By Gnana Sankaralingam –
Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam
Recently the Canadian Parliament passed a resolution to commemorate in May every year as Tamil Genocide week. This provoked widespread condemnation from Sinhalese across party divide both in Sri Lanka and abroad. Tamils across the world welcomed it, and strangely one Muslim group in UK handed over a petition to the government endorsing genocide of Tamils. Several governments in the west are likely to follow, causing embarrassment to Sri Lanka government and its fellow travellers. There is provision for states to act independently and enforce sanctions on individuals being accused of the crime. This disgrace is the result of intransigence of successive post war governments failing to settle demands of Tamils in a fair manner and effect reconciliation process to usher peace.
Genocide is a Latin word meaning elimination of an entire race. This has not happened and therefore Genocide charge is false. During last century, definition of genocide was changed as killing of one million members of an ethnic group such as Jews by Germans, Armenians by Turks and Tutsis by Hutus. Number of Tamils killed is much less and therefore genocide charge fails. But now the story is different. Expulsion of 750,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar has been reported to ICC as genocide by Gambia, and Massacre of 3000 Muslims in Bosnia has been declared genocide. 500,000 Indian Tamils were deported on agreement and 300,000 Ceylon Tamils forced out as refugees, with 100,000 Tamils killed. In comparison with other examples, what happened in Sri Lanka amounts to genocide.
Whether genocide of Tamils took place or not could be debatable, but certainly Sinhalese had genocidal intent right from the time of independence. In the late 50s we were told by Sinhalese counterparts that Indian Tamils will be driven out of Sri Lanka, Ceylon Tamils will be driven into Jaffna peninsula and the rest of the island will be colonised to make it Sinhala Buddhist state. This has been articulated in the book written by N.Q. Dias in 1961 in the aftermath of Tamil Satyagraha movement. Process of ethnic cleansing started after Independence both by settling of Sinhalese in Tamil areas of eastern province and by sponsored riots to drive Tamils out. After the end of the war, this has raised again with lands of Tamils in north and east being appropriated and distributed to Sinhalese.
Genocide began in 1958 with killing of over 1000 Tamils and displacing several. This process continued in 1977 culminating in 1983 where over 3000 Tamils were killed and over 100,000 fleeing as refugees internally and to other countries. After commencement of war, several Tamils were killed and many more displaced to add to this number. Thus to confine genocide to last stages of war is not correct. What happened was massacre with commission of war crimes, such as denying of food and medicines quoting low civilian figures, indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilian targets, use of banned weapons such as cluster bombs and poison gases and allowing injured to perish by not giving access to treatment. 135,000 Tamil survivors of the onslaught are testimony to the atrocities.
Sri Lanka government and Sinhalese are in this sorry plight due to their own seeking, unable to grasp the realities. First mistake made was not permitting UN nominated fact finding team to visit the war zone, in order to cover up the truth. This would have only put those who actually committed the crimes on the dock and not the country. Second mistake made was continued refusal to comply with international parameters to forge peace and reconciliation, which was expected when assisting to end the war. Third mistake made was to bring in China in order to ward off pressure from India, US and west causing geo-political upheaval, specially security threat to India. Therefore unless these are corrected, issues of genocide and war crimes will be taken up to bring Sri Lanka to their terms.
AYATHURAY RAJASINGAM / May 31, 2023
I agree with the writer. This is pure and simple genocide. Ukranian women pilots were dropping chemical bombs on innocent and helpless Tamils. Even after the 2nd World War, there was Marshall Plan by which all the Germans were rehabilitated. There was confident building measure. But in Sri Lanka it was the rule of jungle that haunted those innocent and helpless Tamils. Their intention was to wipe of the section of the Tamils and were acting against the teachings of Lord Buddha.
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Mahila / June 1, 2023
AR,
“Ukrainian women pilots were dropping CHEMICAL BOMBS ON INNOCENT and helpless Tamils”
Wasn’t aware Ukrainian Pilots were employed; only the MIG planes were “leased or purchased” from Ukraine!!!??
That gives a different dimension to the whole episode!!!
So wouldn’t be wrong, to say Russians are ‘Giving the due Returns’!!??
Karma!!??
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Tony / May 31, 2023
FALSE!!!!!!! And the article is full of recycled lies, except what happened in other foreign countries.
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Now it’s been 14 years since the church backed LTTE terrorists had attempted to invade Sri Lanka and got defeated FAIR AND SQUARE by kind and caring Sinhala forces. But still they haven’t filed a case against anyone.
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So called Tamils in Sri Lanka are not ETHNIC Tamils, they are only Tamil language speakers who identify themselves as Tamils since 1911. Before that they were known as MALABARIS who were brought by the Dutch for their tobacco plantations.
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Forget other foreign governments, why is Tamil Nadu government dead silent about so called Tamils in Sri Lanka??? If Tamils experienced any discomfort due to army’s defensive actions, then they should have gone to their motherland Tamil Nadu an hour or so away from Jaffna, not wealthy western countries.
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Continued….
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / May 31, 2023
Is Tony reincarnation of Eagle Eye (AKA Mahindapala) ?. Same style of rubbish dumping.
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SJ / May 31, 2023
I concede that he is no match to you in that trade!
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Ajith / June 1, 2023
SJ
“I concede that he is no match to you in that trade!”
Your angry with the Tamils of Sri Lanka, some Tamil Pollitical parties and LTTE and your alliance with China and SWRD Bandaranaiyake family makes you to deny all what happened to Tamils as false. You have lost your credibility by denying the fact that massacres happened to Tamil Civilians from the so called independence such as 1958 riots, the burninng of the library, Kumuthni boat massacre, 1981 burning of library and massacre of 2009 are not intentional and Sri Lanka and none of these are investigated not intentional. Can you prove that Sri Lanka as a state ever investigated these mass scale massacres and punished all those who were responsible? People like you made Sri Lanka to bangruptcy because of you all encouraging governments to hide the truth.
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chiv / May 31, 2023
Names of known “Pseudo SB” racist …….. Solomon , Junius Percival …..
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SJ / May 31, 2023
“…certainly Sinhalese had genocidal intent right from the time of independence.”
How sick should one be to say this.
Can one then claim likewise about Tamil intentions re Muslims?
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Kanapathy Varunan / May 31, 2023
Genocide in installments. 1956,1958, 1961,1977,1983. and the latest being from 2000 onwards under various episodes.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / May 31, 2023
Sivasegaram, you are the sick person attacking others hiding under false name. Read the book written by N.Q.Dias which is clear on this intention. It is the Muslims who started the problem with Tamils and not the other way about. Muslims supported discriminatory laws and practices against Tamils and benefited by it. In 1985 Muslim home guards joined Sinhalese and carried out murder and ethnic cleansing of Tamils in the east. It is only after several attempts by LTTE by requesting and warning Muslims to stop it, that LTTE carried out the Katankudy mosque attack. Strangely after that Muslims stopped their atrocities against Tamils. In the north Muslims functioned as informants, and after several requests and warning not to do it, that LTTE asked them to leave. To the credit of LTTE, none of the properties left behind by Muslims were appropriated, unlike in the east where Muslims have appropriated lands of Tamils. During the last eastern provincial council, Muslims who ruled it had committed atrocities against Tamils.
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SJ / May 31, 2023
So NQ Dias wanted to eliminate Tamils, and the Muslims are the bigger enemy of the Tamils.
What else?
This is more than three days fill of laughter.
Thanks for returning with bags of BS.
Since the one on the Pallava armada that nearly conquered all of East Asia, I have been starved of a good laugh.
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Pandi Kutti / June 2, 2023
Please do not laugh SJ thaatha but dance like this and make us smile and laugh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZfn3CjFSP0
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chiv / May 31, 2023
” Sinhalese ( I will rephrase as SB ) had genocidal ideas at the time of independence. GS is absolutely right. I may not agree with all what GS has to say, but he is absolutely right on this. CT already had articles to that effect .and I’m sure Satci Satha will not disagree with it. If anyone thought otherwise then genocide has to be redefined to them. Anyway didn’t it end in that way. ??? Remember Geneva , Hague, UN , Human rights, Countries naming and shaming , International court cases , fugitive returning home because there is no place for him to hide.
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chiv / May 31, 2023
I don’t think any other community had same intentions then. Successive SB governments / SB parties / SB politicians ……. in their own ways designed and still executed th”systematic ethnic cleansing “. Everything happened after are consequences. If anyone thought otherwise, lets hear from them.
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SJ / May 31, 2023
It really hurts doesn’t it? I mean the truth!
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Siva Sankaran Sharma / June 1, 2023
What Dr Sankaralingam states is entirely correct. The Sinhalese their leaders, politicians and elite have had a genocidal intent to destroy the island’s Tamils from the time of independence or even before independence and carefully planned this and are executing this plan very efficiently from day one. Even if the country got ruined, got economically bankrupt and they have to go around the world with the beginning bowl, it did not matter, the most important goal was to achieve their Mahavamsa fable and dream of a pure Sinhalese Buddhist island, that could not do this or achieve this until the British gave them the golden opportunity by uniting the always Sinhalese and Tamil parts of the island, that had always been separate for most of the island’s history and ruled by separate kings and chiefs to create a new colony called Ceylon in 1833, thereby by this one stroke making the Sinhalese who had always been confined to the southern, western and central parts of the island, the majority on the whole island and the Eelam Tamil who were the vast overwhelming majority in all the areas in the north and east and even in many parts of the north-west coast, their ancient homeland, a minority people.
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Siva Sankaran Sharma / June 1, 2023
They then compounded this problem by handing over power to the Sinhalese majority in 1948, as they thought they will still have control of the tea estates and the strategic Trincomalee port, that the Sinhalese promised them but as usual reneged, with not adequate protection for the island’s Tamils who at that time were around 26% of the population( Tamil speakers 33% ) or a federal form of government. They had no right to have done this, they should have divided the island back into Sinhalese and Tamil parts like the way they found or given a federal form of government for the Tamil areas. Did they have a referendum amongst the ordinary Tamils? The answer is no.
They just listen to the Colombo-based Tamil elite, who in many ways are more Sinhalese than Tamil, with many of their family members heavily intermarried into Sinhalese elite families, also taken for a ride by the Sinhalese elite and politicians again with fame promised of a genuine multi-ethnic and religious country with equal opportunities and justice for everyone one under a unitary and not federal state, which they had no intention of keeping just like the way they promised the British with regards to the tea estates and Trincomalee.
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Siva Sankaran Sharma / June 1, 2023
The Sinhalese are very good at these fake promises to fool the world the UN and everyone to get what they want and then renege and get away with it. We know what happened soon after independence they made over a million Indian-origin estate Tamils stateless, a people who had then lived on the island for over 100 years and earned most of the foreign exchange. Then the gradual nightmare started for the indigenous Tamils. Large-scale ethnic cleansing and colonisation of Tamil lands, by outside Sinhalese, especially in the east now resulting in the Tamils who were over 75% in the Trincomalee district now a 35% minority. The same thing in Tamil Amparai. Once Tamil Pattipalai Aru has become Sinhalese Gal Oya, the same thing was done recently in the north once Tamil Manal Aru region has become Sinhalese Weli Oya with the entire Tamil population in the region chased away and outside Sinhalese settled. The Tamil population at the time of independence was 26% the Sinhalese 66% and Muslims( Tamils but denying this ) around 6%. Within 70 years of independence, Sinhalese have increased from 66% to 75%. South Indian origin Muslim Tamil or Moors from 6% to 10% and the Tamil population from 26% to 15.4%.
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Siva Sankaran Sharma / June 1, 2023
How come? Archived by large-scale structural genocide and ethnic cleansing. Made a million Indian origin estate Tamils stateless and then forcibly deported most of them back to India, a strange land to them. Made life impossible to live for around a million native Tamils by denying them everything, bombing them, killing them, raping, looting and destroying their properties through regular state-sponsored pogroms in the Sinhalese areas and using the state apparatus, the Sinhalese armed forces, police, Sinhalese criminal settlers and Muslim home guards in the Tamil areas to cheese them away. Forcing around a million native Tamils to largely flee to the West or live in India in miserable refugee camps. Now after the war deliberately destroying, the history and ancient symbols of the Tamils and falsely using the government department like Archaeology, Mahaveli, forestry and land to claim and destroy Tamil people’s lands, ancient Hindu temples and Tamil Buddhist sites and use fake concocted history and forged deed papers to claim all these as ancient Sinhalese Buddhist sites and replace the Tamil people from these areas, again with outside Sinhalese population, The ancient Hindu temples and Tamil Buddhist sites now increasingly being converted to Sinhalese Buddhist sites, with place names also changed.
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shankar / June 3, 2023
“Expulsion of 750,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar has been reported to ICC as genocide by Gambia, and Massacre of 3000 Muslims in Bosnia has been declared genocide.”
rohingiyas seems to be ethnic cleansing just like the ethnic cleansing of the muslims of jaffnaby tamils. The mass expulsion or killing of members of one ethnic or religious group in an area by another is called ethnic cleansing.Similarly the sinhalese tried to ethnically cleanse colombo of tamils in july 83 but only succeeded partially.As for 3000 muslims being massacred in bosnis to be called a genocide is a joke.where wll it end if we keep reducing the numbers like this. 1 killed….?
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Pandi Kutti / June 4, 2023
You conveniently forgot the mention the fact that heavily armed Muslim home guards and Chingkalla thugs and criminals who settled in the east by the Chingkalla Sri Lankan state, were destroying Hindu temples, raping, killing and ethnically cleansing thousands of native Thamizh who are the real owners of the east and settling outside Chingkallams and Muslims once these ancient Hindu Thamizh villages were ethnically cleansed, especially in the Amparai and Trincomalee districts in the east. All this is under the supervision of the Sri Lankan Chingkalla STF. Even now, in the deep south of the east, , many ancient thousands of years old Hindu Thamizh villages, have now become no-go areas for the Thamizh, with Muslims settled there and the ancient Hindu temples destroyed and mosques built over them. The remaining Thamizh Hindus are constantly being threatened to convert to Islam by Eastern Islamic fanatics. Just go and read the Virakesari to see the number of name changes being published, especially from the east of Thamizh names being changed to Islamic. Soon they will all claim to be Arab-descended too.
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Pandi Kutti / June 4, 2023
This was the reason the LTTE attacked the Muslims in the north, as they were storing up arms, supplied to them by the Chinkalla armed forces and spying for them against the Thamizh. Why? No one ever did anything but always constantly want to harm Thamizh Hindus and Christians. join Chingkallams to steal their land in the name of Islam and a fake Arab origin. The LTTE did not start anything like the Chinkallams, Sri Lankan state and Muslims who are actually Dravidian South Indian Thamizh but were forced to act, after numerous warnings. Oh Sankara, Sankara such a selective memory. Always pro-Muslim and Chingkallam.
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shankar / June 4, 2023
pandi
oh pandi pandi please read the definition of ethnic cleansing i gave in my comment.people who do it will always say something to justify it,but it will still be considered in history as ethnic cleansing whether we like it or not.I hear you about muslim culprits but does that justify kicking out all the muslims in jaffna?
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shankar / June 4, 2023
pandi
“ethnically cleansing thousands of native Thamizh “
pandi pandi all this started after the war declared by the LTTE on india.Before that when the IPKF was there and not confined to the barracks,these did not happen.Your muslims and chinkalams were so shit scared of them.Own goal by prabha.
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