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Ethnic Cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka
Mak Suppira
Makenthiran
 This
factual account of the Tamils in Sri Lanka was received by WSN in
response to the Open Letter to M. Karunanidhi by Jagmohan Singh
carried in the WSN edition of --- . We publish this in the belief
that accounts and reasoned self descriptions of struggling nations
in India’s neighborhood will interest the readers of WSN. The author
explains why Tamils are struggling for Tamil Eelam.
Tamils are the
original inhabitants of Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka. This is the
story of the Tamil people in the second half of the last century.
In 1948, the very
year that the British handed over the Ceylon Government to the
Sinhalese majority on a platter without any safeguards for
minorities, the Sinhalese-dominated government passed a law
rendering half the Ceylon Tamil population stateless in the land of
their birth. Under the Ceylon Citizenship Act, of the nearly two
million Tamils in Ceylon, over one million Upcountry Tamils, who had
lived in Ceylon for generations, were deprived of their citizenship.
To make matters worse, the Sinhalese government disenfranchised
these Tamils by depriving them of their voting rights by passing the
Ceylon Elections Amendment Act.
The Upcountry Tamil
leaders launched a peaceful satyagraha to protest against this
racist policy, but it was ignored by the government. The first
Prime Minister of Ceylon, D. S. Senanayake -a scheming racist, set
the dangerous precedent for others to follow.
Subsequently, there
was massive land grabbing forcing a planned colonization of the
traditional homeland of the Tamils in the Northeast by settling
Sinhalese from the South. Indigenous Tamils were uprooted and
Sinhalese criminals made to reside in Tamil-dominated villages. All
protests by Tamils and their leaders were scrupulously ignored.
In 1956, the
Sinhalese government passed the Sinhala Only Act, making Sinhala the
only official language, divesting official status of the Tamil
language. The Tamil language spoken by Tamils and Muslims was the
mother tongue of one-third of the people of Ceylon, but it was
suppressed. This cultural attack was carried out by Prime Minister
Mrs. Bandaranayake.
Furthermore in 1956,
Sinhalese mobs attacked and drove out Tamils from their villages in
the Gal Oya Valley in the Batticaloa district. This was
commencement of Sinhala mob terrorism against unarmed Tamils. The
police was ineffective and remained mute spectators.
The next step in the
genocidal programme was to stop employment to Tamils. Those already
in the government service were deprived of their increments unless
they passed the Sinhala proficiency tests.
In 1957 Tamil
leaders signed the Bandaranayake-Chelvanayagam Pact with the
Sinhalese government, to devolve power to regional councils, but it
was soon unilaterally and dishonestly abrogated. Again in 1965,
Tamil leaders signed the Chelvanayagam-Senanayake Pact to devolve
power to district councils was also abrogated.
In 1958 Sinhalese
mobs and criminals unleashed terror against the Tamils all over the
Sinhalese provinces. Tamils were massacred, their houses burnt,
people burnt live, women raped and tortured. Rendered defenselss,
over a 100,000 Tamils fled to their traditional homelands in the
Northeast.
In 1970, by a scheme
of standardization, Tamil students were discriminated and barred
from higher education. Tamil students were required to score higher
marks than the Sinhalese for admission to higher studies.
In the early sixties
of the last century, Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranayake indulged in mass
deportation of the stateless and disenfranchised Upcountry Tamils to
India. The Indian government colluded with the Ceylon government in
this move by signing the Srimavo-Sashtri Pact in 1964. Half a
million Tamils were forced out of Ceylon to India.
In 1974 the Sinhala
state unleashed police violence against the Tamils who had gathered
to hold the Tamil Research Conference in Jaffna, killing nine and
wounding many. In 1976 the Sinhalese police opened fire at a mosque
killing many Tamil-speaking Muslims.
 In 1977 the UNP
government of Prime Minister J.R. Jayawardena unleashed mob violence
against the Tamils particularly in the plantations, killing hundreds
of innocent people. Nearly 40,000 Tamils were made refugees and
destitute and many fled to India. Nearly 100 Hindu temples were
destroyed with the active involvement of Sinhalese politicians. In
1978 the Sri Lankan Parliament enacted the notorious Prevention of
Terrorism Act and armed forces were given a free hand to kill Tamil
youth. Torture camps were set up and Tamils disappeared
involuntarily in large numbers. The government unleashed the
Sinhalese and Muslim home-guards to oppress Tamils.
In 1981, the
Sinhalese armed forces rampaged in Jaffna, killing and setting fire
to buildings including the historic Jaffna Public Library containing
94,000 invaluable books. This act of cultural genocide was carried
out by two Sinhala ministers, Athulathmudali and Cyril Mathew, who
were present in Jaffna at the time of attack. The Sinhalese
government chased out Tamils from their villages in large numbers in
the Northeast and replaced them with the Sinhalese from the South.
Plantation Tamils, who had taken refuge in Northeast due to Sinhala
terror, were forcibly put into buses and dumped in the Central
Province. Tamil students in the University of Peradeniya were also
attacked. Tamils were arrested in large numbers and held without
trial for long periods. Many were tortured and many disappeared,
obviously involuntarily. In the Welikade jail, many Tamil prisoners
were killed in July 1983.
This reign of
terror continued during the tenure of J.R. Jayawardena, Premadasa,
and Chandrika Kumaratunga. The Sinhala armed forces continued a
reign of state terror. Mass arrests, killings, disappearances,
torture, rape, burning of houses, destruction of schools, hospitals,
businesses, shops, temples and churches rendered Tamils destitute.
Tamil villages were bulldozed and the army followed a scorched-earth
policy in the Tamil homeland.
In the village of
Manalaru, where the Tamils were uprooted, it was renamed Welioya,
and Sinhalese convicts were settled. Jaffna, Palali, Nedunthivu,
Manalaru, Valvettiturai, Kilali, Trincomalee, Batticaloa,
Kokkadicholai, Mannar, Bidunuwewa, Kanchirankuda have suffered the
most. Tamils were massacred and buried in mass graves in Chemmani.
It is disgusting to note that some of the gross violators of human
rights have been rewarded with ambassadorships.
The Sinhala
government imposed economic embargo on Tamil provinces preventing
supply of food, clothing, and medicines, building materials, fuel
and other basic necessities. People were dying, but international
bodies were denied access.
According to an
estimate, some 800,000 Tamils have fled from
Sri Lanka to India,
U.K., Europe,
North America, Australia and Africa. One million Tamils have been
displaced internally and most of them have become homeless. A large
number of children have been orphaned and many more have been
maimed.
 Even after years of
cease-fire, Sinhalese armed forces are occupying Tamil homes,
hospitals, schools, places of worship and public places in many
provinces. The Sinhalese police and army are also guilty of sadistic
torture of Tamil girls and women. There has been forced
sterilization of Plantation Tamils. Due to abject poverty, a large
number of Tamil children are employed in Sinhalese homes as domestic
servants and are subjected to abuse. The culprits escape punishment
due to state patronage and biased judiciary.
The devastation to the Sri Lankan Tamil people caused by the
Sinhalese pogrom has reduced the Tamil population to 30 percent of
what it was in 1948. It is time that the Sinhalese accused are
tried for genocide and crimes against humanity.
(S. Makenthiran is a
graduate of the University of Ceylon, Colombo and a Fellow of the
Chartered Association of Certified Accountants of UK. He has
served in Sri Lanka and different countries in Africa including
Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. He was a World Bank Project Finance
Officer, before immigrating to Canada. In Canada he works as an
accountancy, financial and tax consultant. He may be contacted at
makenthiran@yahoo.com )
26 December, 2007
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