Sri Lanka - Our Rights Matter! Speak Up

Stop The Genocide

The humanitarian crisis of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Vanni (LTTE administered Northern mainland) has reached unprecedented levels in the last few of months. Sri Lanka Armed Forces (SLA)'s Siege of Vanni on four broader fronts - Manalaru, Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna - has already made more than 200,000 Tamils homeless. It is also to be noted that approximately 260,000 individuals remain displaced from earlier stages of the conflict, in addition to those people who still lack permanent shelter as a result of the December 2004 tsunami.

The SLA's military operation in the Mannar area alone is reported to have caused the displacement of more than 200,000. Selvarajah Gajendran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Member of Parliament from Jaffna District commenting on their plight said, " (t)he Vanni is under a virtual siege, while nobody seems able or willing to prevent an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.�

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Background

For more than 30 years the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has been raging with no end in sight. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Tamils have been killed during these three decades.

The war has made more than one million Tamils to flee the island and it is estimated that another one million have been internally displaced. The Government has been accused by the International NGOs of placing an economic embargo on the north and has been condemned for the severe travel restrictions it places on the Tamils, citing security reasons. Indiscriminate bombings and shelling of villages and towns have reduced the once prosperous North-East to mere rubble.

The ethnic conflict traces its roots to more than half-a-century of disenfranchisement and discrimination. Successive legislations aimed at giving Buddhism and Sinhala language a predominance over the other religions and languages have contributed to marginalization of other ethnic communities. Government has also legislated to make admissions to higher-education institutions much more difficult to Tamils than Sinhalese students and by depriving Tamils of equal opportunity in employment in the public sector. Sinhala dominated governments have also dishonored several important agreements reached between the Tamil and Sinhala Parliamentary leaders. Sri Lanka has also removed the constitutional safeguards against discrimination. A systematic Sinhala colonization scheme has been effected to deny Tamils of their homeland in their north-east.

In 1977 the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) passed the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), making it a crime to advocate, even by political means, for separation, effectively making political dissent a criminal offence and giving the Sri Lanka Armed Force unlimited powers in contravention of the internationally accepted principles of fair trial and procedure.

When these attempts at discriminating the Tamils were resisted by the Tamil people by non violent means and parliamentary struggle, Sinhala governments resorted to violence - firstly in 1958 and then in 1961, 1977, 1981, 1983 and continuously thereafter. The Anti-Tamil riots of 1983, in which more than 3000 Tamils were killed, is considered to be a watershed event. The 1983 Tamil genocide drove the Tamil youth in mass towards the path of armed rebellion and the formation of several militant groups. 1980s saw the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) emerge as the strongest of these militant groups.

Today LTTE is the only militant organization committed to carving out a separate state for the Tamils, called Tamil Eelam, and is considered by most Tamils as their representatives. LTTE is however banned as a terrorist organization in some countries including in the USA, UK and Canada.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is an alliance of Tamil political parties, with 22 members in the Sri Lankan Parliament, also plays a major role in advocating for the Tamils.

The LTTE and Government of Sri Lanka entered into a Norwegian Government mediated ceasefire agreement in 2002. The Government of Sri Lanka, under President Mahinda Rajapakse, however chose to unilaterally abrogate it, in 2006, plunging the country back into a high intensity war.