The Genocidal Imperative

By Ana Pararajasingham, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ June 6, 203

Preamble:

Sri Lanka’s history since its independence from 1948 clearly demonstrates that all Sri Lankan governments were driven by the intent to destroy the distinct identity of the Tamils as a nation[1]. As these actions were underpinned by intent, they clearly fall within the definition of genocide as stipulated by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide.[2]

The genocidal Imperative:

The causes:

Not all countries inhabited by more than one nation are torn apart by the spectre   of the numerically larger nation seeking to eliminate the distinct identity of the smaller nation/s.  There are many examples of multi-national states co-existing and prospering under political arrangements that recognise the distinct national identity of the composite nations. Canada, Belgium and Switzerland are examples of countries which have constitutional arrangements to co-exist as multi-national states. India is another country which, notwithstanding its diversity has forged ahead as a multi-national state

When Sri Lanka[3] was ‘granted’[4] its independence in 1948 under a unitary constitution, it was inevitable that political power should come to reside with the larger Sinhala nation. Sri Lanka’s first Prime Minister D S Senanayake elected under the unitary constitution was haunted by the fear that the most likely threat to Sri Lanka’s independence would come from India.[5] He also appears to have linked this fear of India to the presence of Tamils in a region in Sri Lanka not far from South India, home to over fifty million Tamils at that time. During the pre-independence discussions with Lord Soulbury, D S Senanayake had expressed his fear of the Tamils in Sri Lanka confederating with India ‘as Ulster separated from the Irish Republic to federate with Britain’.[6] This fear was the product of a notion prevalent amongst the Sinhalese of being “a hemmed in minority in the region, a beleaguered group”[7]. In addition, there is a widely held view amongst the Sinhalese that they are the original , true inhabitants of the island  placed in a special relationship to Buddhism as its protector and hence compelled to wage ‘dharma yudhaya’ (holy war) to preserve it.[8] This particular belief was the most dangerous and perhaps the one that provided the greatest impetus for the genocidal actions by the Sinhala political establishment. Indeed, it has been argued since the early 1960’s   that the roots of the violence unleashed against the Tamils  are to be found in the Sinhalese conception of themselves as a ‘special people’ in the context of the island and in the belief about themselves as the chosen guardians of Buddhism.  Not surprisingly this view has been likened to the Old Testament inspired view of some Jews in relation to the State of Israel.[9]

The Actions

Actions to change the demography of the Tamil Homeland

According to Dr. Selvanathan of Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland: ”One of the most vicious forms of oppression of Tamils by successive Sri Lankan (Sinhala) Governments is the destruction of the national identity of the Tamils through government-sponsored aggressive Colonisation Scheme”[10]

It must, however, be noted that even before the island had become  fully independent, the plans  to change the demography were set in motion by D S Senanayake  who was the Minister for Agriculture in the State Council. This led to the enactment of Land Development Ordinance in 1935. Under the powers vested in this Act, D S Senanayake began a rapid land settlement and colonisation scheme whereby landless Sinhalese peasants were settled in the Northeast as part of irrigation schemes. When the Soulbury Commission visited the island later to consider the grant of independence, Tamil politicians had drawn attention to the possibility of the demography of the Tamil Homeland being affected should such schemes continue [11] D.S Senanayake’s actions were to be expected in view of the political ideology he had openly articulated in 1939 when he told a gathering of Sinhalese “We are one blood and one nation. We are a chosen people. The Buddha said that his religion would last 5,500 years. That means we, as custodians of that religion shall last as long“[12] . Since 1948, the schemes to change[13] the demography of the Northeast were pursued with great vigour. The pre-dominantly Sinhala parliament helped the process by enacting various laws to make this possible along with several administrative measures. These did not go unnoticed by the International community. In 1984, International Alert pointed out that during the latter part of 1984, the Government announced its plan to settle Sinhalese people in the predominantly Tamil North and East to reflect the nationwide population ratio of 75% Sinhalese to 25 % of other minorities[14] Soon after, two British parliamentarians (Robert Kilroy Silk MP and Roger Simms MP) who visited Sri Lanka as members of the UK Parliamentary  Humans Rights Group in 1985 noted[15]: “We can say, without much doubt, that the government is driving the Tamils from their homes and does intend to settle Sinhalese People in these areas”

This attempt to change the demography is being pursued with even greater vigour with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. It is based on the strategy of ‘Ethnic flooding’[16] which involves flooding the Tamil Homeland with a Sinhalese population, initially, with families of the armed forces and thereafter with civilian settlers. In addition, by deliberately creating conditions that have made life unsafe for young Tamils, the Sri Lankan state has forced young Tamils to flee the country. The means used include: torture, ‘disappearance’ of those taken into custody and rape. There is also evidence of direct involvement by the Sri Lankan Government in ‘helping’ Tamils flee the country. The Australian of 1st February 2013 reported of senior Sri Lankan government official being personally “complicit” in the people-smuggling trade.[17] Anecdotal evidence provided by asylum seekers to this writer suggest that Sri Lankan officials are indeed complicit in permitting Tamils flees the country in large numbers. This is supported by the fact that during 2012 alone almost 6,000 Tamils left for Australia by boats, many of them from ports under the control of the Sri Lankan military.

Anti-Tamil violence directed to destroy in whole or in part

The anti-Tamil violence unleashed by successive Sri Lankan Governments fall within four broad time frames (1956 to July 1983; July 1983 to January 2008; January 2008 to May 2009 and May 2009 to the present).

1956 to July 1983

Stanley Tambiah  in his book “Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy  written  in the wake of the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983 identified  six  previous  bouts of anti-Tamil violence[18].  The pogrom of   July 1983 was   the seventh. By all accounts the July 1983 pogrom (‘Black July’) was the worst claiming at least 3,000 lives in a space of just two weeks. In March 1984, following his fact finding mission to Sri Lanka, Paul Seighart[19], of the International Commission of Jurists concluded that, “Clearly this was not a spontaneous upsurge of communal hatred among the Sinhala people. It was a series of deliberate acts, executed in accordance with a concerted plan, conceived and organised well in advance. “

Although ‘Black July’ is widely regarded as the trigger that transformed a political demand into an armed struggle for political independence, there is a body of evidence suggesting that the parting of the ways had occurred almost 25 years ago. Tarzie Vittachi, an eminent Sinhala journalist ended his book on an earlier pogrom leaving his readers pondering the question “Have the Sinhalese and Tamils reached the parting of the ways?”[20].  Vittachi provides a graphic and chilling account of an incident which had come to symbolise the nature of violence unleashed against the Tamils during the 1958 pogrom.

“On the night of May 25, one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Ceylon was carried out. Almost simultaneously, on the Government farms at Polonnaruwa and Hingurakgoda, the thugs struck remorselessly. The Tamil labourers in the Polonnaruwa sugar-cane plantation fled when they saw the enemy approaching and hid in the sugar-cane bushes. The goondas wasted no time. They set the sugar cane alight and flushed out the Tamils. As they came out screaming, men, women and children were cut down with home-made swords, grass-cutting knives and katties, or pulped under heavy clubs. At the Government farm at Hingurakgoda, too, the Tamils were slaughtered that night. One woman in sheer terror embraced her two children and jumped into a well. The rioters were enjoying themselves thoroughly. They ripped open the belly of a woman eight months pregnant, and left her to bleed to death. First estimates of the mass murders on that night were frightening: 150—200 was a quick guess on the basis of forty families on an average of four each”

Then onwards attacks on Tamils living in the Sinhala region began to occur with alarming regularity.

In 1977, a particularly vicious bout of anti-Tamil violence was unleashed in the wake of the General Elections in which the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) contesting on the platform of an independent Tamil state had secured the votes of an overwhelming majority of the Tamil people.[21] The verdict by the Tamils was accurately perceived as a direct challenge to Sinhala dominance. Hence the anti-Tamil violence and the explanation professed by Sinhala historian K M de Silva that the TULF had ‘contributed not a little’ to what he euphemistically referred to as “communal disturbances”.[22] In 1981, the Government, in a further attempt to ‘teach the Tamils a lesson’ burnt down the Jaffna Public Library with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts. The Government’s hand in this act of ‘cultural genocide’ was exposed as it was carried out while two high ranking Cabinet Ministers, Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake (both self-confessed Sinhala supremacists) were present in town[23]. Significantly, the book burning had preceded the massacre of July 1983 proving the prediction by the  German poet Heinrich Heine, “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”

Thereafter, bouts of anti-Tamil violence were to occur in rapid succession culminating in the climatic violence of July 1983.There were several cases of Tamils being burnt alive like they were in the 1958 pogrom and thereafter. A particularly gruesome burning was reported by Norwegian tourist Mrs Eli Skarstein and her 15 year old daughter, Kristen, as a mini bus full of Tamils was stopped by a Sinhala mob, petrol poured and the bus set on fire after ensuring that the doors were locked. The eye witnesses reported that over a hundred spectators watched as twenty Tamils were burnt to death.[24]

It was therefore not surprising that The Review, a publication of the International Commission of Jurists should boldly state that: “The evidence points clearly to the conclusion that the violence of the Sinhala rioters on the Tamils amounted to acts of genocide”[25]

July 1983 to January 2008

During this period marked by a vicious civil war with intermittent cease-fires,  thousands of Tamil civilians were deliberately  killed and maimed by the Sri Lankan state  as part its  policy of beating the Tamils into submission. These   killings have taken the form of massacres of civilians taken into custody (extra judicial killings)[26], deliberate bombing of places of worship,[27] schools[28] and orphanages[29]. In addition, rape has been widely used as a weapon of war[30] to intimidate the population while food & medicine have been deliberately denied to starve the population[31]. Almost a million Tamils were forced to flee the island to escape the violence in one of the worst cases of ethnic cleansing in modern times.

January 2008 to May 2009

In January 2008, the Sri Lankan government withdrew from the cease-fire to commence its all-out assault. It is estimated that this assault claimed the lives of at least 130,000 Tamils. The scale and nature of the violence specifically unleashed against the civilians during the final phase of the war  prompted  the New York-based Genocide Prevention Project to  cite Sri Lanka in December 2008  as one of the eight “red alert” countries where genocide and other mass atrocities were underway or risk breaking out. In February 2009, the Boston Globe published an article comparing the ongoing massacre in Sri Lanka to the Bosnian Srebrenica genocide and pointed out that Sri Lanka’s armed forces had in the previous month employed indiscriminate bombing and shelling to herd 350,000 Tamil civilians into a government-prescribed “safety zone,” where, more than 1,000 were slaughtered and more than 2,500 injured.[32]

In March 2011, a UN Panel found credible allegations of war crimes committed during the final stages of the war as the Sri Lanka Army advanced its military campaign into the Vanni causing large numbers of civilian deaths.

These findings have been confirmed by accounts provided by survivors of the massacre. In a ‘private’ account provided to former BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka , Francis Harrison,  a UN official confirmed that the government had  declared safe zones  only to gather civilians in one place  to kill as many as possible. [33]  Channel Four, a British Television channel has provided video footage of former Tamil rebels being killed in cold blood and more recently chilling evidence of the cold blooded murder of the12 year old son of the Tamil Tiger leader.

 May 2009 to the present

There is mounting evidence that torture, disappearances and rape continue to occur. According to the US State Department’s Country Report for 2012, attacks and harassment of civil society activists, persons viewed as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sympathizers and journalists continue unabated.  The report also alleges that the Sri Lankan government has created an environment of fear and a continuation of “involuntary disappearances”.  These findings by the US State Department are supported by Amnesty International[34]and Human Rights Watch[35]

Consequences

A major consequence of the genocidal actions pursued by the Sinhala polity is the fall out in Tamil Nadu. During the time of the last phase of the war, New Delhi was able to contain Tamil Nadu to a large extent because it had the support of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a constituent party of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ,  which had supported the actions of the Sri Lankan regime. Significantly DMK was the party that was governing Tamil Nadu at that time.  Meanwhile, Sri Lanka by evacuating all Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) operating within the Tamil Homeland had suppressed the true nature of the atrocities from being exposed. It was a war without witnesses! But during the latter stages of the war as news of the genocidal intent came to be known the reaction in Tamil Nadu was profound. The protests in Tamil Nadu during the last phase of the war were directed not only against Sri Lanka but more significantly against its own Central Government for its role in assisting the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). More tellingly, the protests involved acts of self-immolation in Tamil Nadu drawing comparisons to the self-immolations by Buddhist monks in Vietnam opposing US involvement.[36] The first act of self-immolation was by K. Muthukumar, a journalist, on January 29, 2009 in Chennai. The protests that followed Muthukumar’s self-immolation were largely led by students.

The first casualty of the suppressed anger was the DMK. At the Tamil Nadu State elections in May 2011, DMK was comprehensively defeated by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

Most significantly, there has emerged a qualitative difference in the support for the Sri Lankan Tamils. Whereas, in the earlier phase, during the Indira Gandhi era, the support was more in sympathy, the support that is now being demonstrated is fuelled by the conviction that New Delhi had betrayed its Tamil constituents by assisting Sri Lanka’s military solution.  Since then the anger against the Sri Lankan regime has grown spearheaded by a younger generation of Tamils with little or no party affiliation. Both the ruling AIADMK and the DMK now in opposition in Tamil Nadu have taken to reacting to this support which has been accurately perceived as emanating from the grassroots. Also significantly, reflecting the grassroots level concerns, the issue of the Tamils in Sri Lanka has been conflated with the the plight of Tamil Nadu fishermen, who, it is claimed are the target of harassment by the Sri Lankan Navy.

The extent of the support being openly articulated has significantly impacted both New Delhi and Tamil Nadu. The actions taken by Tamil Nadu politicians have been symbolic and profound.  These include: the cancellation of the staging of the Asian games in Chennai as it involved participation of athletes from Sri Lanka[37], the banning Sri Lankan participation in the Indian Premiere League (IPL)  cricket tournament in Chennai,[38] the withdrawal by the  DMK  from the Central government citing New Delhi’s failure  to  include  the charges of  war crimes  and genocide in US sponsored resolution censuring Sri Lanka and the adoption of an unanimous resolution in Tamil Nadu Legislature asking the Centre to stop treating Sri Lanka as a friendly country and demanding India move a UN resolution seeking a referendum on an independent state of Eelam[39]  In turn these actions have drastically impacted the Centre’s domestic policy compelling a senior member of the Central Government, Finance Minister Chidamparam  to refer to the “2009 genocide by Sri Lanka”.[40]

In view of the above New Delhi may be compelled to review its policies in respect of Sri Lanka.  Some Indian analysts, however, regard changes to foreign policies to appease regional concerns to be a dangerous development as it undermines the Centre’s powers.[41] Others have called for parliament to be excluded from foreign policy implementation altogether.[42] However, based on the premise that foreign policy is inexorably linked to domestic politics, New Delhi may be compelled to   review India’s Foreign policy in respect of Sri Lanka.  It has been pointed out that India acts in accordance with its perceived national interest and those interests are influenced by both systemic and domestic considerations. Indeed, Tamil Nadu has been cited as a state which has long exerted a major influence on India–Sri Lanka relations. [43]

One of the ways in which New Delhi can accommodate Tamil Nadu’s concerns is to implement mechanisms to protect the Tamils from the continuing genocidal actions of Colombo.  A bolder initiative would of course be to proceed along the lines of the Tamil Nadu resolution and assist in the establishment of a Tamil State in the island of Sri Lanka. If New Delhi is able to successfully implement such a policy it can serve its interest in many ways. Apart from addressing the Tamil Nadu factor, it can also provide New Delhi the strategic space to counter the increasing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. Such a policy will also be in keeping with the advice proffered by Professor Sumatra Bose[44] in 2007 in the course of his key note address at a seminar[45]exploring the international dimensions of the conflict in Sri Lanka. According to Bose, despite the unhappy history of the last twenty years, it is with the Tamil people of Sri Lanka that India needs to build its alliance. New Delhi ought to build on the natural affinity between India and the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. There is no other community that has such powerful affinity of a historical and cultural nature with India. He made this point in the context of the perception by the Indian establishment “with good cause” that it is surrounded by hostility in the region[46].

ENDNOTES