In September 2008, the government ordered all UN agencies and international NGOs to leave the Vanni stating that the safety of humanitarian staff could not be guaranteed. However, as asserted by the Tamil genocide-survivor community, the UN and NGOs, the true intention of the government was to make the final phase of the war (September 2008 – May 2009) a “war without witness” by removing international observers. All while falsely claiming to the international community that the Sri Lankan armed forces followed a “zero civilian casualty” policy. In reality, Eelamtamils were subjected to unimaginable sexual and physical violence, massacres and conditions of dire starvation and lack of medical care.

From September 2008 to May 2009, government forces employed a military strategy to confine the LTT and civilians who remained in the LTT-controlled areas of the Vanni into ever-smaller areas, partly through the successive creation of “no-fire zones”. These no-fire zones were ‘safety zones’ unilaterally announced by the government for civilians to gather, promising no military action or shelling in those zones. However, what transpired was the complete opposite.

On 12.05.2009 Pointing to the statement issued by the U.S. Department of State that after an informal meeting at the United Nations that “[t]he United States is deeply concerned by the continued unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties,” expert in International Law, Professor Francis A. Boyle said, the Obama administration is violating the 1948 convention for continuing to give “green light” to the Government of Sri Lanka to destroy the LTT no matter what the cost to innocent Tamil civilians. Lawrence Christy, the head of Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) Field Office, put the death toll of civilians at more than 3,200 killed during the weekend.

Boyle explains: “[t]he implication of this official Statement by the United States Government is that there exists an acceptable level of civilian casualties to be inflicted by the Government of Sri Lanka upon completely innocent Tamils in Vanni. “Yet under international humanitarian law civilians can never be made the object of a military attack–as just happened in the GOSL “massacre on the beach” of Tamils over the weekend. So 2000 murdered Eelamtamils in one operation is “unacceptably high” in the opinion of the Obama administration.

“The conclusion is obvious that the Obama administration continues to give the proverbial “green light” to the GOSL to destroy the LTT no matter what the cost to innocent Tamil civilians so long as their death and destruction and genocide transpire in increments of somewhat fewer than 2000 Tamil civilians at a time.”Slow- motion genocide indeed here being advocated by the United States government in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which it is a contracting party,” warns Prof. Boyle (tamilnet)

No Fire Zone shows the relentless horror of those final months. The images so shocking that they changed votes when we showed a cut of the film at the UN Human Rights Council . In the last few months of the genocidal war, in May 2009, the massacre of the civilians was followed by another series of genocide. The srilankan state´s troops systematically executed bound, blindfolded youngsters. Women freedom fighters were stripped, sexually assaulted, blindfolded, and shot in the head. In one incident the 12-year-old son of the national leader Pirapaharan is seen first in captivity, eating a biscuit. Two hours later he lies killed, having been shot, five times, at point-blank range. These events were recorded by the perpetrators on mobile phones as grotesque war trophies. Many other children also killed, but no witnesses. 

At the same time, The US-led UNHRC resolutions on Sri Lanka violate the fundamental rights of Eelam Tamils by failing to recognise their right to exist as a nation, continue to criminalise their resistance and shield from scrutiny the main perpetrators of crimes against Eelam Tamils, such as the USA.

At a critical stage after the Mullivaikkal massacre, the UNHRC was the main institution for the Eelam Tamils to make representations. However, the UNHRC’s decision-making process has been manipulated by the US -UK- India axis to deny the crimes of genocide. The US, UK and India interventions have been instrumental in perpetuating the hegemonic narrative and policy framework that, on the one hand, defines the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and, on the other, defines SL as a legitimate unitary state whose sovereignty and territorial integrity are unquestioned. The disputes that have arisen fall within this pre-established framework. 

The UNHRC has repeatedly called on the SL State to investigate its own human rights violations, with some international involvement. Even this limited scrutiny has been blocked by SL, which in fact continues to engage in state terrorism with impunity. The SL governments that run the unitary state do so with the confidence instilled in them by the powers that back UN Resolutions and, at the same time, use the island as a geo-strategic military location that endangers peace in the Indian Ocean region.

Rather than a change of stance, these Resolutions reflect the same positions taken by the US prior to 2009 to destroy the LTT and support Sri Lanka’s single state building process. We can see that the US, at least since May 2007, had begun to publicly criticise SL’s human rights record. At the same time, however, it continued to target the LTT and continued to provide critical military and political/ diplomatic support to the SL State to defeat it.

The deliberate use of threat to prosecute SL officials can be seen in the evolution of calls for “international justice” from 2012 onwards. The 2012-2014 Resolution was opposed by SL and other states, but supported by the Western bloc and its allies. In 2014, it called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to: “undertake a thorough investigation into alleged serious human rights violations and abuses and related crimes committed by both parties in Sri Lanka during the period [2002 to 2009]”.  (Berlin Tribunal – 2022)

14.03.2009,  Incharge of warfare research wing of LTT Yogaratnam Yogi stated:
Let us consider a question BBC posed to Richard Boucher – in relation to discussing Tamil issue in Sri Lanka. BBC asked whether US has changed its policy towards terrorists, to which Boucher answered in the negative. The question that relates to our situation is whether America has changed its previous doctrine of considering every conflict in the world as terrorism. New US administration is planning to talk with Taliban, making plans to review and release Guatanamo detainees. There is a change in US world view and it is evident. BBC does not ask the right questions.

US methods and doctrine of fighting terror was followed by many world states to suppress dissent. We know Tamils have been adversely affected by this trend. Media does not highlight any of these issues. This reminds us of an Easop’s fable about a lion and a rabbit. In order to curtail the killing of a lion, the animals came to an agreement with the lion. They agreed to send one animal as prey provided the lion agreed to let other animals live without fear. Later, the lion was tricked to jump into a well and die by a simple rabbit. Animals of the forest used diplomacy to initially limit and finally eradicate their destruction.

Our situation differs significantly from this fable. Governments of the world want our people to be herded to the detention camps, so that the lion can select and kill as many of us at will. The fable talks of diplomacy practiced by the animals of the forest. What the world governments preach to us is not diplomacy – a path that leads to the destruction of a race.

We hear members of UN acknowledge civilians are murdered in Puthukudiyiruppu; but as long as the murders are within an acceptable number, they consider it as ‘diplomacy’ that will lead to a solution. UN has reduced itself to tolerate murder and genocide to promote the welfare of its member states…” (Yogi)

Further more on 05.03.2005 Thamilselvan, political head of Tamileelam, stated: “We were shocked and disappointed when the UNICEF put out the report. However, we appointed a special committee under the (LTT) Peace Secretariat to investigate and verify the information in the UNICEF report. The committee went to the east and investigated the list of under age persons who, according to the UNICEF report, were with us. It found that persons whom we had handed back to their parents after we found them to be underage, persons who had left the LTT and had got married and others who had gone back to their families were in the UNICEF list as persons who were still with the LTT.”

Members of UN acknowledge that the civilians are murdered in Puthukudiyiruppu; but as long as the murders are within an acceptable number, they consider it as ‘diplomacy’ that will lead to a solution. UN has reduced itself to tolerate murder and genocide to promote the welfare of its member states.

These no-fire zones, in which over 300,000 Tamils congregated, were subjected to heavy shelling, artillery fire and were scenes of absolute devastation. Civilian facilities such as makeshift medical facilities and hospitals, food distribution centres and queues, bunkers, United Nations hubs and civilian shelters were deliberately subjected to significant shelling and firing by the Sri Lankan armed forces. The Sri Lankan army were equipped with highly advanced surveillance technology and were repeatedly informed of the GPS coordinates of these civilian facilities by NGO workers and medical staff.

Eelamtamils, forced to flee the advancing army, were shifted into ever-shrinking ‘No-Fire Zones’ which, contrary to their name, came under constant and deliberate fire from the Sri Lankan military. Tens of thousands were killed during this time, with estimates ranging from 70,000 to almost 170,000. Tens of thousands died due to a lack of essential supplies or the relentless shelling of civilian areas, including hospitals and food distribution hubs. In the following weeks and months, many died in overcrowded ‘rehabilitation’ centres established by the military; others were forcibly disappeared after surrendering to the armed forces.

As tens of thousands of Eelam tamils remained trapped on a 3 square-kilometre spit of land, the Sri Lankan government celebrated the ‘humanitarian operation’ that their army had just conducted. Knowing full well the terrible genocide they had committed, the military declared that there were ‘zero civilian casualties’ during the offensive. These lies have protected the commanders, planners, and organisers of the destructive offensive, who have totally evaded accountability. Indeed, whilst Tamils seeking to remember the dead can face severe consequences,  those allegedly responsible for the massacres have been promoted, not prosecuted.

While there is a general climate of silence in the Western establishments to recognize the oppression of the Eezham Tamil nation by the unitary Sri Lankan state as genocide, Australian writer and veteran journalist Trevor Grant is perspicuously unsparing in criticizing these establishments for their silence and complicity in the genocide. In his recently released book “Sri Lanka’s Secrets: How The Rajapaksa Regime Gets Away With Murder”, Mr. Grant besides documenting the various forms in which genocide is being perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state on the Tamils, also blasts the world establishments for their hand in this crime. Speaking to TamilNet, Mr. Grant said “This book condemns not only this latest potent strain of Sinhalese chauvinism in power in Colombo but also those in the halls of power in Canberra, Westminster, Washington and Delhi who give the green light to the genocide.

On 10th May 2009, a Catholic priest inside the war zone, Father Francis, wrote to the Pope in Rome describing what he was experiencing: Last night’s toll of the dead is 3318 and of the injured more than 4000. It was a barrage of artillery, mortar, multi-barrel shelling and cluster bombs, weapons which Sri Lankan government denies using on the civilians in the no fire zone. The cries of woes and agony of the babies and children, the women and the elderly fill the air that was polluted by poisonous and unhealthy gases and pierced the hearts of fathers and mothers, of elders and peasants of old men and women of all walks of life. I am not unaware that this letter would arouse the wrath of the Sri Lankan government which will resort to the revenge by killing me.“

Note:
Also PPT – Bremen in 2013 to investigate British, US, Indian role in Sri Lanka’s genocide of Eelam Tamils.
The Sri Lankan state as well as Britain, India and the USA will be accused of orchestrating a genocide on the Tamil people by the International Human Rights Association Bremen (IMRV) and the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL). The charge will be heard by a Tribunal held under the aegis of the Rome based ‘Permanent Peoples Tribunal’ (PPT). The ‘People’s Tribunal’ relies on a high profile panel of judges that has been selected by the PPT to invoke a robust moral opinion. The PPT in Rome has sent the letters to the 4 States concerned informing them of the investigation to be held in Germany in December 2013

The Peace Process calls a halt to the Genocide [en | ger] – ptsrilanka