President Rajapaksa’s begrudging announcement of a Northern Provincial Council election in September has sparked an utterly predictable melee of impassioned responses to the 13th Amendment. The government is presenting an urgent bill to parliament, a minister is demanding a referendum to guarantee abolition, the TNA is aghast, a party of Buddhist monks is on the warpath, and an alarmed New Delhi is summoning the TNA for talks. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s main opposition, the UNP, is attempting to position itself as defender of ‘minority’ rights. This circus is a farce. Neither the 13th Amendment, nor the provincial council election, is of any consequence to the Tamil question. The 13th Amendment cannot address the immediate needs of the Tamil people in the North-East, or the political aspirations of the nation. Its presence, absence and anything in between is of absolute insignificance and irrelevance. That Tamils are compelled to reiterate this 26 years on, is testament to the dismaying lack of progress on resolving the conflict.
Four years have passed since the Tamil nation suffered the zenith of genocide inflicted upon it by the Sri Lankan state, where tens of thousands of Tamils were herded into a tiny of slither of land, only to be massacred with heavy artillery, systematically raped and tortured, deliberately starved, deprived of humanitarian assistance and murdered in cold blood. The evidence - not only indicative of the appalling nature of the crimes, but the intentional and systematic way in which they were perpetrated – is increasing. Yet despite this, and the ample time that has passed, Tamils have not seen a credible, international process towards accountability and justice, or a meaningful attempt to deliver a political solution that ensures their future security. The Tamil nation is instead, more exposed now than ever before – its identity is being destroyed, its claims to nationhood are being dismantled and its homeland erased of its Tamil character.
British Prime Minister David Cameron must reverse his decision to attend the CHOGM summit in Colombo later this year. His presence will merely legitimise a regime widely accused of mass atrocities and intensifying repression, and seriously undermine international efforts to pursue human rights protection, accountability, democracy and resolution of Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. The decision is inherent to a flawed policy towards Sri Lanka, which Britain terms ‘engagement’ but is in effect one of appeasement and support. If Sri Lanka’s inexorable slide into violent instability is to be reversed,...
The Sri Lankan state’s forcible appropriation of Tamil-owned land and property has escalated in recent weeks. The state’s de-facto seizure of vast tracts of residential land, plantations and farms, occupied and enclosed in ‘high security zones’ during the war by the military, has been ‘legalised’ by new decrees. However, instead of dousing Tamil resistance to Sinhala hegemony, it will have precisely the opposite effect, galvanising anew Tamil hostility to the state and the Sinhalese. The forcible appropriation of land and property brings home to the majority of Tamil families the force of Sinhala oppression today, and fuels the thirst for Tamil Eelam, in ways abstract nationalist appeals cannot.
The forthcoming Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) meeting in London can play a crucial role in shaping Sri Lanka’s future. The group must fulfil its responsibility to facilitate collective action by the Commonwealth and directly address Sri Lanka’s grave and systematic violation of values and principles that the Commonwealth has proclaimed to be its own. The CMAG has considerable power. Sri Lanka deserves to be suspended from the Commonwealth and at the very least should not be allowed to host the November Heads of Government Meeting. Failure to act, however, will effectively...
Four years ago on the 6th April, hundreds of British Tamils burst onto the streets of Westminster, outraged at the massacre of Tamils in the North-East. An unprecedented, global, mass mobilisation of Tamils followed. The protesters' demands were encapsulated within the slogan: “ Stop Genocide. Free Tamil Eelam ”. Four years on however, with the decimation of the Vanni, the military defeat of the Tamil armed resistance movement, and the on-going persecution of the Tamil people in the North-East, the absolute objective of the protesters evidently failed. Yet nonetheless the 2009 protests remain a milestone in the long Tamil struggle - a defining moment that seeded the next generation of Tamil activists.
With protests demanding stern Indian action Sri Lanka continuing across the country, Delhi’s relationship with its unruly neighbour has come under intensifying criticism. India’s policy of meek diplomacy and appeasement has only fuelled Sri Lanka’s brazen defiance. In this context the Tamil Nadu state government has responded to the growing public mood by announcing a state wide ban on Sri Lankan players participating in the Indian Premier League. This step has highlighted an avenue for more concerted and co-ordinated international action. A resolute sporting boycott can be utilised as a...
The UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka last week rightly invoked mixed sentiments. On the one hand, the passing of the second resolution in two years and the advocacy efforts that accompanied it underlined that Sri Lanka remains firmly on the international agenda and that the coalition of state and non-state actors pursuing accountability for the slaughter of tens of thousands and continuing rights abuses is expanding. On the other hand, the quest for consensus on the Council, and in particular the support of India, resulted in a significant weakening of the resolution’s force and the introduction, as Delhi’s pound of flesh, of elements deeply antithetical to the goals of accountability and justice, and injurious to the political aspirations of the Tamil nation.
On Monday - Commonwealth Day - the Queen as the head of the Commonwealth, signed a new Charter outlining 16 core beliefs purported to underpin the organisation. The vision set out is a welcome one. Yet the next key Commonwealth event, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2013 (CHOGM), is due to be held in a country that evidently does not share this vision, nor care to. Four years on, Sri Lanka is no closer to accounting for the crimes of 2009 nor achieving a political solution to prevent renewed violence. Instead, it has exploited its military victory to execute unchecked...
In the almost four years that have passed since the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, the Colombo government has worked relentlessly to consolidate Sinhala dominance over the Tamil speaking regions. During this time, India’s tentative policy of appeasement and meek diplomacy in the hopes of crafting a political solution on the island has, in no uncertain terms, failed dismally. This timid approach has only seen Sri Lanka’s brazen defiance swell, with the state continuing to act audaciously in the face of creeping international pressure, safe in the knowledge that India’s placation will...