Death by Government

by Kenneth Welsh

One year after the agreement on the Peace-making Process [CFA] was signed between the then Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Movement of Tamil ethnic minority, one of the prominent scholars in Political Science, Barbara Harff, put forward a definition for GENOCIDE which is truly appropriate and applicable to the conduct of the present and past regimes of the Government of Sri Lanka. Hartff says, 'GENOCIDE and POLITICIDES are the promotion, execution, and or in the case of civil war, either of the contending authorities - that are intended to DESTROY, in whole or part, a communal, political, or POLITICIZED ETHNIC group.'

Another scholar of Political Science, R.J.Rummel, coined the term 'DEMOCIDE' to describe 'GOVERNMENT MASS MURDER.' According to his research study, millions of men, women ans children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, burned alive, drowned, hung, bombed or killed in any of the myriad ways GOVERNMENTS have inflicted death on UNARMED HELPLESS CITIZENS and foreigners. Rummel descibes this human catastrophe as 'POWER KILLS : ABSOLUTE POWER KILLS ABSOLUTELY.'

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have witnessed democides in many countries, particularly in Sri Lanka. The politicide on the island was rooted back in the early days of first regime of the Government of Ceylon. As soon as they gained independence from Britain, two separate elite groups took control of the Government. Since then, there have been numerous killings, mass murders of genocidal nature, and, in recent years, the killing has turned into DEMOCIDE. The division of Ceylon between Sinhalese and Tamil was formalised no sooner the British left the shores of this island. Independence spawned the first phase of a colonisation scheme - a form of ethnic cleansing in the Tamil area where Tamils had lived for centuries.The successive Sinhalese regimes of the Government of Sri Lanka have controlled all aspects of society through fear, coercion and force.

References:
Micheal Mann - 'The Dark Side of Democracy : The Modern Tradition of Ethnic and Political Cleansing.'
Roy Gutman and David Rieff - 'Crimes of War : What the Public Should Know.'
Ratner and Abrams - 'Accountability for Human Atrocities.'

• View a printer-friendly version of this article