President Mahinda Rajapaksa - leader of Sri Lanka since April 2004 (initially as PM)
We're lucky here in Australia; colonial history aside, the dominating colonist derived population doesn't hunt down and slaughter its ethnic minority Aboriginals, these days at least.
Not so in Sri Lanka, where the dominant Sinhalese government lead by President Mahinda Rajapaksa since coming to power in April 2004 as then Prime Minister, has seen it his personal mandate to exterminate the Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka, like vermin. To be absolutely effective Rajapaksa has ensured that media was kept away and no international monitoring. By ensuring no witnesses to the slaugher, Rajapaksa's army, navy and airforce, with its new British weapons has had free reign to exterminate, shoot on sight and take no prisoners as it sees fit. This way, Rajapaksa's slaughter has been absolute - war crimes and all. So the media coverage has been denied, controlled and filtered as if a post-graduate application of war coverage from the lessons of America's 1960's war against Vietnam. Indeed, Rajapaksa's hunting down Tamil Tigers to the last man, follows comparable histories of ethnic cleansing. But eventually, witnesses will come forward and some truth about what Rajapaksa's army, navy and airforce committed. Reports from medical units in Sri Lanka have reported phosphorus cluster bombs having inflicted horrific burns on the Tamils and civilians.
Back in May 2006, The Indian Express newspaper reported that Sri Lanka had placed orders with Pakistan for cluster bombs, deep penetration bombs and rockets and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). On March 1, 2006 Sri Lankan chief of defense staff D.W.K. Sandagiri wrote to the Pakistan High Commissioner in Colombo requesting he urgently send a technical team to Colombo for an immediate survey of T-55 tanks and C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Colombo unsuccessfully asked India for “maintenance contracts and spares for the Sri Lankan Air Force’s large MiG-27 ground strike fleet, laser-guided bomb upgrade kits, dumb bombs, penetration bombs, rocket pod systems and strafing ammunition,” the paper said.
Sri Lanka also asked India for “ship-based mortars, ammunition, small fast-attack craft and sea-mines for the Sri Lankan navy,” but the Indian government “has only allowed the transfer of ammunition and some non-lethal stores.” Sri Lanka also asked India for “multi-barrel rocket launcher systems, mortars, air defence artillery systems, 5.56 mm weapons, ground radars, night vision devices, armoured troop carriers, UAVs, Milan anti-tank missile jeeps and mine-protected vehicles for the Lankan Army.”
SOURCE: http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=18028
Ethnic Cleasing of the Chagossians
The seed of ethnic discord was sown during the era of British colonisation of the Chagos Archipelago. Britain's takeover of the Chagos Archipelago remote in the Indian Ocean (including Diego Garcia) ruling that its indigenous Chagossians, forbidden anyone from residing in the islands without a permit. This was all so Britan's ally, the US, could establish a strategic air and naval base on Diego Garcia.
Ethnic Cleansing of the Cambodians
The seed of ethnic discord was sown during the era of French colonisation of Indo-China. France's reluctant post-World War II decolonisation of Indo-China in 1953 saw the creation of Cambodia and perpetuated a class struggle and civil unrest, which culminated in strong anti-colonist movement and by 1975 the coming to power of the Khmer Rouge, which under Pol Pot was responsible for the exterminations of up to 1.7 million Cambodians between 1976 and 1979.
Ethnic 'realignment' of India's Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs
The seed of ethnic discord was sown during the era of British colonisation of the Indian subcontinent. Britain's withdrawal of its colonial control of India saw it impose arbitrary geographic divisions of the subcontinent under what was called the 'Mountbatten Plan' as part of Britain's 'partition' of India in 1947. This directly caused ethnic splitting between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, that lead to displacement of millions of people along ethnic lines, including 7,226,000 Muslims forced to Pakistan from India, while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved in the former British Indian Empire. It lead to the the Indo-Pakistani War of that year and to ongoing civil unrest in the region ever since.
Ethic cleansing of Tamils
The seed of ethnic discord was sown during the British colonisation of Ceylon. Britain's decolonising of its 'dominion' of Ceylon in 1948 saw biased handover of power to the dominant ethnic Sinhalese, which has fueled civil unrest between ethnic Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese ever since.
In Sri Lanka, both the dominate Sinhalese and Tamils separately hold legitimate anthropological custodial inheritance to the island that date back beyond 200 BC. For instance, King Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 BC), a Sinhalese King of the Mauriya clan introduced Buddhism to the island. While King Elara (205-161 BC), a South Indian Tamil invader, ruled "Pihiti Rata" north of the Mahaweli on the island. Historic details are so complex that they compare with any European country's history. So one cannot accept simple stories about the Tamil Tiger conflict in Sri Lanka nor any convenient skin deep consequential solution to the ongoing civil war. SOURCE: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sri_Lanka
This article post does not seek to even try to condense 2000 odd years of this island's rich and complex history, but points out that in the wake of another 21st Century ethnic slaughter just last week, the underlying social and political causes stem from an historic conspiracy of neglect and prejudice. Britain historically ruled Ceylon in the 19th Century and so Queen Victoria's reign is deservedly accountable for the British empirical domination and designed aftermath. Britain set in place a political structure of civil unrest not just in its 'Dominion of Ceylon', but in almost all its illegal colonial possessions. Read the history of this colonial period to appreciate this damning perspective of the British colonial empire and the post World War II so-called 'independence' mess it left behind in dozens of former British colonies from Northern Ireland to Palestine to Sri Lanka. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee at the time has a lot to answer for.
Earlier, on 7th July 1931, Britain's Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, approved hand over of Britain's colonial sovereignty over Ceylon to Britain's preferred Sinhalese government. But this single unjust bias by an injust colonial power denied all heritage rights of ethnic Tamils to their ancient rights of homeland on the island. In so doing, Britain effectively and insidiously seeded decades of Sinhalese-Tamil tension and civil war up which has persisted up until last week.
Once George Bush Jnr labelled the ethnic Tamil Tigers a terrorist group after 9/11 and created a global policy for zero tolerance, national liberation groups became conveniently bundled as terrorist organisations. Since 2006, the unaccountable CIA has been complicit in the exponential arming of the Sinhalese since 2006 and the de-arming of the LTTE by thwarting naval arms shipments to the Tamils from SE Asia. In 2009, Britain has sold £7 million worth of weapons and military equipment to PM Mahinda Rajapaksa's army, according to Britain's ruling Labor MP Joan Ruddock.
Britain's sales of arms to Sri Lanka since 2006 makes Tony Blair complicit in the Sinhalese genocide of Tamils in northern Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka had no other need. The reported 10,000 killed in the last few months exceeds those of Srebrenica but not Rwanda but why rank human slaughter statistics? It is the toothless,underfunded and token UN, the British antiquated Commonwealth, and the countries supplying arms to the Sri Lankan military are complicit in the effects of this civil war. Politically correct attempts to argue this military crusade was a fight against terrorists is to use the same propaganda that South Africa's P.W. Botha used against Nelson Mandela.
The UN, US, UK, France, and India have allowed this genocide to happen. Pakistan's Swat Valley conflict against the Taliban sounds too well CIA-timed to be co-incidental.
History will reveal that the 2006-09 Sinhalese offensive was to obliterate the Tamils any right of self-determination. That it was a well planned, extremely well funded and indeed international co-ordinated effort. It was another unjust George Bush atrocity and it implicated Vincent Cannistraro (CIA-previously), Leon Panetta (CIA-currently), Dr. Manmohan Singh, Ban Ki-moon, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, and Nicolas Sarkozyn.
The seed of ethnic discord in Sri Lanka was sown during the British colonisation era.
But Britain's sense of empirialist self-righteousness persists long after its colonial withdraw. The British Government under Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown has pursued consistent foreign policy biases in Sri Lanka, being the big global power underpinning Rajapaksa's Sinhalese regime. The British government has been active behind the scene, isolating the Tamils from funding, arms and an international voice.
Current Situation in Sri Lanka:
"UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, is currently in Sri Lanka to discuss the plight of up to 300,000 Tamils displaced by the war. His chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, who flew over the scene of the final battle on Thursday, described a devastated landscape in which the loosely-packed tents appeared to have been destroyed and there were large numbers of burning vehicles. Only a few soldiers could be seen moving around, he said. "We were not able to see any civilians. What was truly striking was almost the total absence of human habitation … it was almost eerie."
He said the issues surrounding an investigation into possible war crimes would be discussed by the UN Human Rights Council next week.
"As far as the UN is concerned, where there are grave and systematic violations of international humanitarian law, these are things which should be looked at by the international community, by the United Nations," he said.
He said the secretary general would press the Sri Lankan government over the detention of doctors who treated civilians inside the war zone but who have since been arrested, accused of giving out false casualty figures.
A UN official later said the Sri Lankan government would be urged to consider an amnesty to former LTTE members to speed up the peace process.
He said the issues surrounding an investigation into possible war crimes would be discussed by the UN Human Rights Council next week."
SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/22/sri-lanka-ban-ki-moon-un
Conclusion
The UN is obligated to investigate the charges of war crimes, human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing allegations against the Sri Lankan military and to pursue if justified, criminal charges against Rajapaksa and his unjust Sinhalese regime. The terms of reference must extend to those countries like Britain, India, the US and France which have been complicit in what clearly has been the deliberate ethic slaughter of Tamils.
Comments
James Sinnamon
Sat, 2009-05-23 08:55
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Patchy, inconsistent record of Third World liberation movements
Thanks, Tigerquoll, for an helpful, informative and timely article on this conflict.
For my own part, I have not kept myself sufficiently informed as to be able to be able to offer useful comments on conflicts such as this.
I remember back in the early 1980's, when the Tamil insurgency was launched. I viewed the Tamil struggle through the prism of the world view of a far left wing socialist organisation to which I belonged a the time. The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) were considered to be one of a large number of armed progressive movements that would help liberate the people of the Third World from the shackles of colonialism and neo-colonialism and bring about justice, harmony and prosperity.
Other movements were the South African African National Congress (ANC), the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO), The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), The Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF), various Latin American movements, etc.
However, few of these movements have lived up to the hopes that we had held in them (with the possible exception of SWAPO, which appears to have very capably governed the nation now named Namibia after it gained independence from South Africa).
The EPLF and the TPLF became the respective governments of the newly independent Eritrea and the part of Ethiopia that remained after Eritrea had broken away and have since engaged in pointless border wars with each other. I remember that at least one of those conflicts was deliberately started by the EPLF, flying flat in the face of assurances, made by EPLF political representatives in Australia at a public meeting in support of the EPLF in the early 1980's, that an independent Eritrea would do its utmost to get along with its former coloniser. In fact, even before the TPLF overthrew the former Ethiopian dictatorship, there were clashes between the two movements, even though both were supposedly fighting the same common enemy.
Naomi Klein has shown in the chapter on South Africa in "The Shock Doctrine" how the ANC negotiators betrayed nearly all of the principles for which the ANC supposedly stood making circumstances for many blacks (as well as whites) in the supposedly liberated South Africa even worse than they were under the Apartheid system.
In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers were themselves accused on at least one occasion of engaging in their own Zionist style ethnic cleansing in order to drive non-Tamils including Muslims from the areas of Sri Lanka that they laid claim to. In 2002 they were reported as having unilaterally broken the peace negotiations that were underway and launched military attacks. If this is true, then the Tamil Tiger leadership would themselves have to be held partly responsible for the calamity that has befallen their people. (However, I would hesitate to make an absolute pronouncement on this until I can be more certain that the version of events that depicts the LTTE as having caused the breakdown in peace negotiations was not simply yet another example of misreporting of these conflicts by the Western newmedia.)
A Chapter in "The Shock Doctrine" tells how the Sri Lankan government cynically exploited the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami to steal coastal land from fishing villagers in order to give it to resort developers. They also exploited the crisis engaged in an extensive program of neo-liberal economic prescriptions including privatisation, completely contrary to the platform upon which that government was elected. No doubt this would have had some bearing on the Tamil/Sinahalese conflict.
Sheila Newman
Sat, 2009-05-23 23:04
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Another ghastly colonial hangover
My understanding of the situation is that the Tamils were 19th and 20th C immigrant labour imported by British colonials to work colonial tea plantations. Some Tamil business immigrants also came. The local Sri Lankans resented the occupation by the British and the British stealing of their land for tea plantations. They certainly didn't appreciate the Tamil immigrants, many of whom were eventually repatriated in their thousands. The situation bears similarities to the problems caused by Colonial engineered mass immigration, with citizenship rights in question. I would like to know more about land-rights and citizenship there. My recent reference source is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_Country_Tamils#Disenfranchisement
British imperialism sure has a lot to answer for, especially where mass immigration is concerned: Israel-Palestine; Sri-Lanka; Fiji; Australia; Canada; Africa; India.... Stuffing up land-rights and imposing new laws. And still it goes on, in the form of the economic shock doctrine and the Growth Lobby - right here. And it will get worse and worse.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
James Sinnamon
Sun, 2009-05-24 01:34
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Many, but not all, Tamils in Sri Lanka before colonisation
Many of the Tamils of Sri Lanka were there before the British came as Steven's article states. There were two groups, according to Wikipedia, the Sri Lankan Tamil people and the Sri Lankan Moors or Muslims
Certainly, the importation of other Tamils, known as the Hill Country Tamils or Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka, in the 19th century by the British to work on tea plantations on land stolen from native Sinhalese, would not have helped.
Interestingly, the Wikipedia article about the Sri Lankan Moors confirms what I said about the Tamil Tigers own past ethnic cleansing practices:
James Sinnamon
Sun, 2009-05-24 21:03
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Could the Tamil Tigers have saved their people from catastrophe?
Some other discussion on the demise of the Tamil Tigers (aka Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE) can be found at The end of the LTTE on John Quiggin's blog and Learning from the LTTE from the Indian Express of 20 May 09, which is linked to from the former. The following from within that article seems to confirm my own understanding of the conflict:
It would interesting to contemplate whether the ransacking of Sri Lanka by disaster capitalists which followed the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami as described in "The Shock Doctrine" could have been resisted if the peace negotiations had been allowed to continue.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2011-12-08 10:23
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I have never seen as biased article as this one
Geoffrey Taylor
Thu, 2011-12-08 23:09
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Ad hominem cannot replace substantive argument
Simply labeling a political group, the goals of which you oppose, "TERRORIST" adds nothing of value to this discussion.
Why violence committed by an insurgent movement (e.g. the Libyan National Transitional Council) should be any less reprehensible than the violence of the government fighting the insurgency (e.g. the former Libyan Government of the late Muammar Gaddafi) has not been explained.
jayathilaka (not verified)
Mon, 2013-06-17 20:23
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Complaint about 2009 article on Sri Linka, defeated Tamil Tigers
Subject was: poor. A title, which is longer and more descriptive than this, would have been appreciated as it would have made it easier for me to distinguish this comment from the spam which has been posted alongside it. - Ed
Seriously this article is complete nonsense. This is what happens when complete idiots talk abt matters that are out of their thinking capacity.
Listen kid, keep away from such topics cos this is not kid's stuff!
Editorial comment: If jayathalika knows more about the war that concluded in 2009 in Sri Lanka and can show us where tigerquoll is wrong, by all means he should show us. We would also appreciate jaythalika refraining from personal abuse in future.
Contrary to what jaythilaka asks, we urge our readers to take an active interest in International affairs, particularly the wars now being fought or planned by the United States, its European Allies, Israel, etc. The failure, of a sufficiently large number of Australians to maintain their opposition for sufficiently long periods of time to the illegal invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 and illegal sanctions, resulted in 3.3 million Iraqi deaths according to one estimate. The same terrible fate could lie in store for Syria, if the world community, of which Australia is a part, is not sufficiently vigilant.
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