On the day Sri Lanka’s president attempts to visit the Tamil city of Jaffna, a familiar scene unfolds. Peaceful Tamil demonstrators are swarmed by armed Sri Lankan officers; the military erects roads blocks to cordon off demonstrators; and, the police resort to firing water cannons in an attempt to disperse the Tamil public. None of this comes as a surprise to Eelam Tamils who for years have withstood the brunt of a brutal military occupation. Indeed, despite the tactics of intimidation and violence, Tamils did not shrink from their protests but fought back. In Nallur some chose to meet...
Last Tuesday, the Canadian government broke historic ground with the sanctioning of two former Sri Lankan presidents, Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa. In this act, they shattered any lingering illusion that the crimes of the Sri Lankan military were simply the acts of rank-and-file soldiers. Instead, they were calculated, meticulously planned and executed by the head of Sri Lanka’s wartime administration and his right hand, the acting defense secretary. These were not the actions of rogue soldiers but “gross and systematic violations of human rights”. Thus, strengthening the case that the Rajapaksa must be brought before the Hague. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry has responded, predictably, by lashing out against the Canadian government for its “unilateral action” and of “polarising communities” on the island. The statement of the ministry is a pitiful attempt to prop up a mirage of communal harmony against a background of military occupation and continued human rights violations. For generations, Tamils have had to suffer under the thumb of the Sinhala Buddhist state. Their lives are punctuated by the threat of military violence; the prohibition on memorials; the memories of their loved ones abducted by the state; and the genocide they suffered.
Speaking before parliament, Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe set out a new budget that will see the selling off of state assets, slashes to the public sector, and a reorientation towards an export-driven economy. Whilst Wickremesinghe has described the budget as the “new basis of the economy”; the refusal to discuss Sri Lanka’s growing military expenditure shows greater continuity than rupture from the past. Instead, we see the perpetuation of crony capitalism that will impoverish the poor whilst the island's military grows even further. Key to Wickremesinghe’s speech was his...
In Jaffna, walls are papered with posters calling for the arrest of exiled Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for the crime of genocide. Men and women line up to sign petitions calling on Singapore to deliver justice for the atrocities they suffered and in remembrance of those they lost. Across the globe, they are joined in unison by a diaspora who refuse to forget the thousands of Tamils slaughtered under the command of the former president. Outside Singapore’s embassies Tamils cry out to Singapore to deliver them justice. For as long as Rajapaksa remains on the island without...
Sri Lanka’s violence will not end until “the country ends its war on Tamils and Muslims and drastically scales back its military budget,” writes Tamil Guardian staff writer Ben Andak in Jacobin Magazine this week, as the economic and political crisis on the island continues. “Many are increasingly alarmed by the authoritarian nature of their government and blame President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, taking to the streets and demanding that “Gota Go Home”,” writes Andak. “But the crisis in Sri Lanka cannot be placed solely on one family. Nor will the IMF rescue the island from the root cause of the crisis: the country’s militarized and ethnocratic state.”
People are starving in Sri Lanka. The economy is in freefall as the cash-strapped government struggles to pay off its debts. The country has been forced to sell over half of its gold reserves and the prices of basic foods have skyrocketed. The pandemic has undeniably devastated Sri Lanka, but this is a crisis of the government’s own making. Instead of pursuing a “people-centric economy”, Sri Lanka’s insular policies have been military-driven, unaccountable, and detached from the struggle of citizens.
Last week, European Parliament passed a ground-breaking resolution on Sri Lanka decrying the deterioration of human rights and calling on the European Council to consider repeal of the GSP+ trading agreement and for targeted sanctions on Sri Lankan officials accused of war crimes. This follows a court ruling in Britain which maintained that peaceful Tamil activists faced the threat of ill-treatment in Sri Lanka, which the court described as an “authoritarian regime”. That same month, marking 12 years since the Mullaivaikkal massacre, US Congresswoman Deborah Ross introduced a bipartisan...
The victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) at Myanmar’s elections has been heralded as evidence of support for the country’s “nascent democracy” in defiance of the half-century military dictatorship. However, Suu Kyi’s tainted status as an apologist for the military dictatorship and on-going denial of genocidal violence highlights the illusory choice present in Myanmar. The international community’s continued fawning over the former Nobel Peace Prize winner illustrates a collective and self-serving amnesia over the Rohingya genocide. Though Suu Kyi’s backing of the...
The election of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, as well as Kamala Harris as the first Black and Tamil female Vice President, has been touted as a victory for international multilateralism and the “restoration of America’s moral leadership” in the world. In Biden’s manifesto , he announces that within his first year in office he will host a “Global Summit for Democracy” a key aim of which will be “advancing human rights” and “defending against authoritarianism”. In an era in which the international community is backsliding on its commitments to Eelam Tamils and to human rights in Sri Lanka more generally, “moral leadership” is in dire need. However, the question remains will a Biden-Harris administration follow through?
Political commentators have attempted to depict Sri Lanka’s debates over the 20 th Amendment as a conflict between “democracy” and “security”. Proponents claim the need for “strong government” to ensure national security and a prosperous economy during an exceptional period; whereas, opponents of the measure claim that this is an unprecedented break from Sri Lanka’s proud tradition of inclusive democracy. What these discussions often fail to highlight is the racial dimensions behind these proposals as well as the deeper historic context in which they arise. Sri Lanka’s imagined history of...