Eelam War IV: without a one-liner

By Satheesan Kumaaran

(May 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Poland-born Jewish attorney, Raphael Lemkin, defined the word “genocide” after the Nazi destruction using a combination of Greek and Latin: “geno” meaning race or tribe and “cide” meaning killing.

Due in large part to Lemkin’s efforts, on December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the U.N. approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). This convention established genocide as an international crime, which signatory nations should undertake to prevent and punish. It states: “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Yugoslavia and Rwanda: classic examples

Everyone grasps the horrific destruction of the Nazis, but that isn’t the only time genocide has occurred in our past. Yugoslavia and Rwanda are classic examples.

Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shares this definition, as do the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). As the ICTY stated in 1999 in Jelisic, “Genocide is characterised by two legal ingredients according to the terms of Article 4 of the Statute: [1] the material element of the offence, constituted by one or several acts enumerated in paragraph 2 of Article 4; [2] the mens rea of the offence, consisting of the special intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Theoretically, then, the murder of a single person could constitute an attempt at genocide if the aggressor's intent was to kill that person as part of larger plan to destroy a group.

In the 2001 Krstic case, the ICTY found that the mass killing of approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica constituted genocide. Reflecting on the meaning of “in part,” the tribunal stated: “[T]he part must be a substantial part of that group. The aim of the Genocide Convention is to prevent the intentional destruction of entire human groups, and the part targeted must be significant enough to have an impact on the group as a whole.” They concluded that while the number of individuals targeted is the “necessary and important starting point,” one must also consider the number of victims in relation to the overall size of the entire group, as well as the prominence or importance of the targeted individuals within the entire group. In Krstic it was found that even though only Muslim men in one town were targeted, the number of victims was large and their significance was such that, to a certain extent, they represented the wider Bosnian Muslim community.

In 1998, the ICTR in Akayesu (the first ever conviction for genocide) found that acts of sexual violence may “constitute genocide in the same way as any other act as long as they were committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group, targeted as such”. The systematic rape, humiliation, and mutilation that occurred in Rwanda in 1994 “resulted in the physical and psychological destruction of Tutsi women, their families and communities.” Subsequent ICTR cases such as Kayishema, Musema and Rutaganda found that sexual violence satisfies the definitional requirements of “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group … deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

Sri Lanka next purveyors of genocide

In contrast to international legal obligations, Sri Lanka as a member of the U.N. is responsible for any crimes just as the Yugoslavia and Rwanda cases were taken on by the ICC. The events occurring in Sri Lanka from 1956 to the present are obvious acts of genocide as defined by the UN and accepted by the ICC and are due their just punishment.

It is important to analyse the plight of the Tamils on Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan Sinhala majority because Sri Lanka has committed numerous crimes recorded in local and international media. Also, the Sri Lankan leaders have publically acknowledged the pogroms took place taken against the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Sri Lankan state planned, sponsored, and launched anti-Tamil violence in 1956, 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977, 1981 and 1983. These pogroms were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. All these were violations by the Sri Lankan state as established by CPPCG as an international crime.

Europeans, Sinhalese and Tamil factors

Let us analyse of what happened from the medieval period of Sri Lanka’s history. When Portuguese took possession of the island in 1505, three kingdoms existed, Tamil kingdom in the Northeast and Sinhala kingdoms in the Southwest. Between 1505 and 1658, Portuguese remained on the island, but their motivation was to gain monopoly on the spice and cinnamon trade and proselytism. Then, the Dutch entered the island in 1658 and their rule lasted till 1796. This rule was characterised as greed, cruelty, and intolerance. The Dutch were much more interested in trade and profits than the Portuguese, who were more focused on spreading their religion and extending physical control. The island was then turned into a stopping point in their trading routes with the Far East, China, India, and Japan.

Finally, the British entered the island in 1796 and its empire flourished till 1948. After defeating all the separate kingdoms, the British managed to bring them together under one umbrella of government and it was the first European power that ruled the unified island. English became the national language, which lead to the enhancement of the education system. Many English-language Christian missionary schools were established in the Tamil-dominated North because of the resentment to such establishment in the Buddhist Sinhala south, which resulted in Tamils being considered comparatively educated and intelligent. Many Tamils entered the public services and the professions and excelled. Furthermore, Britain took tens of thousands of Tamils from the North to the Malaya peninsula to work in their public services. The British brought labour from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to work in the plantation in hill country. There is the unfounded belief that the British took over the paddy lands belonging to the Sinhala peasants to be converted to tea gardens. In actual fact, these lands planted with tea were barren and uncultivated before.

From 1915 to 1948, Sinhalese leaders worked together with Tamil leaders launched an independence movement to free the island from Britain. The demand for independence arose subsequent to the independence movement in India after the First World War. The Allies’ wartime propaganda about the virtue of freedom and self-determination of nations, heard and noted by Sri Lanka nationalist, sparked the growth of nationalism in Sri Lanka.

In 1915, the British misconstrued the Sinhala Muslim riot that broke out in the west coast as an anti-government conspiracy and consequently, put it down with brutal forces. This was considered the turning point in the nationalist movement in Sri Lanka. Learning that, in 1917, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League in India had joined for more nationalist progression, two years later, in 1919, the major Sinhalese and Tamil political organization in Sri Lanka united to form the Ceylon National Congress which proposed for a new constitution which was then written in 1920. The constitution was amended in 1924 which resulted in increasing Sri Lankan native representation. However, as the changed constitution failed to provide qualified government representation, in 1931, further constitutional changes were implemented providing Sri Lanka a some degree of self-government and allowing Sinhalese and Tamils to further extend their political influence.

During WWII, Sri Lanka became a central base for British operations in Southeast Asia after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942. At that time, Sri Lanka was not only the base for warfare operations, but it was also the supplier for essential products for allies, especially rubber, enabling the country to save a surplus in a hard currency. As its role as a seat of the Southeast Asia command, a broad infrastructure of health services and modern amenities were built to accommodate the large number of troops posted into all parts of the country. The inherited infrastructure improved the postwar standard of living.

Relations between Britain and Sri Lanka that were maintained since the WWII influenced the British to eventually promise full participatory government after the war. The British negotiated the island’s dominion status with the Vice Chairman of the Board of Ministers, Don Stephen Senanayake, who was also the founder and leader of the United Nation Party (UNP), the successor to the Ceylon National Congress. The negotiation ended with the Ceylon Independence Act of 1947 which formalized the transfer of power and later implemented as a new constitution (and making Sri Lanka a dominion) on 4th February 1948.

Post-Independent Sri Lanka

Following independence, D.S Senanayake was elected as a prime minister in 1948 and, together with his UNP party, formed the first independent government. His political opponents mostly were Tamils and Marxists. At first, his government ran smoothly, concentrating on maintaining a strong economy, strengthening social services, and weakening the opposition. In order to weaken the opposition and destroy a strong trade union movement, the government declared over a million hill-country Tamils, who were brought by the British to work in the plantation, as noncitizens in 1948. Further, Sinhalese colonization was intentionally begun in traditional Tamil homelands in 1949, subsequently, it continued and it is still continuing in order to change the demographic pattern of reducing Tamil representations in the parliament.

Upon D.S Senanayake’s death in 1952, he was succeeded by his son, Dudley Senanayake. He sought to abolish the system of the issue of rice at a subsidized price as the price of imported rice in 1953 and this resulted in mass riots and many deaths followed by the announcement of a state of emergency. Dudley resigned and was replaced by his uncle, Sir John Kotelawala, who was easily defeated in the 1956 general election and the next coalition led by SWRD Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) took power. Bandaranaike acted as the defender of a besieged Sinhalese culture. During his regime was passed the Official Language Act --‘Sinhala Only’ that would increase the power and job prospects of Sinhalese -- precipitating the antagonism between Sinhalese and Tamils. Tamil political leaders protested against the Sinhala Only Act in front of the parliament on June 5, 1956, but the Sinhalese mobs assaulted the picketers and the attack spread across the whole island. In May 1958, when the situation became intense, nationwide communal riots caused hundreds of deaths, mostly Tamils. This disturbance was the first major episode of communal violence on the island that left a deep psychological scar between the two ethnic groups. The government declared the state of emergency and forcibly relocated more than 25,000 Tamil refugees from Colombo and its suburbs to the Tamil areas in the North.

Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959 and, in the next year, was replaced by his widow and the succeeding leader of SLFP, Sirimavo, who then became the world’s first female prime minister. She continued her husband’s “socialist” policies, and seriously worsened the economy. She was defeated in the 1965 election by Dudley Senanayake, but able to regain the power again in 1970. In 1972, the government introduced a new constitution without Tamils participation, which unilaterally amended the name Ceylon to Sri Lanka, and declared Sri Lanka as a Socialist Republic and declared Buddhism as the state religion. She also introduced the ethnic standardization scheme to university admission to Tamils -- same entrance exam but Tamils needed to score 30% more than their Sinhala counterparts -- which enraged the Tamil youth.

The Tamils had to survive the pogroms instigated by the State in 1956, 1958, and 1961, whenever the Tamil political leaders stood up against the discriminatory policies of the Sri Lankan state. In 1974, during a session of an international Tamil Cultural Conference in Jaffna, the police waded into a large group of people, ostensibly in order to prevent a particular person from speaking, and a stampede resulted causing nine deaths. The Sri Lankan Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) reported that, following the adoption of the 1972 Constitution, “hundreds of Tamil youths were arrested and left to languish in gaols for long periods of time without being charged and convicted in accordance with the law. Several of them were taken into custody, ostensibly for questioning, but were most inhumanly tortured whilst in custody. The high handed action of the police on the final day of the Fourth International Tamil Research Conference held in Jaffna, in January 1974, when nine lives were lost, has left bitter memories among the Tamil youth.”

In 1977, Mrs. Bandaranaike lost the election to the reorganized UNP making Junius Richard (JR) Jayewardene, the UPN’s leader, prime minister. Many Tamil organizations found among them was the Tamil United Front founded in 1972 which later became the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1976.

In 1979, a state of emergency was declared in Jaffna. On August 1, 1979, the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka stated that: “CRM is gravely concerned at the allegations that several persons have died after being taken into custody by the police after the declaration of emergency in the North last month. According to information available to CRM it appears clear that at least some of these persons had been tortured before they died.” Allegations of the killing and torture of Tamil youth by police and armed forces during the 1979 emergency were widespread.

Of more immediate concern was the action of police in the burning of Jaffna in June 1981. A bank robbery in March had been followed by the detention incommunicado of a number of Tamil youths, and on May 31, two policemen were killed, and two wounded during an election rally. According to both government and Tamil sources, a large group of police (estimated variously from 100-200) went on a rampage on the nights of May 31 through June 1 and June 1through June 2 burning the market area of Jaffna, the office of the Tamil newspaper, the home of Jaffna MP, V. Yogeswaran, and the Jaffna Public Library. Tamil politicians said it was the responsibility of the government to maintain law and order and that several Cabinet ministers and high security officials were present in Jaffna when some of the violent events occurred. Further, 95,000 volumes in the Public Library, considered one of the biggest libraries in South Asia, was destroyed by the fire and included numerous culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts.

Vaddukkoddai Resolution: A mandate for separate Tamil Eelam

The Tamil United Liberation Party (TULF) declared a resolution, which is popularly known as “Resolution for Independence: Vaddukkoddai Resolution” in 1976, which urged the Tamils to vote for them in order to secure independent ‘Tamil Eelam’. The TULF declared 30 years of peaceful struggle for equality were denied and multiple pacts for regional autonomy were not honoured by the Sinhalese. Because their nonviolent protests were met with violence by the Sri Lankan state and failed to secure autonomy for Tamils in the Northeast, the TULF decided to go for independent ‘Tamil Eelam’. So, the elected Tamil political leaders convened and resolved to restore Tamil sovereignty by declaring an independent Tamil state in the Northeast of Sri Lanka. In the 1977 election, Tamils endorsed the call for independence by an 82% popular vote and the TULF became the main opposition party in Sri Lanka’s parliament. This is the first time a Tamil political party became the main opposition in the Sinhala parliament.

Tamil militants: Product of Sinhala violence against Tamils

Although following peaceful protests, the Tamil militants gained momentous support from the Tamil civilians because they overwhelmingly voted the TULF for an independent Tamil Eelam, but they were not able to fulfill their demands. Whenever these politicians spoke in parliament in support of Tamil Eelam or autonomy for Tamils, they met with violence engineered by the state. So, the Tamils had no choice but to support Tamil militants.

One of the strongest and determined Tamil militant organizations was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The JR Jayewardene government planned, organized, and implemented a programme of massive genocide against the Tamils which is a particular ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic group, the Dravidian Hindu and Christian Tamils in July 1983. Waiting to erupt, it was sparked by the killing of 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in Jaffna by the LTTE. In Colombo, over 3000 Tamils were massacred, tens of thousands of Tamils were tortured, and hundreds of Tamils were taken into custody, while nearly half a million Tamils were escorted to the North for safety. Millions of dollars worth of properties belonging to Tamils were destroyed and looted by the Sinhala mobs. The JR gave public speeches and media releases that his government had no choice but to wipe out the Tamils in order to satisfy the Sinhalese.

The convention on genocide punished the culprits in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but failed to study the genocidal events systematically carried out by the Sri Lankan state from 1956. Since the 1983 pogroms, nearly 100,000 Tamil civilians have been killed, 98% of them by the Sri Lankan armed forces. Eleven journalists have been killed in the last 3 years, 7 of them Tamils. Five Tamil parliamentarians have been gunned down. Over 20,000 women have been made widowed. Hundreds of Tamils have been jailed for no other crime committed than they were born into Tamil families. Hundreds of women are being tortured, raped, and killed in broad daylight, and even in front of their family members. Thousands of dead bodies remain in unidentified graves created by the Sri Lankan armed forces. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced. Thousands of underage children have been separated and lodged in barbed wire apart from their parents and relatives.

Thousands of children have been orphaned. Hindu and Christian clergies have been killed and their voices have been suppressed. Thousands of temples and churches have been damaged as a cultural impunity against such religious groups to prevent them from worshiping their gods. The government establishes new colonization after driving away the Tamils and import Sinhalese who are either loyal to the government or members of the Sri Lankan armed forces, as part of occupying Tamil homeland and rename the Tamil villages to Sinhala names to make the world believe that these villages are of traditional Sinhala.

When Hitler killed Jews, the free world declared war on fascism. France, the U.K. and the U.S. fought against the Nazis and brought freedom to many. Buddhist Sinhala regimes in Sri Lanka rule Tamils with the rod of terror. State terrorism, backed by the racist Sinhala Buddhist leaders, is taking the lives of thousands of Tamils every year. Defending the Tamils from this terror is not violence, but a struggle for freedom. France, the U.K. and the U.S. pleaded with Sri Lanka to stop the war with the Tamils and enter into genuine peace talks. But, the Sri Lankan government has spurned moves by these countries to stop the war. U.K. and French Foreign Ministers who went to Colombo recently returned empty handed.

The so-called democratic government is wiping out a race in the disguise of humanitarian operation and liberation. As part of the so called humanitarian and rescue operation, Sri Lankan forces surrounded an area and bombed and destroyed all the hospitals, schools, orphanages and old people homes. They destroyed farms, fruit trees and the cattle belonging to the people who have lived there for years. They drop cluster bombs and killed so many thousand innocent people including children, women and the elderly. Tamils in all parts of Sri Lanka live under the fear of intimidation, torture, rape, abduction and murder. Tamils are subjected to random arrests in the south of Sri Lanka and they are kept in prisons indefinitely without charges. Tamils in Sri Lanka are treated like Nazi Germany treated the Jewish people during the Second World War. So, the powerful countries and especially the three permanent members of the Security Council of the U.N. body – France, U.K. and the U.S. -- should, after reaching a compromise with the other two permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia, act quickly to save the Tamils on the island; or they should follow what they did against Nazis giving freedom to many in Europe.

The events taking place by the Sri Lankan state is clearly defined as genocide, and the events that have taken place on the island since the medieval period is proof that the Tamils are a distinct nation; have identified territorial boundary; and have the right to self-determination under international law. Further, the global community should indict the Sri Lankan government and military leaders for committing war crimes as defined by the U.N. The world is watching to see if Sri Lanka will be charged for genocide crimes just as they did in Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

(The author can be reached at e-mail: satheesan_kumaaran@yahoo.com)

-Sri Lanka Guardian