It is a conflict which dates back thirty years or more.Of course one could argue that the roots of the problems go back hundreds of years or at least during the Colonial period but that is beyond the scope of this article or my expertise or lack thereof regarding Sri Lankan history.
So given these restrictions we will begin in the 1950's in which several important events occurred. At that time in 1957 " the Act Only Sinhala " was passed making Sinhal the official language of all of Sri Lanka ignoring the wishes of the Tamil people and was seen as an unforgivable insult to them and their culture.
Senator S.Nadesan Q.C., Sri Lanka Senate Hansard 26 June 1957
"Almost the first act (of the newly elected Bandaranaike Government) has been the passing of the 'Sinhala Only' Bill against the unanimous opposition of the entire Tamil people who wanted a place of honour for their own language. Thereby this Government has struck a grievous blow at the unity of this country, which stands divided today.
This act combined with others on the part of the Sri Lankan government created a situation in which the Tamil population whose language was Tamil and who saw themselves as culturally different from the rest of the Sri Lankan population believed that they were in effect being disenfranchised and were being reduced to second class citizens . Their access to government positions and professional jobs or to an equal education etc. was severely limited. What they then wanted was an independent Tamil State instead they were betrayed again and again by the government which at times appeared to just desire that the Tamil people behave themselves and know their place in Sri Lankan society or if they didn't like it to just leave. When the Tamil people took part in peaceful demonstrations time and again they were met with brutal force on the part of the Sri Lankan army and police or by mobs of thugs while the officials turned a blind eye.Over the decades little has been done to improve the conditions of the Tamil people who are a minority in the country.
For instance :
In 1983 Major anti-Tamil pogrom took place in July all over the island with the buoyed up support of the government. During the four days riots, more than 6,000 Tamils were killed and over 250,000 were rendered refugees. Thousands of Tamils fled the country and went to India and to Western countries. Billions rupees worth of Tamils properties was looted and destroyed by the Sinhala rioters.
Between 27-28 July, fifty-three Tamil political prisoners were massacred inside the walls of the Welikadai prison in Colombo by the Sinhala inmates. The government masterminded this massacre and the Sinhala attackers were released from the prison and were rewarded with houses and properties in the Sinhala settlements in the Tamil homeland.
Hundreds of youths joined the LTTE movement and the TULF Members of Parliament sought asylum in India.
J. R. Jeyawardena’s government enacts the 6th amendment to the constitution and rejected the right to self-determination of the Tamil people in the island on 8th August. This amendment outlawed the mandate voted by the Tamils in 1977 general election. The Sixth amendment and the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 1979 along with the Emergency Law provisions became the instruments through which repression was unleashed on the Tamil people.
1984 At the beginning of EELAM WAR-I. Tamils living in the North East were lynched, arrested, tortured and killed. Women and many men disappeared. Sri Lankan Air Force bombers dropped lethal napalm bombs in residential areas causing severe loss and damage to the Tamil people and to their properties.
( For an historical time-line on Sri Lanka / Ceylon from 1505 to the present see: SINHALA COLONISATION:IN A NUTSHELL
(The history, negotiations, abrogation of pacts, military operations, etc)
But part of a democratic society is supposed to be the idea of defending the minorities in a state against the tyranny of the majority. If a government is unwilling to accept and deal with legitimate grievances on the part of a minority and to eventually develop through an on-going process some sort of deal or compromise then this leads to a stalemate. If the minority group feels they are not getting at least a fair hearing for what they believe to be legitimate grievances they are left with few options to bring those in power to the negotiating table.
If peaceful means such as demonstrations , work slow-downs, strikes , boycotts are tried and are either ignored or are met once again with brutality then there are those who may resort to violence. The Tamil Tigers took up arms against the Sri Lankan government . There are those who would argue that any oppressed minority has a right to defend itself and to bring attention to its cause. There are of course those who contend that violence is rarely if ever justified.
For example the United States was created from a British colony to an independent Republic by violent means - The American Revolution, later in America there was the blood bath of the American Civil War in which the battle was over State's Rights versus the Federal Government and the ending of slavery in America. In the Middle East we get the example of the creation of the State of Israel which came about in part by the United Nations legal decree which created the State of Israel but the Israeli State in order to maintain its borders took part in a bloody war with neighboring states which it as we know finally won. Now in the Middle East we have the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Peoples. In that conflict there are hardliners on both sides who since the beginning of the conflict offer little hope of a political solution which would mean fair compromises being made on both sides. In that conflict both sides have at various times tried peaceful negotiations and at other times both or one side or the other dug in their heels and resorted to violence.
Some of the tactics used by the PLO or Hamas or Fatah at times hve been beyond the Pale i.e. the use of suicide bombers, assassinations, mass killings of civilians etc. But the actions of the Israeli Government and the IDF have also been especially in the last few years abhorrent and down right criminal and can be classified as War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. The moral outrage against Israel in the case of the Gaza invasion is justified because what we have is one of the best armed nations in the world attacking a densely populated area to ferret out a few thousand terrorists out of a population of one and a half million most of whom are innocent non-combatants . Hamas on the other hand is also not well armed rag-tag type force which hadn't a chance against the Israeli War Machine backed by the United States. In the same way the LTTE or Tamil Tigers may be better armed and trained than Hamas but their military is not the equal of the Sri Lankan government backed by the State of India. The state of Sri Lankan has an obligation to fight according to the Geneva Conventions and other International Agreements no matter how the Tamils conduct themselves. In the end both should be investigated by an independent body and both held accountable for their actions in the same way that Hamas and the IDF should also be held accountable for their actions.
The fear that some observers raise is that the Sri Lankan government is using its fight with the LTTE to kill as many Tamils as possible including the 200,000 or so trapped in the area of the fiercest fighting. The LTTE and others claim the Sri Lankan government has not been helping non-combatants to leave the area and that its military is not taking precautions toavoid killing or maiming civilians. The Sri Lankan government claims itsis the LTTE forces which are preventing non-combatants from leaving the battlefield . There are a few independent observers in the area but not as many as are needed to monitor the situation in regards to abuses on either side. The Sri Lankan government like the Israelis in Gaza refused to allow journalists or human rights observers into the area. The suspicion is that the Sri Lankan government wants a free hand to do whatever it deems necessary to wipe out the LTTE . If the Sri Lankan forces are operating according to international law then why keep observers and the press out . What is it they don't want the world to see. The fear has also been raised that once the LTTE is defeated will those who are still alive be detained and properly treated or will the government go the way of the Americans and abuse and torture POWS or detainees or will they just shoot them en mass and further will they decide on a little ethnic cleansing of the Tamil people.
Will defeat of Tigers bring Sri Lanka peace? - 9 Feb 09
Far from the frontlines, in Colombo's Tamil neighbourhoods, they know that the war in the north is almost over. The odds are stacked heavily against the Tamil Tigers.
But Al Jazeera's David Hawkins asks whether, if the government defeats the rebels, the problems that prompted the Tamils to wage a guerrilla campaign will be solved.
Sri Lanka War Crimes & Corruption CBC
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers) (Sri Lanka, separatists) by Preeti Bhattacharji, CouncilOn Foreign Relations, Updated: February 10, 2009
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, are a separatist group in Sri Lanka. For the past thirty years, the LTTE have been agitating for a homeland for ethnic Tamils, who feel persecuted by Sri Lanka's ethnic majority, the Sinhalese. The LTTE is notorious for having pioneered the suicide bomb jacket, as well as the use of women in suicide attacks. They are blamed for a dozen high-level assassinations, over two hundred suicide attacks, and are engaged in an ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka that has cost more than seventy thousand lives. In 2008, the LTTE was pushed out of the eastern parts of Sri Lanka, and by February 2009, the rebels had suffered significant setbacks in the north at the hands of the military. The Sri Lankan government claimed the end of the civil war was in sight. However, some experts warn it may be too early to write off the group, which has proved to be a ruthless guerilla outfit in the past. Both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military have been accused of engaging in abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers.
Who are the Tamils?
The Tamils are an ethnic group that lives in southern India (mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu) and on Sri Lanka, an island of 21 million people off the southern tip of India. Most Tamils live in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and they comprise approximately 10 percent of the island's population, according to a 2001 government census. Their religion (most are Hindu) and Tamil language set them apart from the four-fifths of Sri Lankans who are Sinhalese—members of a largely Buddhist, Sinhala-speaking ethnic group. When Sri Lanka was ruled as Ceylon by the British, most Sri Lankans regarded the Tamil minority as collaborators with imperial rule and resented the Tamil's perceived preferential treatment. But since Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the Sinhalese majority has dominated the country. The remainder of Sri Lanka's population includes ethnic Muslims, as well as Tamil and Sinhalese Christians.
...Since the end of the 2002 cease-fire, the Sri Lankan government has aggressively pursued LTTE fighters. Halfway through 2007, the Sri Lankan government took effective control of Sri Lanka's eastern province, though it has had trouble defeating LTTE combatants in the north. On its website, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense catalogues alleged victories against the LTTE. The United States has helped train Sri Lankan forces in agencies that relate to counterterrorism. According to the State Department, the government of Sri Lanka cooperated with the United States to implement both the Container Security Initiative and the Megaports program at the port of Colombo.
But the Sri Lankan government has also attracted widespread criticism for its alleged human rights abuses. Like the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government has been accused of engaging in extrajudicial killings, abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers. In August 2007, Human Rights Watch released a report that catalogues the various human rights abuses conducted in Sri Lanka by both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military. In January 2009, Human Rights Watch said both the government and the LTTE were placing civilians at risk in their ongoing war. Brad Adams, the organization's Asia director, said: "The government and the LTTE appear to be holding a perverse contest to determine who can show the least concern for civilian protection."
On the complicity of the Indian government in the War Crimes of the Sri Lankan government see:
UN urged to use the R2P doctrine against Sri Lanka Sangeetha Neeraja : 01 Apr 2009
and on War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity being committed by the Sri Lankan government see;
Humanitarian Situation in the NorthEast of the Island of Sri Lanka - Mr. Arjunan Ethirveerasingam
CHENNAI PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) urged on Tuesday the UN Human Rights Commission to intervene immediately in the Lankan Tamil issue by invoking the UN clause of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine to stop the annihilation of Tamils and prevent the death of democracy in Sri Lanka.
Dr.V.Suresh President PUCL Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry said, “ Indian government can no longer escape, by saying we cannot interfere in the affairs of a sovereign country. Under the R2P doctrine, which came into force, post Rwanda crisis in December 2001 as per the recommendations of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, when a state fails in its responsibility to protect its citizens, the responsibility falls on the international community to intervene and protect the citizens from harm.”
PUCL under this doctrine proposes to file a case in the International Criminal Court to prosecute the Sri Lankan President, army chief and other top officals for crimes against humanity. In a recently concluded PUCL special national convention held in New Delhi (on March 21and 22 ), they passed a few resolutions to this effect.
Dr.V.Suresh, said “One of our demands to the Indian government is to stop aiding and abetting the war in Sri Lanka. Without the support of Indian government, the Sri Lankan army would not be in a position to wage the war successfully. We urge the Indian government to stop this kind of logistics support to the Sri Lankan government.”
He said, “It was shocking to know how this Sri Lankan issue is not known to the world outside Tamil Nadu. At this juncture it is important to internationalize this issue.”
and on War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity being committed by the Sri Lankan government see:
Humanitarian Situation in the NorthEast of the Island of Sri Lanka - Mr. Arjunan Ethirveerasingam
Mr. Arjunan Ethirveerasingam, Director, Coordination Office for Humanitarian and Human Rights of Tamils (COHHRT)
The 330,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the LTTE-administered Vanni are facing a catastrophic humanitarian situation. The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has severely limited, and at times completely blocked, the transportation of food and medicine to the IDPs over the past 18 months. Since December 2008 the GoSL has become even more restrictive regarding the supply of essential humanitarian assistance into the area.
Additionally, the GoSL has engaged in repeated, indiscriminate and targeted bombing and shelling of IDP settlements and hospitals by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Air Force (SLAF). Estimates based on first-hand information obtained from reliable ground sources state more than 3546 civilians have been killed and more than 8370 have been injured between 1 January 2009 and 23 March 2009 alone – a total of 11,916 casualties or 148 per day . There have also been over 20 attacks on hospitals and medical facilities in the past 6 months . Recently, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse defended the GoSL’s military actions against hospitals by saying, “No hospitals should operate outside the safety zone…everything beyond the safety zone is a legitimate target” .
Whilst targeting hospitals outside ‘safe zones’ that the GoSL unilaterally declared in February 2009, there is considerable evidence of the SLA and SLAF targeting hospitals, schools and civilian dwellings within these ‘safe zones’. Government health officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have estimated that on average 80 civilians are being killed each day both inside and outside these ‘safe zones’. Furthermore, there is evidence of cluster bombs and white phosphorous weapons being used in these attacks. The GoSL has also used multi-barrel rocket launchers which are not precise enough to guarantee that the civilian population in the vicinity will not be harmed making their use in areas where civilians are located a violation of IHL.
In addition to these attacks on hospitals and civilians, the GoSL has placed a humanitarian blockade and media blackout on the Vanni. Access to UN agencies and international non-governmental organisations (iNGOs) has been denied since September 2008 when the GoSL ordered them to leave the area - an order that all organisations, other than the ICRC, complied with without any public protest. However, in February 2009 even the expatriate ICRC staff left the area effectively removing the last remaining international witness. The media has also been prohibited from entering the Vanni since January 2007.
The GoSL has also established concentration camps where IDPs are arbitrarily detained indefinitely under close military guard. The IDPs enjoy no freedom of movement and contact with the outside world is severely restricted. During the ‘screening process’ for IDPs who arrive from the LTTE-administered areas, relatives report that hundreds of men and women, some of whom are only teenagers, have been taken into secret detention . A Member of Parliament, Mr. S Gajendran said on 14 February 2009 that around 190 Tamil males were murdered and 130 females were taken for sexual abuse from the IDPs being screened by the GoSL forces, citing information he had received from witnesses. Requests by international observers to monitor the ‘screening process’ in order to ensure that international standards were being met, have to date been rejected by the GoSL. Tamil civilians detained, as well as those in the concentration camps, are subjected to torture, rape, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial execution.
The concentration camps also do not have adequate water, food and sanitation facilities. Medical care of IDPs in GoSL-held areas is insufficient. Patients, even children, are not allowed to have family stay with them in the hospital and due to lack of medical facilities, patients are discharged well before medically acceptable. The hospital is essentially run by the military and guarded even more closely than the camps .
The Tamils in the LTTE-administered Vanni do not trust the GoSL to safeguard their lives or their futures. The vast majority of those still in the LTTE-administered areas do not wish to come to the GoSL-held areas where they will be subjected to rape, torture, extrajudicial executions and disappearances and those that survive these human rights abuses will be placed in concentration camps where they would, according to the GoSL’s own project proposal, essentially be prisoners for up to 3 years.
also see : TamilNation.org
Comment by Nadesan Satyendra The question is being asked by some: why is the international community which was willing to arm Sri Lanka and to ban the LTTE, unwilling and/or unable to prevent the genocide of Eelam Tamils? Suffering is a great teacher and the Tamil people are being taught that for the governments of the so called IC, human rights and humanitarian law are but useful instruments to advance their political and strategic interests. The Tamil people are being taught that political power flows through the barrel of the gun. Whilst the goal of securing peace through justice is loudly proclaimed by the international actors, real politick leads them to deny the justice of the Tamil Eelam struggle for freedom from alien Sinhala rule - justice which presumably led the US State of Massachusetts to urge the US President in 1981 'to support the struggle for freedom by the Tamil nation for the restoration and reconstitution the separate sovereign state of Tamil Eelam and to recognize publicly the right of self determination by the Tamil people of Tamil Eelam.'
Today, the harsh reality is that on the one hand international actors are concerned to use the opportunity of the conflict in the island to advance each of their own strategic interests - and on the other hand, Sri Lanka seeks to use the political space created by the geo strategic triangle of US-India-China in the Indian Ocean region, to buy the support of all three for the continued rule of the people of Tamil Eelam by a permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of one state. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was disarmingly frank in the Indian Parliament in October 2008. He said “We have a very comprehensive relationship with Sri Lanka. In our anxiety to protect the (Tamil) civilians, we should not forget the strategic importance of this island to India's interests,... especially in view of attempts by countries like Pakistan and China to gain a strategic foothold in the island nation."
The record shows that Sinhala Sri Lanka seeks to engage in a 'balance of power' exercise of its own by handing over parts of the island (and the surrounding seas) to India, US and China. We have India in the Trincomalee oil farm, at the same time we have a Chinese coal powered energy plant in Trincomalee; we have a Chinese project for the Hambantota port, at the same time we have the attempted naval exercises with the US from Hambantota (to contain Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean); we have the grant of preferred licenses to India for exploration of oil in the Mannar seas, at the same time we have a similar grant to China and a 'road show' for tenders from US and UK based multinational corporations; meanwhile we have the continued presence of the Voice of America installations in the island and the ten year Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) was signed by the United States and Sri Lanka on 5 March 2007.
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Canadian Tamil group blasts UN over anti-LTTE remarks" from Gaea News, Feb. 16, 2009
TORONTO - A Canadian Tamil group has hit out at the United Nations for accusing Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers of preventing civilians from leaving the war zone and killing those who tried.
The Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) said the UN allegation only helped Sri Lanka to commit what it said was ‘genocide’ against the Tamil community.
‘In the past the UN has denied such statements. We will wait and watch for their official reaction in New York. But if it is true, such statements only help Sri Lanka,’ CTC spokesman David Poopalapillai told IANS.
‘The UN should go to the conflict zone to know the ground realities, and not issue statements sitting in Colombo. Civilians are being killed by the Sri Lankan forces in their genocide against Tamils,’ he said.
Poopalapillai added: ‘The UN accusations (against the LTTE) are aimed at hiding their own failure to bring about ceasefire in the conflict zone.
‘Tamils have been asking the UN to step in to bring about a ceasefire to end the misery of the civilians but they (UN) have done nothing.’
On Monday, the office of the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Colombo accused the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of preventing people from leaving the war zone. It added that reports indicated that a growing number of people trying to leave had been shot and even killed.
Canada is home to some 300,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, the biggest Tamil diaspora group outside the island. The LTTE enjoyed a lot of support among the Tamils till Canada banned it in 2006.
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Debate in Sri Lanka House of Representatives on Sinhala Only Act, June 1956, Tamilnation.org
" We are completing by this (Sinhala Only) Bill an important phase in our national struggle. The restoration of the Sinhala language to the position it occupied before the occupation of this country by foreign powers, marks an important stage in the history of the development of this island" - Phillip Gunawardene, Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister, Hansard, 14 June 1956
"I pointed out that the result of forcing Sinhalese as the sole state language for official purposes on an unwilling minority brought with it great dangers.... If a minority feels deeply that an injustice and a great injustice has been done it is likely to embark upon forms of resistance and protests. The possibility of communal riots is not the only danger I am referring to. There is the graver danger of the division of the country. we must remember that the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Ceylon are inhabited principally by Tamil speaking people and if those people feel that a grave and irreparable injustice is done to them, there is a possibility of their deciding even to break away from the rest of the country." - Leslie Gunawardene, Sinhala Opposition Member of Parliament, Hansard, 8 June 1956 (but 16 years later, Leslie Gunawardene as a Minister in the Sri Lanka Cabinet voted for the entrenchment of the Sinhala only law in Sri Lanka's new 1972 Constitution which at the same repealed the safeguards in the Soulbury Constitution against discrimination)
"Do we want a single state or do we want two? Do we want one Ceylon or do we want two?.. These are the issues that in fact we have been discussing under the form and appearance of the language issue... if you mistreat them (Tamils), if you ill treat them.... if you oppress and harass them, in the process you may cause to emerge in Ceylon, from that particular racial stock with its own language and tradition, a new nationality to which we will have to concede more claims than it puts forward now... If we come to the stage where instead of parity, we through needless insularity, get into the position of suppressing the Tamil ... federal demand... there may emerge separatism." - Dr Colvin R. De Silva, Sinhala Opposition Member of Parliament, Hansard, June 1956 (but 16 years later, Colvin R. De Silva, as a Minister for Constitutional Affairs in the Sri Lanka Cabinet secured the entrenchment of the Sinhala only law in Sri Lanka's new 1972 Constitution which at the same time repealed the safeguards in the Soulbury Constitution against discrimination)
Senator S.Nadesan Q.C., Sri Lanka Senate Hansard 26 June 1957
"Almost the first act (of the newly elected Bandaranaike Government) has been the passing of the 'Sinhala Only' Bill against the unanimous opposition of the entire Tamil people who wanted a place of honour for their own language. Thereby this Government has struck a grievous blow at the unity of this country, which stands divided today.
The members of this Government on the other hand have charged the Federal Party with endeavouring to divide the country... A federal solution within proper limits, and subject to proper safeguards, far from dividing a country which is already divided, is one of the best known methods of bringing about unity in a divided country.
If democracy means anything, if human rights mean anything, no national minority proud of its language and culture can ever subscribe to the proposition that it should in respect of matters affecting its vital interest accept the dictates of a majority nationality merely because it is a majority.
If this were so, it would amount to the tyranny of an impersonal majority... since this question affects the Tamil nationality vitally - I do not say the Tamil-speaking nationality - the Government cannot seek to impose anything, which is the result of a unilateral decision by the representatives of the Sinhalese people, on the Tamil people without doing violence to the elementary principles of democracy.
Even our British rulers listened to what we had to say before they framed proposals for constitutional reforms. They might have thought some years ago that some of our demands were extravagant but they did not say, "The condition under which you come here is that you shall not talk of independence."
For an historical time-line on Sri Lanka / Ceylon from 1505 to the present see: SINHALA COLONISATION:IN A NUTSHELL
(The history, negotiations, abrogation of pacts, military operations, etc)
It is due to the disenfranchisement of the Tamil population making them into at best second class citizens as far as they are concerned and secondly to the violence committed against Tamils which has led to animosity and mistrust between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan government for example:
1956 The United National Party-UNP was ousted from power in the general elections by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which swept the island with a wave of Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism with strong anti-Tamil overtones.
On 14 June S. W. R. D. Bandaranayake father of President Chandrika Kumaratunga proclaimed the “Sinhala Only Act” which made the Sinhala language the only official language of Ceylon.
The peaceful Satyagraha campaign staged by the Tamils to protest against the “Sinhala Only Act” at the Galle Face Green, in front of the Parliament in Colombo was brutally savaged by Sinhalese thugs with the connivance of government. The outbreak of first anti-Tamil riots in the island. More than 150 Tamils were burnt or hacked to death and million rupees worth of properties belonging to Tamils were looted and destroyed.
1957 Soon after the “Sinhala Only Act” was passed in Parliament, talks were initiated between the Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and the Federal Party leader S. J. V. Chelvanayagam.
On 26 July an agreement known as “Banda Chelva” pact was signed between Bandaranayake and Chevanayagam. This agreement was based on a quasi federal system devolving certain powers to the Tamils in the North East provinces.
Within a week of signing the “Banda-Chelva” pact, it was unilaterally abrogated by the Prime Minister Bandaranaike due to vehement protests staged by the UNP, Buddhist clergy and SLFP. J R Jeyawardena of United National Party-UNP undertook a march to Kandy in protest against this pact.
1958 Anti-Tamil pogrom broke out in the island. Many Tamils were massacred and million of rupees worth of properties belonging to the Tamils were looted and destroyed.
On 25 May, in the government sugar-cane plantation at Polonnaruwa and Hingurakgoda, the Sinhala thugs assaulted the Tamil labourers remorselessly. The Sinhala thugs set fire to the sugar canes and burnt or hacked to death 500 Tamils in Polonnaruwa and Hingurakgoda. Violence spread to the Southern part of the island wherever the Tamils live.
1959 The Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Buddhist monk.
1983 Major anti-Tamil pogrom took place in July all over the island with the buoyed up support of the government. During the four days riots, more than 6,000 Tamils were killed and over 250,000 were rendered refugees. Thousands of Tamils fled the country and went to India and to Western countries. Billions rupees worth of Tamils properties was looted and destroyed by the Sinhala rioters.
Between 27-28 July, fifty-three Tamil political prisoners were massacred inside the walls of the Welikadai prison in Colombo by the Sinhala inmates. The government masterminded this massacre and the Sinhala attackers were released from the prison and were rewarded with houses and properties in the Sinhala settlements in the Tamil homeland.
Hundreds of youths joined the LTTE movement and the TULF Members of Parliament sought asylum in India.
J. R. Jeyawardena’s government enacts the 6th amendment to the constitution and rejected the right to self-determination of the Tamil people in the island on 8th August. This amendment outlawed the mandate voted by the Tamils in 1977 general election. The Sixth amendment and the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 1979 along with the Emergency Law provisions became the instruments through which repression was unleashed on the Tamil people.
1984 At the beginning of EELAM WAR-I. Tamils living in the North East were lynched, arrested, tortured and killed. Women and many men disappeared. Sri Lankan Air Force bombers dropped lethal napalm bombs in residential areas causing severe loss and damage to the Tamil people and to their properties.
also see: " Sri Lankan civilians in firing line as military 'annihilates' Tamil Tigers " "Telegraph.co.uk , April 5, 2009
and:
Traumatised Tamils live in fear of new crackdown in Sri Lanka by Annie Kelly, guardian.co.uk April 5, 2009
and so it goes,
GORD.
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