At a time when the word genocide is used with political motive and defensive war misconstrued as genocide, and a brutal genocide is taking place on a global scale with impunity, one should reflect on genocide committed by those who falsely accuse the Sri Lankan armed forces and the government for such crimes. The British who systematically annihilated people including “babies suckling”, in Uva-Wellassa in 1818 and the LTTE, which carried out numerous massacres to drive away the Sinhalese and Muslims in the so-called border villages are now shamelessly levelling unsubstantiated allegations of genocide against the Sri Lankan military. The British, jointly with the US, massacred about a million people, including children, in Iraq on a fabricated charge of possessing weapons of mass destruction. The British helped the LTTE continue their genocide of the Sinhalese and Muslims in the North and the East in an attempt to drive them away and grab their lands, and such crimes constitute genocide according to 1948 Genocide Convention.
“Slaughter every man, woman and child”
“Slaughter every man, woman, and child (including babies suckling at the breast)” was the order given by Governor Robert Brownrigg (3rd British Governor of Ceylon from 1813 – 1820) to Maj. Gen. Hay MacDowell in 1818. The British left the entire Uva-Wellassa region in a state of famine and starvation. The British used the scorched earth policy including mass murder and genocide of Sinhala civilians to crush the rebellion. British human rights campaigners now pointing accusing fingers at Sri Lanka have forgotten the Madulla Massacre, which led to razing and annihilating entire villages. In the entire Uva region members of the male population above the age of 18 were killed in revenge for resisting British imperial occupation under Governor Brownrigg.
Britain at present is leading a core group at the UNHRC Geneva, which bashes Sri Lanka for alleged human rights violations. Britain seems to have no remorse about its genocidal violence in Sri Lanka and happily leads the way in castigating Sri Lanka on unsubstantiated allegations of human right violations during the war against the LTTE. The US, which is the biggest war criminal in the world, is supporting these neo-colonial strategies to control and exploit the poor countries.
The Chemmani mass grave
The Chemmani mass grave has become a political tool liberally used by the pro-LTTE groups and their supporters in the West and also their local agents to pressure the government to take action against the war winning armed forces. Let the government be urged to get to the bottom of the mass graves found in the North and elsewhere. People of this country owe it to the armed forces who saved their country to ensure that the name of the national military is cleared. And if there are any war criminals among them, punish them after conviction. Sri Lanka is not Israel, the US or the UK.
The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to World War II, which saw atrocities such as the Holocaust that lacked an adequate description or legal definition. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe Nazi policies in occupied Europe and the Armenian genocide, campaigned for its recognition as a crime under international law. Lemkin also linked colonialism with genocide, mentioning colonial genocides outside of Europe in his writings. The Convention defines genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” These five acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
Genocide in Gaza
However, Israel in collaboration with the United States, which has the worst record in genocidal warfare, has violated this Convention with impunity in Gaza, knowing that the rest of the world cannot act against it except condemn its actions. The UN has miserably failed to take any action against Israel, though it has the necessary tools like the Convention mentioned above. Its Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk visited the Chemmani mass grave and issued a strongly-worded statement calling for investigation under international supervision. He has not visited the place where genocide is currently taking place in broad daylight. Neither has the UNHRC made any worthwhile response in respect of Iraq, Syria, Libya and other parts of the world, where the US and Europe have been engaged in genocidal warfare. This type of double standards will further erode the credibility of the UNHRC, and if countries tend to ignore its writ, it has itself to blame.
We still don’t know the identities of the people whose skeletal remains have been found in the Chemmani mass grave. It was a prolonged war situation that created these graves. There were allegations of killings, including civilians, by both parties to the war.
The Office of Missing Persons has received about 10,000 complaints about missing persons from the north and east and investigations into these complaints are ongoing (source – reports of the OMP). Apart from verbal complaints there is very little incriminating evidence, if at all, against the armed forces. A few isolated incidents where excesses were committed have been investigated and action is being taken against the suspects.
Campaign by Pro-LTTE groups
Pro-LTTE groups are trying their utmost to connect the missing persons with the mass graves. They claim that the people who went missing were buried in the Chemmani mass grave. The Island journalist Shamindra Ferdinando dealt with this matter comprehensively in the Midweek Review on 9 September. He shows that the narrative built up by the pro-LTTE groups and the Western imperialists regarding the alleged disappearances could be more myth than fact.
The LTTE massacred hundreds of civilians in cold blood in many places, such as Sri Maha Bodhi, Aluth Oya, Aranthalawa (where the victims were Buddhist monks), Kattankudy mosque, Palliyagodella, Eravur, Gonagala and Kebethigollewa. Most of those killings, committed outside the war zone, were aimed at terrorising the ordinary people, and that amounts to genocide according to 1948 Genocide Convention. The LTTE carried out many bomb attacks on civilian targets, such as the Central Bus Station in Pettah, the Central Bank, crowded trains and buses. In the eastern villages people were bludgeoned and slashed to death so that ammunition could be saved.
Apart from killing and injuring, the LTTE chased away Muslims and Sinhalese from the Northern province, which amounted to ethnic cleansing, an act of genocide according to the above mentioned Convention. The people who were chased away have not yet returned to their homes and property, perhaps because of the memory of terror they had experienced in the North. Aren’t these acts of genocide ? The 1948 Convention defines genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
Attacks on centres of worship like temples and mosques and killing of priests are unpardonable acts of terror aimed at destroying religious groups. Similarly murdering surrendered police officers is butchery of the worst kind. It was such acts of naked terrorism and insane mass murder that made the FBI label the LTTE “the most brutal terrorist organization in the world”.
Silence of UNHRC
Isn’t the UNHRC keen to ensure that justice is done for the victims of genocide committed by the LTTE? Perhaps, we should not make such a request to an organisation that keeps mum while genocide is rampant in the contemporary world ? Palestinians are being systematically murdered and driven away from their country with the UNHCR doing nothing to protect them. The US President is threatening the countries which support the Palestinians.
Sri Lanka must call for an international investigation into genocide committed by the LTTE.
