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Template:State terrorism Several groups have alleged that there have been instances of state terrorism in Sri Lanka.
Response to JVP uprisings
Most of the victims of state violence during JVP uprisings were civilians from the majority Sinhalese community. During the first JVP uprising, in 1971, over 15,000 civilians were killed by the armed forces.
During the second JVP uprising, in 1987-89, an estimated 50,000 civilians disappeared or were killed.
Attacks on civilians, pre-1983
There were number of well established attacks by the state on civilians prior to 1983 Black July pogrom. The prominent ones are the fourth World Tamil Research Conference was held in the city of Jaffna between January 3 and 9, 1974, during which due to police action it resulted in the loss of nine lives, the loss of civilian property and more than 50 civilians sustaining severe injuries. The police officers involved were subsequently promoted by the government.
With the increase in political tensions the next watershed event was the destruction of the Jaffna Public Library due to the actions of a mob sponsored by government agents. The library lost over 97,000 volumes of rare manuscripts, books and journals, in the process four Tamils were also killed. Nancy Murray, a director with ACLU wrote in a journal article in 1984, that several high ranking security officers and two cabinet ministers were present in the town of Jaffna, when uniformed security men and plainclothes mob carried out organized acts of destruction and termed it an act of state terror. During this event the Jaffna was burned.
The transition from the political confrontation to military action came in 1983, with the Black July pogrom. It started on July 23. Nearly 1000 Tamils were killed. More than 18,000 houses and commercial establishments were destroyed and a wave of Sri Lankan Tamils sought refugee in other countries. It is seen as the start of full-scale armed struggle between the Tamil militants and the state of Sri Lanka. During the state sponsored pogrom, in Colombo, 53 political prisoners were killed inside a high security prison. No individuals have been convicted of crimes relating to these organized pogrom.(see pics here)
Response to the post 1983 civil conflict
As part of the military actions against the rebel LTTE group many massacres of civilians and series of prison massacres, assassinations of political opponents have taken place.
1983 to 1996
Civilian massacres
The alleged 1990 Batticaloa massacre consisted of 380 Tamil civilians being massacred by the Sri Lankan Army after being pulled from their native villages. Two commissions of inquiry appointed by the Sri Lankan government to inquire into disappearances have investigated this massacre in the villages of Sathurukkondaan, Kokkuvil and Pillaiyaradi. They have identified and named the perpetrators as Sri Lanka army personnel, including an Eurasian officer. But so far no police investigation has been conducted, nor legal proceedings instituted, against those responsible.
On the 13th of November, 1993, the Sri Lankan Air Force dropped bombd on St. James Church, in Gurunagar, Jaffna Town. 10 civilian worshippers were killed instantly.
The Jaffna lagoon massacre is another incident where civilains have been killed. 35 Civilians were killed while crossing the lagoon, as Sri Lankan Navy boats intercepted and fired at them. The UNHCR reported that over 350 civilians were killed while crossing the lagoon in January and February.
The Navaly Church massacre of 1995 occurred when sixty five Tamil refugees were killed and 150 injured when the Sri Lankan Airforce dropped multiple bombs on a church and surrounding grounds being used to shelter the refugees.
The Nagerkovil central school massacre took place on 22nd September 1995. During ongoing military operations, the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed the Nagerkovil Central School on the Jaffna peninsula. This resulted in the immediate death of 40 Tamil civilians, of which 34 were elementary school age children. Over 150 others were injured, and many more eventually succumbed to their wounds. The government has denied allegations that its forces ever bombed the school.
Post 2006 incidents
Civilian massacres
The unfolding 2006 Mannar massacres have allegedly been attributed to the Sri Lankan military forces. On June 8, 2006 a family of four including two children were massacred in the village of Vankalai by the Sri Lankan Army.(See pic here)A prominent Sri Lanka dissident who is majority Sinhalese himself termed the masscre an act of state terror
On June 17, 2006 survivors and witnesses of an attack accused the Sri Lankan Navy of storming and then indiscriminately shooting and lobbing grenades inside a church where hundreds of Tamils were taking shelter. One woman was killed and more than 40 people injured in the incident. The government has denied accusations that it targeted civilians.
The Padahuthurai bombing happened on January 02, 2007 when the Sri Lanka Air Force bombed what they claimed to be rebel LTTE naval base in Illuppaikadavai in Northern Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, the local Roman Catholic bishop and the LTTE claimed fifteen (15) minority Sri Lankan Tamils including women and children died and 35 were injured due to the bombing. The Bishop termed it an act of state terror.
Involuntary disappearances
Human Rights organization such AHRC and Amnesty International have complained that in 2006 up to 400 people have been disappeared, 245 of who were detained by the army, with another further 25 by the LTTE.
The Amnesty international has said that there is a disturbing pattern of incomplete or ineffective investigations by the government, with the result that perpetrators of such violence generally operate with impunity.. The Tamil daily Uthayan published from Jaffna termed it state terror(See Video of White Van abductions)
In 2007, a press release apparently from University of Jaffna students appealing to the rest of the world to protect them from acts of state terror associted with abductions and murders was released.
Backing of paramilitary group
The Karuna fraction knows as TMVP has been abducted and forcibly recruited hundreds of children in eastern Sri Lanka With the complicity or willful blindness of the Sri Lankan government.
Child rights advocate at Human Rights Watch was quoted saying
"After years of condemning child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers, the government is now complicit in the same crimes,"
and
"The government’s collusion on child abductions by the Karuna group highlights its hypocrisy"
. He further added
"Not only do government forces fail to stop the abductions, but they allow the Karuna group to transport kidnapped children through checkpoints on the way to their camps"
The police is complicit in their unwillingness to seriously investigate complaints filed by the parents of abducted members of the family. The poilce also reportedly refused to register parents’ complaints. In some cases, the police registered the complaint but failed to undertake proper investigation. The police has not secured the child’s release in any of these cases..The Sri Lankan government has denied these allegationsSome Human Rights agencies have termed the alleged recruitment of children by government backed forces as state terror
Forced return
The government has forced the IDP (internally displaced persons) to return to their homes even though people believe it is not safe to return homes. Even though the government has said
"The Sri Lankan government says it will never force civilians to return home after they have been displaced by fighting"
The UN Guiding Principles on IDP states that every internally displaced person has the right to liberty of movement, the right to seek safety in another part of the country, and the right to be protected against forcible return to any place where their safety would be at risk. However, the act of forcefully returning people to return home goes against UN-recognized principles.
Reactions
Many acts associted with the Sri Lankan civil war such as rapes, massacres and murders have been termed as acts of state terror by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups and other international activists groups but the Asian Human Rights Commission(AHRC) has noted that it seems that the war's major contributions to the prevalence of torture and state terror in "peaceful" areas have been:
- The permeation of its horrific levels of violence and terrorism into social institutions and
- The acceptability and legitimacy that it has provided for further proliferating the "traditions" of violence and domination.
The report concludes that acts of State terror have become instituitionalized throughout the country not just in the war torn North and East.Some countries have frozen their foreign aid to Sri Lanka to protest allegations of state terror in response to call by Human rights groups.
References
- ^ Piyadasa, L. (1986). Sri Lanka: the Holocaust and After. Zed Books. ISBN 0-906334-03-9.
- ^ Tambiah, Stanley (1984). Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-78952-7.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - http://members.tripod.com/~jvp_srilanka/history/71st1.html
- Gunaratna, Rohan (1995). SRI LANKA - A LOST REVOLUTION? The Inside Story of the JVP. Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka. ISBN 9-55-26-004-9.
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/jaff-m01.shtml
- http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DA26Df04.html
- "Chronology of events in Sri lanka". BBC. Retrieved 2006-03-14.
- Nancy Murray (1984), Sri Lanka: Racism and the Authoritarian State, Issue no. 1, Race & Class, vol. 26 (Summer 1984)
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/may2001/sri-m30.shtml
- http://rac.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/4/71
- "Cyberspace Graveyard for Disappeared Persons. CHAPTER 3: BATTICALOA DISTRICT". Retrieved 2007-05-23.
- http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=5390
- http://www.unhcr.org/home/RSDCOI/3ae6a8163.html
- http://brcslproject.gn.apc.org/slmonitor/Sept2002/navy.html
- http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00455.htm
- http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2006statements/612/
- "Rebel base hit, says government". Boston.com. Retrieved 2006-01-07.
- "Press release on 29 April 2006 SUBJECT: Air strikes violate the Ceasefire Agreement" (PDF). SLMM. Retrieved 2007-03-02.
- http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=20787
- http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2006statements/729/
- http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/lka-summary-eng
- http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/slanka14837.htm
- http://www.ahrchk.net/ahrc-in-news/mainfile.php/2006ahrcinnews/866/
- http://www.sibernews.com/news/sri-lanka/-200705168637/
- http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/01/24/slanka15141.htm
- http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20070127_03
- http://www.achrweb.org/Review/2006/141-06.htm
- http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/03/16/slanka15497.htm
- http://www.ctconline.ca/bro.pdf
- http://sunriseintheeast.googlepages.com/srilnaka-violator
- http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/703/36487
- http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2618
- http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2007/5/15225_space.html
Further reading
- Myrdal, Gunnar (1968). Asian Drama: an Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations. Pantheon. ASIN B000E80DGO.
- Wilson, A. Jeyaratnam (1989). The Break up of Sri Lanka: the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1211-5.
- Yael Danieli, Danny Brom, Joe SillsThe Trauma Of Terrorism: Sharing Knowledge and Shared Care, an International Handbook (See here)
- A.J.WilsonSri Lankan Tamil nationalism (see here)
External links
Non affiliated sites
- US state department report on Sri Lanka 2005
- UN report on Human rights violations in Sri Lanka 2006
- BBC South Asia report
- ICRC document
- Amnesty International report 1996report 2Chemmani investigators
- Time to recognize State terror