Stop the Slaughter in Sri Lanka
There is ferment among Tamil-speaking people worldwide over the slaughter taking place in the north of Sri Lanka. Over 2,000 people have died in recent weeks. All critics of the government are silenced. Nearly 200,000 Tamil people are still trapped in the war zone. The Rajapakse government of Sri Lanka refuses to cooperate in a ceasefire to evacuate them. Protesters in New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai joined hundreds of others around the world on 8 April demanding an immediate ceasefire and end to the slaughter of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka. (In London, thousands of Tamils have been occupying Parliament Square for days.)
by Jagadish Chandra, Delhi
At a rally here in Delhi, at Jantar Mantar, eminent citizens, students and activists accused the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapakse of throttling democracy in his country while carrying out war crimes against the minority Tamil population under the guise of a ‘war on terror’. Similar protests were held in other parts of Asia, Europe and North America (reports on the campaign website).
Speakers at the demonstration expressed deep concern for the safety of over 150,000 Tamil civilians trapped in a 20 sq. km. stretch of land and coming under severe fire from Sri Lankan armed forces targeting Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres allegedly hiding in their midst. In the past few days of fighting serious allegations, though unconfirmed, have been made about the use of banned chemical weapons by the Sri Lankan army against both the LTTE fighters and Tamil civilians in the area.
The protesters called for an international investigation of these charges, which constitute war crimes if proved to be true. United Nations and other international agencies monitoring the conflict have put the number of civilians killed in the last two months of fighting at anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000, with around 50 to 70 persons getting killed every day. Over 40,000 civilians who crossed over to government-controlled areas have been put in special ‘welfare villages’ that have been accused of being run like concentration camps, with no access to relatives and friends and with no right to leave the barbed wired camps strictly controlled by the Sri Lankan military.
“The Rajapaksa regime has gone on a wild spree abducting, arbitrarily arresting, resorting to extra-judicial killings and forcing disappearances of not only Tamil youth but also Sinhala and Muslim citizens who chose to oppose their repressive war”, said Siritunga Jayasuriya, veteran Sri Lankan politician and General Secretary of the United Socialist Party in a statement released at the Jantar Mantar protest (carried on stoptheslaughteroftamils.org). He said that in the last two years alone 19 journalists have been abducted and more than 9 killed, making Sri Lanka the 4th most dangerous country for journalists to work in. The Campaign to End the War and Fight for Democracy in Sri Lanka, which organised the international protest will continue to demand:
- An immediate end to the military operations in Sri Lanka, withdrawal of the army from all Tamil areas and closure of detention camps
- Provision of basic needs of food, shelter, health to Tamil civilians under the control of their own elected representatives
- An immediate end to military and commercial support for the Sri Lankan regime by western countries and by India, China, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, Japan and other countries
- Restoration of democratic rights for all throughout Sri Lanka
- Defend the Right to self-determination
The United Socialist Party in Sri Lanka
The ghastly slaughter of Tamils in Sri Lanka continues daily and an official ‘end’ to the war will not mean an end to this nightmare. A recent Observer report by Annie Kelly confirms the worst fears of Tamils everywhere and of all who have been campaigning for an end to the bloodletting.
by Elizabeth Clarke, Committee for a Workers’ International
Thousands of civilians have been killed in the fighting of the past few weeks, 200,000 have been ‘internally displaced’, 60,000 forced into government-run Nazi-style concentration camps. Those Tamil people who manage to remain in or near their homes will be plagued by murderous paramilitary groups competing with each other to terrorise them. The scale of disappearances, already the second highest in the world, is unlikely to diminish.
The white van gangsters, who drag people from their homes and kill them, operate unmolested by the official forces of the state.The Rajapakse government dismisses every allegation of its own dictatorial and blood-thirsty behaviour as propaganda from the ‘Tamil Tiger’ forces they are aiming to defeat. There is a mounting number of human rights and refugee bodies, journalists and commentators who have struggled against the odds to establish the truth and break the silence under cover of which this genocide has continued.
The United Socialist Party (affiliated, like the International Socialists in Scotland, to the Committee for a Workers’ International) continues to campaign for the rights of Tamil and working people, for a united struggle of Tamil and Sinhala workers to end war, mass poverty and dictatorship. It fights for a socialist alternative to capitalism and imperialism. Campaigning in provincial elections to take place on 25 April, USP activists have been told by Sinhala chauvinists that their party secretary, Siritunga Jayasuriya, should be hanged for the statements he has made criticising the Rajapakse government, including on a recent visit to India. Wednesday 8 April was designated as a day of international protest against the Rajapakse government, but in particular, against the role of the Indian government of Sonja Gandhi in sustaining that government and its war against the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
www.stopslaughteroftamils.org for more reports and on what you can do to help in this vital campaign to stop the killings.
