A rash of abductions of Tamils and the ‘disappearances’ of many in Sri Lanka Army custody and the targeted killings by suspected pro-government paramilitaries of outspoken journalists, political leaders and family members of anti-government activists and fighters have raised fears of a return to the bloody ‘dirty war’ of the eighties, a Tamil Diaspora lobby group said Wednesday.
The Geneva-based International Federation of Tamils (IFT) said it “is concerned by strong evidence that the Sri Lanka military and its political sponsors have returned full cycle to the policies of the 1988 to 1999 period when an estimated 60 000 civilians in the South were killed by government death squads.”
Pointing to similar tactics deployed against opponents of the state by the militaries of Israel and Colombia, the IFT said the violence was unleashed “with a tacit nod from geopolitical strategic allies such as the United States.”
“In Sri Lanka, the application of these strategies is well honed from the response to the southern JVP insurgency,” the IFT said, citing a report from 1989 by Human Rights Watch
“Official military as well as state controlled paramilitary death squads are now actively engaging in terror strategies [including] (a) Abductions and disappearances in army custody, (b) targeted political assassinations of opposition leaders, (c) killing of journalists and (d) killing of the families of dead war heroes and of civilian political activists.”
Pointing out that in the past two months, in Jaffna alone, there have been over 40 disappearances of people arrested government backed paramilitaries or troops, the IFT cited international human rights reports which said Sri Lanka in the eighties “had the second highest rate of disappearances in the world.”
“In the context of war, the deliberate targeting of unarmed non-combatants is a war crime,” the IFT said. “In any context, the deliberate targeting of civilians by a state’s military apparatus constitutes state terrorism.”
“It is time for the international diplomatic community, particularly those who claim to endorse values of liberty and democracy, to accept the credible witness evidence and the evidence of investigative journalists that the paramilitary death squads are financed and controlled by the Sri Lankan military,” the organisation said.
The Geneva-based International Federation of Tamils (IFT) said it “is concerned by strong evidence that the Sri Lanka military and its political sponsors have returned full cycle to the policies of the 1988 to 1999 period when an estimated 60 000 civilians in the South were killed by government death squads.”
Pointing to similar tactics deployed against opponents of the state by the militaries of Israel and Colombia, the IFT said the violence was unleashed “with a tacit nod from geopolitical strategic allies such as the United States.”
“In Sri Lanka, the application of these strategies is well honed from the response to the southern JVP insurgency,” the IFT said, citing a report from 1989 by Human Rights Watch
“Official military as well as state controlled paramilitary death squads are now actively engaging in terror strategies [including] (a) Abductions and disappearances in army custody, (b) targeted political assassinations of opposition leaders, (c) killing of journalists and (d) killing of the families of dead war heroes and of civilian political activists.”
Pointing out that in the past two months, in Jaffna alone, there have been over 40 disappearances of people arrested government backed paramilitaries or troops, the IFT cited international human rights reports which said Sri Lanka in the eighties “had the second highest rate of disappearances in the world.”
“In the context of war, the deliberate targeting of unarmed non-combatants is a war crime,” the IFT said. “In any context, the deliberate targeting of civilians by a state’s military apparatus constitutes state terrorism.”
“It is time for the international diplomatic community, particularly those who claim to endorse values of liberty and democracy, to accept the credible witness evidence and the evidence of investigative journalists that the paramilitary death squads are financed and controlled by the Sri Lankan military,” the organisation said.
