Lanka's genocidal attack on the Tamil homeland.
In all these circumstances, we appeal to the Australian government, as a matter of
urgency, to respond positively and with humanity to the call made by the Secretary General
of the United Nations for urgent humanitarian aid for hundreds of thousands displaced
Tamils and also call upon the Sri Lanka government
1. to withdraw from the occupied territories of the Tamil homeland and end the
genocidal attack on the Tamil people; and
2. to recognise the right of the Tamil people to choose their political status in order
to pave the way for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
