Unsigned Report on Sri Lanka
and the Rule of Law by Canadian pro-LTTE Groups
SRI LANKA UNITED NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
CANADA
Box 55292, 300 Borough Drive, Toronto, Ontario M1P 4Z7 Canada
Website: www.sluna.org E-mail: sluna@idirect.com
Media Release April 24, 2008
Unsigned Report on Sri Lanka and
the Rule of Law by Canadian pro-LTTE Groups
We refer to an unsigned report claiming to be ‘A Citizens Report’
titled “Sri Lanka and the Breakdown of the Rule of Law – An
Action Plan” released in Scarborough, Canada, on April 18, 2008
by the pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) lobby at a fundraiser
for a prospective Conservative Party candidate named Chuck Konkel who
hopes to run in the federal riding of Scarborough – Guildwood.
The news report filed by Stewart Bell in the National Post edition of
April 19, 2008 states that the report calls for the imposition of sanctions
on Sri Lanka, and that it has been written by a group of Ontario lawyers
and Canadians of Sri Lankan origin, none of whom have been named. The
authors identities though withheld, their links to the banned LTTE terrorist
group becomes obvious as the report receives instant publication in
the Tamilnet.
At the very outset, we would like to state that contrary to what the
report attempts to convey in its title, the rule of law has been further
enhanced following the defeat of the terrorist forces of the LTTE and
re-taking of the areas of the eastern province that had been usurped
by the terrorists and freeing the entrapped civilian population, and
further empowering the people by restoring their democratic rights and
freedoms and bringing about normalcy to their lives after a lapse of
14 years.
This report is just a collection of statements which are not supported
by factual evidence but a rigmarole of alleged failures and shortcomings
on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka, which is a reflection of
the paucity of the legal minds that compiled it. Unfortunately, similar
reports put out by well known international human rights bodies also
fall into the same category as they too lack accuracy, merely blurting
out hearsay as a substitute for facts, in their eagerness to shame and
blame Sri Lanka in order to build up momentum for their agenda to bring
in international human rights monitors on top of the multitude of foreign
funded observers already nosing around the countryside. One is left
to wonder if these foreign agencies and LTTE lobby groups are working
hand in glove and sharing the same data base from which they spew forth
all this junk and venom. We will attempt to briefly deal with the various
aspects of this report as stated hereunder:
Overview:
In the reports overview they have omitted the small minority of Malays
and Burghers who also form part of the ethnic mosaic of Sri Lanka. The
armed conflict launched by the Tamil separatist militants has lasted
over 25 years. It is incorrect to state that the national minorities
and vulnerable groups such as women and children have been targeted
and repressed by the government and its armed forces. The 27000 Sinhalese
living in the Jaffna region were forcibly evicted by the Tamils in the
early 1970s.
The Sinhalese stream in the University of Jaffna was forcibly closed
in 1981 with the 400 students having to be evacuated to safety under
armed escort whilst Tamil students in the southern universities were
unharmed. The 100,000 Muslims of Jaffna were driven out by the LTTE
on 48 hours notice in 1990. The Tamils who were displaced in the south
during the unfortunate race riots of 1983 caused as a result of built
up tensions and triggered by the claymore bombing and machine gunning
of 13 soldiers from the Sinhala community, have been able to return
to their homes and live peacefully with their Sinhala neighbours, whereas
the ousted Sinhalese and Muslims were not able to get back to their
former places of residence. Subsequent attempts to provoke the Sinhalese
into retaliation by brutal attacks on Buddhist pilgrims, sacred shrines,
ethnic cleansing attacks on Sinhalese villages have been overlooked
by the Sinhalese showing that the ugly riots of 1983 was indeed an aberration.
The Sinhala community has publicly apologised for harm done to their
fellow Tamil citizens. If Sinhalese leaders referred to Tamils as terrorists,
it is because they resorted to every form of terrorism including suicide
bomb attacks mainly against civilians, and also because the Tamil leaders
and the community in general referred to the terrorist cadres in endearing
terms such as “the dear boys” although they did not engage
in what may be termed as harmless, boisterous behaviour.
Issue:
The state has had to introduce special legislation such as the Prevention
of Terrorism Act in the face of several armed Tamil separatist groups
waging guerrilla warfare, just as Canada introduced the War Measures
Act to deal with the October Crisis of 1970 when the Front de Liberation
de Quebec (FLQ) comprising less than 40 members used propaganda and
terrorist acts to pursue an independent , socialist Quebec.
No names of judges said to have been removed for making decisions unfavourable
to the government has been given. It is true that some journalists had
been questioned by the government in the interest of national security.
The LTTE should answer for those Tamil journalists who were done to
death, as they were silenced for their criticism of the LTTE. It is
simply a canard to claim that opposition parliamentarians who voice
criticism of the government are abducted and assassinated, when it is
the normal expectation that opposition members would voice contrary
positions, that the government would take such drastic steps to provide
the requisite armed security to such parliamentarian and blast them
along with their security contingent made up of police personnel. The
party responsible for such killings has been the LTTE, even though they
do not publicly accept responsibility for such crimes. TNA Parliamentarian
Joseph Pararajasingham was similarly killed on Christmas Day 2005 following
the Midnight Mass, but posthumously honoured by the LTTE Chief Prabhakaran
as a “Mamanithar” or Great Man, making it an absolute mockery.
The LTTE has killed over 50 prominent Tamil leaders in their attempt
to be the self declared sole representative of the Tamil community,
in addition to leaders from the other communities plus two heads of
state of Sri Lanka and India. Details of the persons so assassinated
could be accessed at the following web pages: www.epdpnews.com/Photos/Killed%20by%20LTTE%20Englishl..html
- 67k ; www.satp.org/tracking/Goto.asp?ID=178%20 - 30k ; www.spur.asn.au/prominent_tamil_leaders_killed.htm
- 19k
Discussion:
Notwithstanding what is said in the report, Sri Lanka’s Judiciary
has acted independently with learned judges from all communities acting
freely and making judgments based on law and natural justice. A few
examples of their independent decision making includes the striking
down of the P-TOMS administrative set up drawn up by the previous President
of Sri Lanka, creating an anomalous situation where the terrorist LTTE
would have wielded a controlling power in the utilisation of international
aid for rehabilitating tsunami affected regions from their headquarters
in Kilinochchi, invalidating the conditional merger of the northern
and eastern provinces by Presidential Decree, and ordering the return
of 376 Tamils lodgers who were bussed out of Colombo on grounds of security
as it was feared that they harboured LTTE’s suicide bombers sent
to carry out attacks in the city, under the freedom of movement guaranteed
by the constitution.
The anonymous writers of this report are merely repeating the unsubstantiated
allegations which they had manufactured in respect of disappearances,
extrajudicial killings, political assassinations, etc. for which they
try to blame the Sri Lankan authorities, whilst saying nothing about
the LTTE with its trained squad of black tiger suicide bombers, pistol
gang assassins, that is the culprit hiding behind carefully laid out
minefields, and explosives laden booby traps, inside its crumbling bastion
in the jungles of the Vanni, whom they want to shield and rescue from
defeat. It is a shame that international human rights agencies also
repeat the same litany of allegations without credible evidence to prevent
the defeat of the terrorists, making one wonder if these INGOs and foreign
funded NGOs want the armed conflict to continue without end, so that
they could retain their observer status churning out reams of so called
useless research data and justify the large scale funding from their
sponsors to maintain their lifestyles in the sun and sand of Sri Lanka.
The report claims that Nadarajah Raviraj, a TNA parliamentarian and
NGO activist was gunned down in November 2006 by agents or supporters
of the government. The police suspect that Mr. Raviraj had been assassinated
by a LTTE hit man based on available evidence. According to investigations,
Mr. Raviraj had received many phone calls after he criticised the LTTE
leaders for sending their children abroad from a mobile telephone operated
within the LTTE dominated Vanni, for which no subscriber was listed
by the phone company. Scotland Yard Police too were invited to assist,
and certain items have been taken with them for forensic testing, the
results of which are not known yet.
Certain human rights violations have taken place during the ongoing
conflict, and the government has taken steps to openly look into the
complaints through Commissions of Inquiry. The International Independent
Group of Eminent Persons ( IIGEP) too were invited to observe the ongoing
investigations, but they unfortunately decided to withdraw at the end
of March 2008. The gathering of evidence that could be sustained in
a Court of Law, finding witnesses, apprehending the alleged perpetrators
many of whom have run away to hide in the territory usurped by the LTTE,
has been an extremely difficult task, but the inquiries are proceeding
and making progress. Some members of the security forces and police
who have been found guilty of such crimes have already been brought
to justice and dealt with according to the law.
With regard to the killing of seventeen local aid workers employed
by the French NGO, Action Contre la Faim – ACF (Action Against
Hunger) in August 2006, during the height of the battle in Muttur, when
government troops were seeking to flush out the LTTE forces that occupied
the town in a lightning strike following their retreat from Mavil Aru,
it has so far been established that ACF had irresponsibly sent these
workers into a war zone, did not heed the suggestion of the Sri Lankan
Navy to have them ferried to safety prior to the onset of military action
nor did they accept the advice of a church official to re-locate to
the safety of the church, only to become victims in the early hours
of August 4, 2006. The LTTE was in control of the town according to
the Tamilnet website from July 31st till they made a tactical withdrawal
on August 5, 2006. The bullets extracted from the victims bodies have
been found to be of the 7.62 calibre variety used by the LTTE forces
as confirmed by the Australian Forensic Expert Dr. Dodd who assisted
in the investigations. The evidence points to the LTTE being responsible
for their deaths, possibly carried out with the intention of creating
a serious human rights issue and pinning the blame on the government’s
security forces. The findings of the Presidential Commission inquiring
into this and several other such crimes is awaited.
There is also a Commission of Inquiry to look into numerous lists of
"Missing Persons" submitted to the government through NGOO,
diplomats, etc. Several of those listed as missing have since been located
unharmed. Details provided in the lists are inadequate in most cases
for follow up. Another striking feature is that the immediate family
members have submitted names of their relatives said to be missing to
various organizations, (some of which are spending their resources to
discredit the government and cause embarrassment) without making their
complaints directly to the authorities. Delays in reporting and inadequate
information makes the task of tracing the movements of the supposedly
missing persons a doubly difficult job. Nevertheless, the authorities
are making their best effort to follow up on the lists submitted as
well.
Amnesty International's report dated February 1, 2006 blamed most of
the H.R.violations in the eastern province on the LTTE and the breakaway
Karuna group. Some of the violations even spilled over to the capital
city of Colombo due to the bitter rivalry and enmity caused as a result
of the split within the LTTE. The defeat of the LTTE in the east and
their being forced out of the area has immediately brought about a considerable
improvement in the human rights situation, and at the same time lifting
the veil of fear and harassment that prevailed under the jackboot of
the fascist LTTE. The clearing operations currently engaged in by the
Sri Lankan forces to neutralize the LTTE’s military capability
and free the Tamil civilians in the Vanni region living under the harsh
regime imposed upon them by the terrorists, will not only eliminate
the human rights violations presently committed with impunity by the
LTTE through its vast horde of brainwashed suicide bombers, pistol gangs
and assassins who target members of all communities, but also provide
space for other Tamil voices to exercise their democratic freedoms and
participate with the rest of the communities in building a better tomorrow
for all citizens of this long suffering nation, which has been held
to ransom by extremist terrorists for almost three decades.
Background on Sri Lanka:
It is not surprising that the background data provided in the report
is a twisted version of the actual situation, and the usual exaggeration
of the number of Tamils to make it appear a significant percentage of
the total population. Sri Lanka emerged as an independent nation in
1948, having being subjected to colonial rule by the Portuguese and
the Dutch over her coastal regions from 1505 to about 1795, after which
the British came on the scene and controlled the entire island from
1815 onwards following the ceding of power by the Sinhala Chieftains
over the island called SINHALE under the terms of a Treaty known as
the Kandyan Convention which the British violated from the very inception.
The British took over the lands belonging to the indigenous Sinhalese
peasantry and ruling classes in terms of the infamous ‘Waste Lands
Ordinance’ without a penny in compensation and sold it to British
capitalists at a price of just Fifty Ceylon Cents per acre which was
merely the surveying costs, and thereafter brought in Indian Tamils
as indentured labour from Tamilnadu, South India, who were willing to
work for a pittance on the new plantations set up on the confiscated
lands. These Indian Tamil migrant workers or transient workers would
work for short periods and go back to their homes in South India, as
they did not have a permanent interest in the virtually slave labour
camps set up by the British in Ceylon. At the time of regaining independence
in 1948, the new government adopted a Citizenship Act which required
these Indian Tamils to have a residency of seven (7) years with absence
on any one occasion not exceeding 12 months in order to qualify for
citizenship as agreed to by India in 1941, with the support of the leaders
of the Tamil Congress in parliament. These Indian Tamils were migrant
workers who were British subjects and did not enjoy a franchise as permanent
residents of Ceylon, and therefore there was no disenfranchisement of
any domiciled Indian Tamil by the Citizenship Act. Appeals made to the
courts including the Privy Council of Britain upheld the provisions
of the Act. At that time, India too refused to take back the Indian
Tamils who failed to qualify for Ceylon citizenship as they were British
subjects, fearing other Indians who had similarly migrated to other
distant British colonies would also want to return home. The case of
the stateless Indian Tamils was amicably settled between Sri Lanka’s
Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and India’s Prime Minister
Lal Bahadur Shasthri in 1964. A detailed paper on this subject serialised
in the Island Newspaper in March 2008 could be accessed at the following
url : file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Marlee/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20F
The Tamils whose homeland is in Tamilnadu, South India, where 61 million
Tamils live, have invaded Sri Lanka from the earliest times to plunder
and pillage, and on occasions captured parts of the northern territories
for short periods before they were defeated by the indigenous Sinhalese
people and driven back. They first came in as settlers only around the
11th century, with the bulk of the Tamils coming much later in the 18th
and 19th centuries as indentured labour brought in by the Dutch and
British colonialists for work on tobacco, coffee, and tea plantations.
Those brought in by the British are referred to as Indian Tamils whilst
the rest are called Sri Lankan Tamils.
The Sri Lankan Tamils were provided with greater access to English
education and given preferential treatment by the British colonial administration
under their divide and rule policy, which enabled them to dominate in
all areas despite their small number. Prior to the grant of independence,
the 11 percent Sri Lankan Tamil minority sought equal representation
with the 78 percent Sinhalese majority in the new parliament referred
to as the 50:50 cry, but same was rejected by the Soulbury Commission
which considered it an insidious way to make a minority of a majority
and instead transferred power on the basis of universal franchise for
all eligible persons over 21 years of age. With the diminishing of their
dominant status after independence, the Tamils who have always been
organised as a communal political group started to seek a separate region
to be controlled by the Tamils culminating in the passing of the Vadukkodai
Resolution in 1976 declaring their right to a separate state made up
of the north and east of Sri Lanka based on the false premise that it
was their traditional homeland from time immemorial. They lacked historical,
archaeological, legal or other evidence to support their claim, and
was only supported by a minute made by one ignorant British civil servant
named Cleghorn who was later dismissed from the service. The Sinhalese
have over 3000 rock inscriptions (which exceeds that found in the whole
of China, a photo record of which are archived at the Cambridge University)
and ancient Buddhist shrines found in all parts of the island to prove
their antecedence and claims to their only motherland.
According to the census carried out in 1981, the Sinhalese made up
74.5%, the Sri Lankan Tamils stood at 12.8%, the Muslims (Moors) 7.0%,
Indian Tamils 5.2%, with the Malays and Burghers making up the balance
0.5%. The Sri Lankan Tamils exploited the riots of 1983 to seek greener
pastures in the developed west with as many as 800,000 to one million
Tamils migrating to countries such as Canada, USA, UK, EU, Australia,
New Zealand, etc. Their number within Sri Lanka has been largely reduced,
with the LTTE even preventing a census being taken in the north and
east in 2001 to avoid exposing the real position. The World Fact Book
places the number of Sri Lankan Tamils at 3.9 percent. It is presumed
that the proportion of Sri Lankan Tamils as a percentage of the island’s
total population estimated at around 20 million is now about 7.8 percent.
The combined total of Tamils including the Indian Tamils adds up to
a maximum of 13.2 percent and not the 20 percent projected in the report.
In 1956, Sri Lanka switched from English spoken by less than 5 percent
to Sinhalese spoken by over 75 percent as the Official Language, and
did not in any way change the status of the Tamil language. Civil servants
who were not proficient in the official language were allowed 5 years
to acquire a working knowledge of Sinhala assessed at the Grade VIII
level, or retire with full pension benefits. Whilst it was essential
to know the official language to serve the majority of the people, Sinhalese
civil servants working in predominantly Tamil areas were similarly required
to acquire a working knowledge in Tamil. The Reasonable Use of Tamil
Language Act of 1958 guaranteed education in Tamil from the kindergarten
to the university free of any charges and further specified the Tamil
linguistic rights. Further concessions were granted in 1965 by the UNP
regime headed by the Hon. Dudley Senanayake.
Tamil was made a National Language and Language of Administration by
the Second Republican Constitution of 1978 enshrining an array of rights
that far exceeded the language rights enjoyed by English Canadians in
Quebec or the French Canadians in the rest of Canada. Tamil has since
been further enhanced as an Official Language and brought on a par with
Sinhalese, whilst making the study of English also compulsory.
The Tamils continue to mislead by misrepresenting the Standardization
Scheme adopted in 1970 to grant opportunities for students in rural
districts with poorer education facilities such as the lack of good
teachers, science laboratories, libraries, extra curricular programs,
as compared to the better facilitated city schools, by requiring such
students to score a lower aggregate in order to gain admission to universities.
This affected students were not only those in the developed districts
of the predominantly Tamil Jaffna and Batticaloa, but also students
in other districts such as Colombo, Kandy, Kurunegala, Galle, Matara,
etc. in the southern areas inhabited by the Sinhalese. The rural students
who were admitted with the lower scores were able to perform well in
university. The same scheme is today helping students from the Jaffna
district as stated by Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole, to gain admission to
the universities as the standards in these schools have dropped markedly
due to the ongoing conflict, making it a disadvantaged area that qualifies.
It was intended to be a temporary measure pending improvement, to assist
the rural students in the interim period, and not to discriminate against
Tamil students, as it benefited Tamil students in disadvantaged areas
such as Kayts, Vavunia, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu as well.
The Tamils are a community or a group of people enjoying equal rights
as citizens of Sri Lanka and are not recognised as a separate nation,
as the Tamil Nation exists in their homeland of Tamilnadu in South India.
They are a minority which is an integral part of the Sri Lankan Nation,
and have no right to self determination or claim any part of the island
as an exclusive homeland of the Tamils. Sri Lanka is the common homeland
of all her people belonging the various ethnic, cultural and religious
communities.
The Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) of 2002 drawn up by Norway was a flawed
document which attempted to equate the legally and democratically elected
Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) with the designated terrorist group called
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Sri Lanka formally withdrew
from the failed CFA effective January 16, 2008, in order to defend her
territorial integrity and sovereignty in the face of flagrant violations
on the part of the LTTE, whom the Nordic SLMM (www.slmm.lk) ruled had
violated it on 3830 occasions including the murder of hundreds of Tamil
dissidents, Sinhalese and Muslim civilians, members of the security
forces and political leaders of the calibre of Hon. Lakshman Kadirgamar,
by violent means including suicide bombers, smuggling in 11 shiploads
of weapons, forcibly conscripting adults and children, torturing, extorting
and denying democratic and fundamental rights to the trapped civilians
within the illegally usurped territory, as against 351 minor violations
on the part of the GOSL. .
Suggested Call for Action:
The report calls on Canada to encourage Sri Lanka to restore the CFA
and resume talks with the LTTE through internationally supported peace
negotiations.
Sri Lanka has already made five attempts to seek a negotiated settlement
during the past two decades by having direct talks and twice with international
mediation. The Indo-Lanka Peace Accord of 1987 mediated by India’s
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi which the LTTE signed was reneged on by
the latter group, who later assassinated the mediator by unleashing
a suicide bomber. The LTTE agrees to peace talks when they are militarily
weak and talk nothing less than the division of Sri Lanka, to buy time
to rearm and rebuild their forces, only to unilaterally break off the
talks and resume hostilities. Talks have proven to be meaningless and
a waste of time as the LTTE has not moved one iota from their end goal
of a separate state. Even the last round of talks in Geneva were boycotted
by the LTTE, who instead launched their so called final war of liberation
beginning in December 2005, which was intensified in mid-2006 by shutting
off water from Mavil Aru to 30,000 farming families, resulting in the
Sri Lankan forces being compelled to retaliate leading to the defeat
and eviction of the Tiger terrorists from the eastern province. The
GOSL is currently taking measures to neutralize the military capability
of the remaining LTTE forces and re-taking the territory usurped in
the Vanni region, liberating the entrapped civilians and extending the
writ of the state.
The report also calls for economic and diplomatic sanctions on the
Sri Lankan government for gross human rights violations against the
Tamil minority, and tying aid to improvements in the HR situation. The
human rights situation vastly improved in the east following the ouster
of the LTTE, and the people have been able to elect their leaders to
the local councils with 60 percent voter participation. The heavily
mined and booby trapped usurped territory held by the Tamil Tigers is
rapidly diminishing with the current military operations. The LTTE is
making every effort to create serious human rights violations by targeting
civilians and using those living under their clutches as human shields.
The LTTE will soon have to come to terms to make peace or succumb to
the circumstances leaving the space for Tamils within the democratic
stream to reach a fair arrangement with all of the other communities
to live in a multi-ethnic Sri Lanka.
Special UN Human Rights Monitors or Envoys are not needed in Sri Lanka,
as Sri Lanka has accommodated all envoys and INGO personnel to visit
the country upon request. There are already enough and more UN personnel,
Diplomatic Corp, INGO, NGO and other officials roaming the country at
the present time. The international community cannot impose solutions
as wished for by the report writers such as the creation of a distinct
Tamil Province within a Federation, as such decisions have to be taken
by the people of Sri Lanka. Most Sri Lankans are opposed to devolution
based on ethnicity, and would make alternate arrangements that are just
and fair. We recommend establishment of district councils at the periphery
and sharing of power at the centre with greater freedom of movement
that would make it a truly multi-ethnic country, which will move away
from ethnic enclaves that would create future fault lines of disharmony
and destabilisation.
Yours very truly,
Mahinda Gunasekera
Honorary President
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