A documentary about the last days of the Sri Lankan civil war, the eradication of the LTTE and the brutal massacre of thousands of Tamil civilians. Our investigations suggest that the military operations were driven by a hidden political agenda and substantial economic and corporate interests. Follow the story to know more.
Warning: disturbing content!
In 2009 the Sri Lankan army crushed the Tamil insurgents, the LTTE. More than 360000 Tamil civilians were trapped in the fighting theatre. The Sri Lankan government established a “No Fire Zone” to protect the civilians. According to the UN Panel report, more than 40000 civilians died. Less conservative figures put the toll at 80000. This footage was taken from the No Fire Zone on 10th of May 2009.
The government of Sri Lanka claimed that it pursued a “Zero civilian casualties” policy; in an interview with NDTV, Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa stated that no more than 100 civilians died[1].
Any possible debate about Sri Lanka can start only after the vision of these images. They are crude, but they are testimony of what happened.
More than 80000 Tamil civilians were killed during the last attacks of the Sri Lankan civil war.
One may be tempted to say that it is not the first case of impunity, not even in recent history. True: in Syria for example there are concurrent narratives of propaganda blaming alternatively the government and the rebels. But the novelty in respect of Sri Lanka is the absence of competitive perspectives. It is well known that China protects Sri Lanka; a little less divulged is the Indian protection of Sri Lanka. But the real point is that the West is actually not interested in accusing Sri Lanka. The US made very bland recommendations to Colombo, in comparison what is at stake. The impression is that the Sri Lankan government shall be charged for mishandling the behaviour of its troops. The boys went too far in certain circumstances, but we don’t have the political will to scold our naughty soldiers.
500 000 Tamil civilians were chased out,through shelling and starvation.
The accusation is far from this insipid criticism: the government of Sri Lanka launched a heavy military offensive against hundreds of thousands of civilians. Again, it’s better to have clear in mind that we are not speaking of isolated episodes: the plan was to bring war in the middle of Tamil inhabited areas. The operation was designed to bring havoc in every Tamil house. At the peak of the Vanni operation, almost half a million of people has been chased, starved and bombed out. It is less about the casualties and more about the intentions. The carnage of 80000 civilians is still not the most horrible part of the truth. Soldiers massively brainwashed and put under extreme psychological stress, can eventually go crazy and out of control. This is still criminal and to blame. But the Sri Lankan case is worst: the government planned to massacre the civilians. We are not discussing episodes of crossfire: we are accusing the government of Sri Lanka of heavy shelling on harmless population. Repetitively. It was a decision, it was planned.
The silence of the United Nations is a crucial accomplice in the massacres.
And the United Nations, the government of USA, UK, India, France, Norway and Japan know what happened. The UN actually published a report where it estimates at 40000 the number of civilian casualties[1]. Moreover an internal inquiry from the UN provided even more critical observations about the accomplice negligence[2].
New Delhi provided military intelligence, electronic surveillance and field support on the ground: India was informed in real time. Actually, it was New Delhi that was informing Colombo about the development of action.
Now such carnage won’t be sanctioned.
Why? Several reasons for the convenience of geopolitical equilibrium. We have some suspicions that the oil discovery in the LTTE[3] controlled area could have been a game changer, especially for India (with Vedanta and Cairn) and European countries, like the UK (again with Cairn and Vedanta, both London-listed), France (with Total); but also Malaysia, with its powerful Tamil presence, was involved through Petronas[4].
The estimated reserves of the Mannar Basin oil field are up to a billion barrels.
Aside this allegation, the undisputed outcome is that Sri Lanka will walk away from a planned massacre with total impunity, because it made the right diplomatic move. Namely, it sought agreement with every power involved. With the US, Colombo justified the operation with war on terror (it was actually a civil war). With China, it sold out a port facility (to be included in the String of Pearls). With the other Sri Lanka exchanged attractive economic deals (the exploration rights have been ceded at bargaining price). In fact during the final phase of the war, the duo Kouchner-Miliband improvised a timid protest[5], but already in 2011 France was pledging support to Sri Lanka[6] (in 2012 Paris collaborated with Sri Lankan secret service in the extra-judiciary killing of an Ex-LTTE member Parithi[7] and in 2013 Total is ready to join the Mannar Basin deal[8]), while UK was deeply compromised with Colombo for arm trade (see the scandal that led to the resignation of Defence minister Liam Fox[9]) and economic interest (Cameron lobbied in favour of Cairn and Vedanta with Indian government[10]).
This episode will establish an important precedent in international jurisprudence: heavy diplomacy with all the parties, with all the regional and global powers will give you clearance on everything you do. Everything.
Mullivaikkal Massacre May 2009
Tamil civilian victims in Mullivaikal, 2009 Sri Lanka.
In Geneva the UNHRC discussed a very funny joke: the Sri Lankan government doesn’t want to listen to its own recommendations.
Of course the tragedy of the Tamil people is not about that. The UN ( even the UN!) realized that something of heinous magnitude happened in Sri Lanka. In their report, it is alleged that 40 000 civilians died. And these are the conservative figures of the UN.
The government agent for Mullaitivu Imelda Sukumar testified for the LLRC that the population under her control in January 2009 was 360 000.
When the Tamil civilians started to reach the Sri Lankan army after the defeat of the LTTE in May, the official figures were 280 000.
Even a UN official can realize that there are 80 000 missing. If you visit and talk to the survivors, they will tell you of a carnage.
The Sri Lankan government chased like wild beast almost half of a million of Tamil civilians. The Sri Lankan government exploded the full blast of its fire power against those civilians, starving them of food and medicine. This to me is something we should discuss in Geneva.
Tamil civilians killed in Nandikadal Lagoon
When in May 2009 the Tamils in the Nandikadal Lagoon and opened fire, what they were expecting? It is a fact that in that area there were more than 300 000, so many come out. When you are bombing with heavy shelling a strip of beach with that multitude of children, elderly and women, the casualties cannot be but enormous.
The Western countries have no interest in dealing with this serious subject because they have a biggest concern in other issues. India needs to exercise its sphere of influence on Sri Lanka, including the economic exploitation of its position and side. The oil exploration in the Mannar Basin is benefitting Indian companies, which are listed in London, so the UK is mild against real pressure on Colombo. Besides, London sells weapon to Sri Lanka and has no intention of losing a client. Similarly France is just entering the oil scene in Sri Lanka and had already paid its fee (allowing the murder in Paris of LTTE leader Parithi). But also the Tamil leadership has some responsibility: they keep on hanging accountability and justice to the causes of Eelam. They don’t really ask for justice, unless is coming with independence. And of course nobody at present has the minimal intention to give them a new state. So it is really nobody’s intention to discuss what really happened in Sri Lanka.
Let’s talk instead of LLRC and its implementation; this is really a topic, which will bring no harm to anybody. You have a case of genocide and in Geneva your discussion is about LLRC. Sad.
Tamil civilians were massacred by the Sri Lankan attacks
War tourism in Sri Lanka.
Photo BBC
In Sri Lanka a new sector is booming: war tourism. On the site where the last bastion of the LTTE was crushed by the Sri Lankan army, a holiday resort has been built to cater for an audience eager to see with their own eyes these places. The advert reminds that on this lagoon, the heroes of the army, the terrorists of the LTTE and many others, died.[1]
November the 27th was the usual “Martyrs day”, a festival instituted by the Tamil Tigers to commemorate the soldiers fallen for the cause. This year students of the Jaffna University lighted lamps in public in their honour and they were jailed in rehabilitation camp, with the accuse of fomenting hate and the resurgence of terrorism.
Tamil victims in Sri Lankan civil war.
In this two episodes it is possible to see all the contradiction of the post-conflict process in Sri Lanka. The government hails as heroes its soldiers; all of them, including the ones responsible of the massacres. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that a huge number of civilians has been killed. The UN first referred to 40 000, but a recent book of Harrison, based on unpublished studies from the World Bank corrected the figures to 70 000. In any case, the death toll is enormous. And they were civilians, Tamil civilians. Therefore any celebration of the state for the “heroes” is a painful reminder of the personal losses for the Tamil community. At the same time, the “terrorists” were fighters for secession of an independent Tamil Eelam, after 60 years of oppression and abuses. Not to mention the fact that they were relatives of many in the
Pro-LTTE rally in London, 2009.
Photo BBC
Tamil population. And they are eager to commemorate their husbands, fathers, brothers and sisters. But the government banned any public sign of mourning the dead. And imposed a rigid silence over the civilian massacres.
The reconciliation will always be in a stall, until these positions will change. The fallen soldiers of both camps died for a cause, some of them committed crimes and most important all the civilians killed, were innocents. This is the source of the crime! The LTTE’s attacks in Colombo and other cities were criminal because they targeted the harmless Sinhalese population. Equally despicable was the involvement of hundreds of thousands Tamil civilians in the military operations led by the Sri Lankan army.
The war is over, but not the tension which caused it. Open hostilities were the symptoms of the disease, not the root. The government recurring theme of the war on terror was a successful brand to convince the West. But the troubled 40 years of independent history preceded the military struggled. The Tamils suffered persecution with communal riots, pogrom and discrimination by the state. The inability or lack of will to fix these grievances are the origin of the military response of the Tamil community.
Government War Memorial near War-Tourist Site Mullivaikal Mullaitivu District
At the same time 30 years of violence and war didn’t bring the wished end of that condition. The military option has been defeated and living in the hope of taking arms again won’t change the past. The possibility to mourn the Tamil Tigers should be a right of the community, to remember relatives. But it should be clear also that the LTTE was ruthless organization, that suppressed any form of political freedom and killed any single opposer to their plot.
Until the Sri Lankan state will feel obliged to celebrate its victory against the Tamil, any reconciliation will be clearly impossible. It will reinforce in that community the perception that only armed struggle will bring justice.
On the contrary if both community will realize that victims were the innocents of both camps, that could become the turning point for a real resolution of the tension. The conflict of interest in Sri Lanka can be eased only by a mutual recognition: the legitimacy of the Tamil to maintain their cultural and communal identity and the the right of the state to guarantee the security of its citizens, all of them.
Protests in Tamil Nadu continue over Sri Lankan Tamils issue.
Recent history showed that it is very difficult to try bloody leaders when they lose the war: Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, Milosevic was tried, but died before the verdict, Gaddafi killed in a summary execution. Only Charles Taylor has been convicted and for crimes committed in Sierra Leone, not his own (Liberia). Bashir in Sudan could be the next one, but with strong opposition from the Arab countries. As you can see, it is almost impossible to put on trial state leaders. And these had lost the war, they were on the wrong side. Croatian leaders with very similar responsibilities of Milosevic haven’t been even mentioned; Kosovar gangs of criminals have been rewarded with independence. It goes without saying that misconduct, abuses and tortures committed in Iraq and Afghanistan are out of the agenda.
360 000 Tamil civilians have been chased, bombarded and starved out.
Photo: Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation
So the idea of starting such a process in Sri Lanka is remote, very remote. Further on it is very clear that the chain of command points straight to the top: President Rajapaksa and his brother Gotabaya.
More than 80 000 Tamils have been massacred; the army targeted civilians on such a scale, that mass graves are visible from the satellite[1]. And the government was talking of a “zero civilians casualties policy”. You wouldn’t expect from the Rajapaksa administration an outspoken confession; but from US and Europe a more resolute stance to bring justice and accountability.
Rajapaksa won the war and is winning also the post-conflict. I’m convinced that war crimes have been committed: only independent investigations could verify this claim. Given the procedures currently on-going in Geneva, we have almost the certainty that a war crimes case against Sri Lanka will never take place.
More than 80 000 Tamil civilians are missing from the last assault in the Nandikadal lagoon, where the people have been bombarded by heavy artillery.
It’s not about the Tamils, even less the LTTE. The war is over and the plight of an independent Eelam is not part of the debate now. But we have a carnage of innocents. Even the UN, the most cautious and cowardice institution of the planet, recognized that a huge number of innocents died. Estimate from the World Bank put the number even higher, 100 000. The bishop of Mannar reached 140 000. But this is not bean-counting: these are other human beings. The final figure is less relevant than the meaning of what happened.
It seems like a game, that the higher the better for the Tamil cause, the lower, a score for Colombo. Wrong, badly wrong. In such a massacre, everybody is a loser. And responsible. This is what people don’t understand in Colombo and to some extent in Canada, Australia and the UK. It’s not about the Tamils and the Sinhalese.
Summary execution of Tamil men by Sri Lankan soldiers.
Photo: Channel 4/ Getty Images
We need justice for 100 000 human beings and their family. This is a collective mourning. World politics can push two groups to commit heinous mistakes. As the community of citizens of this world it is our duty to find this misconduct and to sanction it. I’m not interested in scoring for the Tamil cause, this won’t take the independence of Eelam a step closer. The Tamil community will think about this tragedy in its own terms. This is not the point.
There are credible allegation that an enormous number of civilians died. Women, children, elderly all non combatants. We need to establish the truth of what happened. And we need to know who decided it to go all the way. I want to know the role played by Mr. Rajapaksa, president of Sri Lanka and Mr. Fonseca, command in chief of Sri Lanka’s army. But also by Mr. Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE and Mr. Singh, prime minister of India. I want to know in details why Mr Karunanidhi, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, didn’t oppose the political decision in support of the offensive. And it’s mandatory to understand why the European governments, in primis the UK, didn’t raise an eyebrow during the worst days of the massacre.
I want to know all these facts because otherwise I’m an accomplice. It’s not about foreign intervention in a sovereign state: it’s being human and feeling mercy and shame for what happened.
If you can kill all this human brethren and we don’t care, we are not humans anymore.
My appeal goes to the Sinhalese friends: please, help us in restoring justice.
If you think you were on the right side of justice in your fight against the LTTE, if you think that your actions were correct and fair, you want to know the truth more than everybody else. If you are compassionate about the life of every animal and plant, if you spare blood in religious sacrifices, then you have the right mindset to understand the horrible responsibility that all of us share with such a crime. We need to investigate the carnage to restore a righteous course of action. It’s not sovereign intervention. It’s human compassion.
Forget the LTTE, forget even the Tamils. If you slaughter tens of thousands of people, if you treat the survivors like animals, if you do respect human dignity, then sooner or later you’ll pay that price. And I’m not talking of resurgence of terrorism. Sri Lankans already have the worst punishment: president Rajapaksa, a despot who rules the country like a private property. Sri Lankans decided to enslave themselves to the ultimate dinasty on the island.
The issue is not about the Tamils. It is about impunity and lack of accountability. Clearly the Rajapaksa administration received a green light by the international community. The UN, the West, India let the Rajapaksas walk away after the slaughter of a city like Vavunya (according to UN)(according to the Bishop of Mannar, in his testimony for the LLRC, it is more likely a city like Kandy). What do you expect after that? Any other murder, any other disappearance is petty crime in comparison. The Sri Lankan citizens, all of them, have forget precisely this simple fact: how can you call for justice, after that?
Any misconduct, from threatening journalists, to assaulting judges, is trivial. Moreover, do you think the right of law can be exercised if you have skipped so quickly any investigation about the end of the war?
The Sri Lankan citizens have been lured by their government, but also by a majoritarian ideology and a guilty sense of ownership over the island, that any dissent can be buried by any means. The LTTE started an armed struggle out of desperation. The leadership of Prabharakan soon spiralled in a vortex of violence for the sake of it; it was a response to the oppression and devastation of the Tamil culture and identity. Most important, the deranged trajectory of the LTTE didn’t represent and include all the Tamils. The elimination of 40 000 human beings is a crime of genocide. Forget Tamil Eelam: if you are a proud Sri Lankan, so proud that you’ll never consider the division of the country, then you must act immediately to seek the truth. To bring justice to human beings and to Sri Lanka, to the good name of Sri Lanka.
Poor Sri Lanka, if you think that killing innocents is a good way to honour your country, if you think that the blood of children, elderly and armless unfortunate, is a good way to worship this Buddhist soil.
Are you really convince that a Buddha will be pleased by this bloody sacrifice, that to hold a flag in his name, you had to rape, torture and massacre thousands? In what kind of hell have you fallen, my poor Sri Lanka.
Rajini Thiranagama
Rajini Thiranagama was a doctor,an LTTE member and a human right activist. Her personal trajectory explains much of the Tamil independence movement and represents also a clear evidence of the derangement of such movement in the LTTE incarnation.
In the early years of the armed struggled, she was very much in tune with the aspiration of the Tigers; later on, she become increasingly critical of both the Tigers and the central government. Sge begun to collect evidence of human rights violation by the LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF). She was one of the founder of the University Teacher for Human Rights, whose activity culminated in September 1989 with the publication of “The Broken Palmyra”, a book reporting the violence in Jaffna in the 1980s, committed by all parties involved: Sri Lankan government, LTTE and IPKF.
A week later, she was shot dead in front of her house in Jaffna.
courtesy University Teacher for Human Rights, Jaffna, Sri Lanka (uthr.org).
Her spirit is a guidance for everyone who’s committed to bring back Sri Lanka from the hell where has fallen. It is interesting that a person like Rajini in the first stage of the conflict, was aligned with the military struggle. To me it is a clear sign that the discrimination and the oppression of the Tamil community reached such a point that no other choice was available but to embark on a open warfare with the government. And with equal clarity, her condemnation of the LTTE and her subsequent assassination are the crystal evidence of the Tigers brutality. The LTTE stemmed from a natural sentiment of self-defence and justice, but very soon their ideal spiralled into a blind perpetuation of violence for the pure sake of it.
Students walk past a destroyed building in Jaffna [CC HumanityAshore]
The LTTE mutilated any attempt from the civil society to emerge as an expression of the Tamil community and the result was that no other path was available but to fight till victory or dying trying. The horrendous truth is that the leadership chose that direction intentionally: Prabhakaran eliminated such person from the political and intellectual landscape, precisely because they were representing a voice of conscience and a limit to his delirious warmongering.
The LTTE bears heavy responsibility for the way the IV Eelam War ended. Certainly the strategy on the field has been criminal; but much worst than the frantic decisions of a bunker situation, the two decades of terror imposed first of all on the Tamil people are the moral culprit of the tragic end of the conflict.
The responsibility of Sri Lankan government stands in full, despite this evil collaboration. That is why we must keep on, taking inspiration from people like Rajini Thiranagama towards a salvation of Sri Lanka. The German philosopher Heidegger said that: “where danger threatens, that which saves from it also grows”.
So I’m not surprise that in the moral devastation of the Sri Lankan war, you can find great spirit like her.
We commented few days ago about the Eastern Provinces 2012 Elections and we would like to bring attention to one episode occurred in the same area 13 years ago. The LTTE conducted a commando operation in the village of Gonagala, where they killed 50 people: 27 men, 17 women (2 were pregnant) and 10 children.
According to forensic examination, only one has been killed by gunshot, the rest has been hatched. The incident is reported to have happened in the early morning; the Tigers cadres hacked to death all the people they could find in the village, mostly in their sleep. A middle aged man tried to protect himself had his hand cut and skull crushed.
After they finished with the village, they went to a nearby settlement, where they killed 4 more. The details are horrendous and came from a Sri Lankan newspaper1. But also Amnesty International attributed to the LTTE the massacre. Here it is possible to find some images of the carnage (Beware of the disturbing content).
The spiral of violence that caught Sri Lanka for 30 years is almost unimaginable. The LTTE didn’t cause the framework of discrimination and repression, but certainly contributed significantly in the escalation of brutality.
Today we are discussing the responsibility of the government for the simple reason that the LTTE is no more. But it is a duty for everyone involved in the process of justice and accountability in the Sri Lankan conflict to help remember that landscape of horror. There is no excuse for the Sri Lankan government for the civilian killings in the IV Eelam War; nonetheless it is fair to remind the calibre of Tigers’ crimes, in order to understand the sense of genuine relief felt by the overwhelming majority of the people on the island. Including many Tamils.
A Sri Lankan Quest 