ILankai Tamil Sangam, USA
Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA
PO Box 46, Maryknoll, NY, 10545
www.sangam.org

                                                                                                            October 7, 2000

Your Excellency,

The Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka, USA sends you its greetings and wishes to draw your attention to the situation in our ancestral homeland, the island of Sri Lanka. We urgently request the assistance of your esteemed nation to end the conflict in Sri Lanka. We have some suggestions at the end of this letter which we believe would help end some of the more egregious human rights abuses, humanitarian issues and political problems in the country, and which would help lead toward a just and permanent peace.  We ask your generous help in assuring their implementation.

The Association is deeply concerned at the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. We are therefore heartened by the final unanimously adopted resolution at last month’s UN Millennium Summit that calls for the development within the UN of “comprehensive and integrated strategies to address the root causes of conflicts, including their economic and social dimensions.” Mr. Blair of Britain said at the Summit, “We cannot isolate conflict from the root cause of it.” Mr.Chretien of Canada mentioned that Canada would establish an international panel to study military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Mr. Annan, UN Secretary General said, “No amount of resolutions or statements can change this reality. Only actions can--prompt, united and effective action... to halt the conflict and restore peace.”  We believe that Sri Lanka is one of the first countries to which this new policy should be addressed.

Given today’s horrific conflict and political stalemate, the options for Tamils seem to be to continue the war till a separate state is formed, or to live permanently as second class citizens, both of which the Tamils do not want, and we are sure, you will not advocate. The third option is for the international community to persuade the Sri Lankan government to pass and implement a new constitution ensuring that Tamils are treated as equals and their aspirations are met.  Such an arrangement has to be underwritten by a body such as the UN.  Persuasive means such as refusing aid and imposing sanctions, as was used with South Africa and for the same reasons, might well be required.

We ask you to persuade the Sri Lankan government to:

We sincerely thank you for your attention to finding a solution to the tragic war which has engulfed our homeland.

Very truly yours,

Felix A. Christopher,
President

Tamils and the State of Sri Lanka

Current Situation

A war has engulfed Sri Lanka for the last 17 years. The war shows no signs of abating, rather, each side continues to increase the number of men under arms and the firepower employed.  The most active fighting is going on at the moment in the Jaffna Peninsula, an area of 100 sq. kilometers with sea on all sides and a population of 500,000.  Hundreds of combatants are routinely killed in each battle, along with too many civilians. 

The country has been ruled under emergency regulations most of the time since independence. A Terrorism Act that has been described as the "worst of its kind in the civilized world" by international jurists has been in force for years and was made more stringent recently. Arrests by security services without warrant, incarceration for long periods - some for over five years - without being produced before a magistrate or courts are all permitted. Confessions obtained during torture can be introduced as evidence. Many are killed and their bodies disposed of without an inquest. The attitude of the government has encouraged the armed forces and police to act with impunity against a population which supports the Tamil resistance.

The Sri Lankan armed forces have been indiscriminately arresting, torturing, raping and killing Tamil civilians. They have bombed, shelled and strafed civilian areas, including residences, schools, places of worship, hospitals, other infrastructure, and even refugee camps. Over 62,000 civilians have been killed and, according to Amnesty International, 95 % of those killed have been Tamils. There are over 20,000 widows and even more orphans as a result of  this war. Billions of dollars worth of private property has been destroyed. The infrastructure of the North and East has been flattened and the economy decimated. In addition, over 30,000 combatants have been killed in this conflict, and many more injured.

Food and medicine have been used as weapons of war. (Please see Prof. Paust’s article in the Vanderbilt Law Journal of Transnational Law, May, 1998). The embargo on food, medicine, many other daily necessities of life and items needed for carrying out people's avocations, such as fertilizers, pesticides, fishing nets, and the prevention of fishing in certain areas, coupled with a scorched earth policy of burning rice fields and jungles and cutting down trees have all caused immense hardship to the civilian population. The shortages of food and medicine, in particular, have been reported by the Government Agents (chief administration officers of the government in each district), hospitals, doctors, and international NGOs such as Medicines Sans Frontiers, ICRC and UNHCR. To make matters worse, many NGOs have been barred from working in Tamil areas.

Using war as the excuse, a genocidal assault on the physical and cultural foundations of Tamil society has been carried out by the government and armed forces of the Sri Lankan state.

Many of the atrocities committed by the armed forces of successive Sri Lankan governments against Tamils have been reported repeatedly by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, International Alert, the US Committee for Refugees, the Asian Human Rights Commission and the annual Country Reports on Sri Lanka by the US State Department. Censorship of news (even by foreign news organizations) and the banning of journalists from areas of conflict, complemented by the government's false propaganda have successfully prevented the full scale of the tragic situation from reaching most of the world, however.

As a result of the prevailing situation, nearly 800,000 persons (out of a total Tamil population of 3 ½ million) have left the island as refugees since 1983.  A Sept., 1999 report by UNICEF stated that there were 614,000 internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka. Since April 2000 the number has increased by a further 160,000. Many of the displaced have had to flee multiple times in the course of the war. The report further states that of a total of 900,000 children in Tamil areas, 300,000 are displaced and that many have been living in welfare centers for long periods. The report states that the war has been particularly hard on the women and children.

Expressions of Concern

In a recent letter to the US Secretary of State, Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the US House Committee on International Relations expressed concern over the worsening humanitarian crises in Sri Lanka. He noted that the government had a “long history of repressing the human rights of the Tamil people” and that “the embargo on food and medicine and other essentials to the Tamil people has caused a humanitarian crisis.”

In a letter dated June 29, 2000 addressed to President Chandrika, 14 US Congressmen urged her to grant aid workers safe passage to war torn areas to ease the plight of Tamil refugees, three quarters of whom are women and children, as basic necessities like food and medicine are in short supply. The letter also requested that the UNHCR and the ICRC be allowed to play a greater role to secure the passage of refugees to areas of greater safety.

On Sept. 1, 2000 US Congressman Brad Sherman, a member of the US House International Relations Committee, expressed concern that, “Instead of working to change the behavior of the armed forces that persecute many Tamils, the government has resorted to undemocratic methods in controlling information.  The press is barred from the areas of conflict by direct and indirect coercion.”

Following a visit to Sri Lanka on a fact finding tour this summer by two British members of the European Parliament, the two members strongly criticized the government's human rights record, comparing the plight of Tamil civilians to that of civilians in Sierra Leone and Chechnya. They stated that Sri Lanka had not done enough to protect the civilians and was covering up their suffering through an oppressive press censorship. They accused the government of not allowing essential supplies, including baby food and medicines, to be distributed to areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers. They also commented that they had seen evidence of torture.

In a recent report Amnesty International noted that there has been an increase in cases of torture, disappearances and deaths in Sri Lankan military and police custody since new emergency regulations were introduced in May 2000. Details of the torture are mentioned in that report.

Cause of the Conflict

Britain’s Mr. Blair has said that a conflict cannot be isolated from its root cause. The root cause of the Sri Lankan conflict is the refusal by any Sinhalese political party or group to treat Tamils as equal citizens. During the elections Sinhalese parties vie with each other to prove that each of them is more anti-Tamil than all the others. The Tamils want to be treated as equals in every respect.

Since independence from Britain, the majority Sinhalese have discriminated against and oppressed the minority Tamils. Language and cultural rights, access to employment and education, control over land and local police forces, the lack of investment and markets have all been issues of contention. In addition, Tamils’ physical security has been frequently endangered. There have been many communal attacks against Tamils, culminating in the pogrom of 1983 when over 3,000 Tamils were killed and billions of rupees worth of property destroyed.  This pogrom was the match which lighted the war.

Recent Political Events

After a war of liberation from neo-colonial Sinhala rule and domination lasting 11 years, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge stood for election as President in 1994 on a peace platform. She eloquently enumerated all the discrimination faced by Tamils and mentioned that she would “obtain peace at any cost” and would negotiate with the freedom fighters. She said she had a ‘Peace Package’ (proposals to change the consitution) and would introduce it to bring justice to the Tamils. She vowed to eliminate the all-powerful executive presidency and re-introduce the system of a powerful prime minister. She was elected with an unprecedented 62% of the votes cast and the LTTE declared a unilateral cease-fire.

Peace talks started and 44 letters were exchanged between the President and the leader of the LTTE. Unfortunately, government delegates to the talks were not experienced politicians who could take decisions, but bureaucrats and friends of the President. Matters agreed at the talks were reneged on and the talks broke down. The President started her Orwellian ‘war for peace’ to eliminate the LTTE and alienate the Tamil people from it. She said that having done so, she would introduce her ‘Peace Package’ (irrespective of whether Tamils accepted it or not). Since the talks broke down, the LTTE has said it is prepared to give up the demand for a separate state, if the aspirations of the Tamils are met. It is prepared for unconditional talks under third party mediation.  Low key talks with the assistance of Norway have taken place.

After watering down the initial proposals to solve the national conflict through constitutional means several times, a new package was announced in Aug.1997 and a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) was appointed to examine it. New, even more watered down proposals were announced in Oct.1997 and called "the PSC's Proposals". However, many participants in the PSC disowned these proposals. While paying lip service to a political solution rather than a military solution, the war continued.

As it is necessary to have a two-third majority in Parliament to get the proposals passed, talks took place with the other major Sinhalese party, the UNP, over this past summer. The result was a further watering down of the proposals. In the meantime several new chauvinistic Sinhalese parties have been formed which oppose the proposals, along with the majority of the powerful Buddhist clergy, despite the assurance of further strengthening of the position of Buddhism in the proposed constitution. The view of the opponents is that the country is Sinhala Buddhist and no 'concessions' should be given to Tamils.  The end result has been that a set of proposals which would have provided some limited autonomy within a “union of regions” has now been eviscerated.  The current proposals emphasize the unitary nature of the state and the continuance of Buddhism as the state religion.  They are a far cry from the “radical federalism” that some of both its supporters and opponents describe them as. 

The constitutional proposals were presented in Parliament in late summer, but they were opposed by the UNP, some members of the President’s own party, almost all Tamil groups including ex-militants, and the LTTE, for different reasons. Pres. Chandrika withdrew the proposals, dissolved the Parliament and called for elections for Oct.10th. Chandrika persuaded her ailing mother to resign from the position of Prime Minister and appointed a Sinhalese hard-liner to succeed her. He has already said that he will attempt to eradicate the LTTE, rather than negotiate with them, and is opposed to some parts of the current proposals.