by North East Secretariat for Human Rights, Vanni, 2010
This Book is dedicated to the thousands of Eelam Tamils who lost their life at the hands of the Sri Lankan and Indian State Armed Forces.
NESoHR-Massacres-of-Tamils-1956-2008 English
Originally posted on Sangam at
Massacres of Tamil 1956 – 2008 Documented by North East Secretariat for Human Rights Manitham January 2010
Introduction
The Sri Lankan State sponsored violence against the Tamil people in the
island of Sri Lanka has a very long history. A startling aspect of this State
violence is the large scale massacres of Tamils. Some of them are so
spectacular that they are etched in the Tamil psyche. Prior to the signing of
the internationally brokered February 2002 ceasefire agreement, there have
been hundreds of such massacres. After a two year lull, the violent
campaign by the military was re-launched in 2004. This report documents a
selected number the massacres during these two periods ending at the end of
2008.
The events of early 2009 are the subject of many war crimes
investigations. NESOHR was forced to stop functioning in Vanni by the end
of 2008 due to the prevailing situation of massive displacement and
incessant and indiscriminate artillery attacks and aerial bombardments. We
therefore did not collect on-the-spot reports of the events in 2009. We have
added a very brief note and some pictures from this period at the end.
From 1987-1989 the Indian forces that were stationed in the Tamil
homeland were also responsible for a large number of massacres. These are
also documented separately at the end of the book as Part II.
Background
As the instances of large scale massacres reported in this book
demonstrates, Tamil were subjected to genocide by the Sri Lankan State
long before a single shot was fired by a Tamil militant against the Sri
Lankan State’s armed forces. Massacres were only a part of this genocide
program carried out by the Sri Lankan State against the Tamils. Huge
swaths of land that traditionally belonged to the Tamils were settled by
Sinhala people who were brought there from faraway places in the Sinhala
areas. The motive behind many of the massacres described here was to evict
the Tamils from their land in order to colonise it with Sinhala people.
Upcountry Tamils were disenfranchised en masse and Tamils were stripped
of their language rights.
The problems came to the fore after the British colonial powers withdrew
from the island in 1948 giving it a unitary constitution. In effect this
constitution handed over the power to the Sinhala majority. It is this unitary
constitution and the power in the hands of the Sinhalese that lead to the
unrestrained violence against the Tamils and large scale violations of their
basic human rights.
The island was under three consecutive colonial rulers the Portuguese,
Dutch and the British since the 16th century. Documented history during
these three periods reveals that the colonial rulers maintained a separation of
the Tamil and Sinhala communities in their administrative systems. This
separation was eventually eroded by the final constitution left by the last
colonial ruler, Britain. This constitution was opposed by the Tamils even at
that time.
The first victims of the Sinhala majoritarianism were the Tamil plantation
workers in the central regions of the island. These Tamils were brought
from India by the British colonial rulers to work in the tea plantations that
they have started. A million of this working people, contributing to the
prosperity of the island for more than a century, were disenfranchised by an
infamous law in 1949.
This was soon followed by the ‘Sinhala only’ Language Act that made the
Tamil speaking people stripped of their right to use their language in their
jobs, in their courts, and in their communications with the State. The sense
of alienation from the State was further intensified when Tamils were faced
with discrimination in education and jobs as well.
Since the British left the island, Tamil political representatives have
negotiated with successive governments to draw up new models of
governance that will give some powers to the Tamil areas to manage their
own affairs. However, the two major political parties that dominated the
politics of the Sinhala people fed on the anti-Tamil sentiments of the
Sinhala people to gain votes among them. In other words whenever the
party in power came to a negotiated agreement with Tamil representatives
for power sharing, the Sinhala party in opposition would whip up the
animosity of the Sinhala people against the Tamils forcing the party in
power to abrogate the agreement.
This violence, land grab, discrimination and abrogated agreements lead the
Tamil youth of the 1970’s to take up arms to fight for the independence of
Tamil Eelam. The nearly thirty year history since the armed struggle was
launched by the Tamil youth for an independent Tamil Eelam is also
scattered with many peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan Government
and the Tamil political and militant groups. The last of which was the
internationally brokered 2002 ceasefire agreement. All of these agreements
broke down due to the intransigence of the Sinhala leaders and their polity.
The struggle by the Tamils continues.
The history of the Tamil and Sinhala people prior to the arrival of the
colonial powers more than 500 years ago, is marred in controversy. At the
root of this confusion is a Sinhala Buddhist text called Mahavamsa, written
around 600 CE ago. Early western historians, in the absence of any other
evidence, taking much of this text to be true, propagated theories based on
them. This text was further reinterpreted in the 20th century by Buddhist
revivalists. In their reinterpretation the Tamil presence in the island was
relegated as late coming invaders and it also elevated the Sinhala people as
the rightful owners of the island. This has had profound effect on the
thinking of the contemporary Sinhala people leading to their intransigence
to share power with the Tamils.
Recent archaeological research in the Tamil homeland has thrown much
light on the presence of a civilization in this island several millenniums ago
and predating the arrival of Buddhism in this island. This archaeological
evidence show much in common with what has been unearthed in
Tamilnadu in India. They have demonstrated the presence of Tamil people
in this island for several millenniums. A lot more linguistic and
archaeological research needs to be done to map the development of the
Tamil and Sinhala people as well as the Muslim people in this island.
However, there is no doubt that the Tamil and Sinhala peoples lived in this
island for several thousand years.
Data Collection and reporting details
Each of the selected massacres is described briefly. The circumstances
surrounding the massacre, an eyewitness account where ever possible, and
available names of those killed are also included. It is important to
remember that the eye witnesses only report what they saw. In reality one
eye witness sees only a small part of the larger atrocity that is planned and
carried out by the State forces.
The data collection for what is described in this book has two distinct
phases. The first phase was conducted mostly during the first two years after
the 2002 ceasefire agreement, which was a small window of time without
the pervasive fear created by the military in the Tamil homeland. This phase
was started by SNE prior to the launch of NESOHR. Data collectors were
employed on contract basis. A university graduate was appointed as the
coordinator for each district. Permission was obtained from the District
Secretariat and the help of the Grama Sevakar was sought. In addition to
collecting data on victims, affidavits were collected from families.
The questioner used to collect data is a table printed over both sides of a
large sheet of paper with 21 columns in it. Data on each affected person is
entered in one row. The columns in the table are, 1) Row number; 2) Full
name of informant; 3) Full name of affected person; 4) Relationship to
informant; 5) Age of the affected person at the time of incident; 6)Sex; 7)
Permanent address; 8) Temporary address; 9)Location of incident; 10)Year
of incident; 11)Occupation of the affected person at the time of incident; 12)
Number of dependents on the affected person under the age of 18 at that
time; 13) Incident on Land or Sea; 14) In what form the person is affected;
15) What type of violence was used; 16) Offender; 17) Occasion of arrest;
18) Occasion of disappearance; 19) Type of limb lost; 20) Other type of
injury; 21) Notes.
All of this data collection maintained in Vanni was lost as a result of the
2009 destruction. This book is based on the reports in the NESOHR website
that has survived the destruction. In the description of the massacres that
occurred prior to 2002, a map is included pinpointing the exact location of
the incident. Local people remembered many of the massacres prior to 2002
by building a monument for those killed. Pictures of some of these
monuments are also included in the pages.
For the massacres that occurred after 2002, the data collection was carried
out on the spot. As such there were difficulties in collecting data about some
of the incidents that occurred in the Sri Lankan military areas. Many such
incidents are missing from this report. Maps are also not provided for
incidents that occurred in this period due to time constraints. People have
not yet had a chance to build monuments for these massacres. Thus there are
no photos of monuments for the massacres of this period. A photo of the
incident or a photo of the victims is provided for these cases.
Large scale displacement had taken place among the Tamil community
since the late 1970’s. Therefore this report could not include incidents that
were witnessed by those who have moved to places outside the Tamil
homeland. Also missing are information about families that were killed en
masse because no one is left in the villages to report about them.
Detailed reporting of the events of 2009 leading to the largest ever massacre
of Tamil civilians during the second week of May 2009 is presently beyond
the capacity of NESOHR, which ceased to function by January 2009 due to
the prevailing situation in Vanni. A favourable environment in the Tamil
homeland is needed to accurately document the events in this period. Efforts
by other groups are, however, underway to map the incidents in this period
based on whatever sources available. There is a brief description of this
peirod in the very last section of this book.
We, therefore, strongly caution the readers not to consider this book as a
complete record of the massacres of Tamils by the Sri Lankan Armed
Forces.
The massacres are ordered by date in most cases but a few of them, around
ten, appear outside this order. We hope the reader will tolerate this
inconsistency in the order. NESOHR has published in depth reports on two
massacres that occurred prior to 2002 and many of the massacres that
occurred after 2002. These can be downloaded from the NESOHR website.