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Various groups and individuals have accused the Sri Lankan government of commiting acts amounting to state terrorism.

Background information

Template:Totally disputed According to Ching-In Moon and Chaesung Chun the origins of the conflict lie in a number of actions by the Sinhalese dominated government, including the 1970 "Sinhala Only Act", the enshrinement of Bhuddism as the foremost religion of the state, and oppression of Tamils and democratic Tamil movements. Additional government acts exacerbated matters.

James and Brenda Lutz see both sides in the conflict as resorting to terrorism. Dr. Daya Somasundaram of the University of Jaffna asserts that the ethnic war in Sri Lanka is "a good example of the modern use of terror on a mass scale". Though "ll parties in the conflict have restored to the use of terror tactics," in his view "in the scale, duration, and sheer numbers of victims, it is the Sri Lankan state that is most guilty of the massive use of terror".

From 1985 to 1989, according to Gananath Obeyesekere, Sri Lanka pracised state terror against the Sinhalese majority.

Chandrika Kumaratunga, the President of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005, has also stated in an in interview with David Frost that at the time that her husband Vijaya Kumaranatunga was assassinated, "Sri Lanka had a killing fields, there was a lot of terror perpetrated by the government itself, state terror."

Response to the post 1983 civil conflict

Involuntary disappearances

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has complained that in 2006 up to 400 people have been disappeared, 245 of who were detained by the army, with another further 25 by the LTTE. The pro-LTTE Tamil daily Uthayan, which has close links with the LTTE, has called it "state terror".

Backing of paramilitary group

According to the AHRC, the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court identifies

"conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities" as a war crime.

The agency has accused the allegedly Sri Lankan government backed forces of recruiting children, describing is a "state teror" and has appealed to the international community to refer Sri Lanka to the ICC for investigation into the violations of the Rome Statute.

Targeting of civilians

The AHRC has alleged that, "since the collapse of the Geneva talks of February 2006", the government of Sri Lanka has perpetrated a campaign of state terrorism by targeting LTTE sympathisers and Tamil civilians.

References and notes

1. Ching-In Moon and Chaesung Chun, "Sovereignty: Dominance of the Westphalian Concept and Implications for Regional Security", in Muthiah Alagappa, Asian Security Order: Instrumental and Normative Features, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 128. ISBN 080474629X
   >Because of the Sinhalese army occupation of Jaffna and the state terrorism let loose on the people, hostility began to grow and the emotional division between Sinhalese and Tamils became more acute. A group of highly organized young Tamil militants, first calling themselves the New Tamil Tigers and later the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, emerged in 1976 to confront the government terrorism by bearing arms.
2. James M Lutz, Brenda J Lutz, Global Terrorism, Routledge, 2004, p. 216. ISBN 0415700507
   "This tension eventually led to the outbreak of violence between the communities, and this violence quickly generated terrorist actions in a variety of situations. Both government forces and Tamil dissidents became perpetrators."
3. Dava Somasunduram, "Short- and Long-Term Effects on the Victims of Terror in Sri Lanka", in Yael Danieli, Danny Brom, Joe Sills, The Trauma Of Terrorism: Sharing Knowledge And Shared Care, An International Handbook, Haworth Press, 2005, p. 216. ISBN 0789027739
   "Gradually, state terror became institutionalized into the very laws of the land (Amnesty International, 1996), structures of society and mechanisms of governance. Arbitrary detention, torture, massacres, extrajudicial killings, disappearances, rape, forced displacements, bombings, and shelling became common. The minority Tamil community... experience the brunt of the terror."
4. Gananath Obeyesekere, "Narratives of the self: Chevalier Peter Dillon's Fijian cannibal adventures", in Barbara Creed, Jeanette Hoorn, Body Trade: captivity, cannibalism and colonialism in the Pacific, Routledge, 2001, p. 100. ISBN 0415938848
   "The 'time of dread' was roughly 1985-89, when ethnic Sinhala youth took over vast areas of the country and practised enormous atrocities; they were only eliminated by equally dreadful state terror."
5. BBC Breakfast with Frost Interview: President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka , BBC, October 28, 2001.
6. http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2006statements/729/
7. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/sril-s27.shtml
8. Perera, Amantha (2006-05-04). "MEDIA-SRI LANKA: Press Left to Fend for Itself". Inter Press Service. Retrieved 2007-07-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. http://www.ahrchk.net/ahrc-in-news/mainfile.php/2006ahrcinnews/866/
10. http://www.achrweb.org/Review/2006/141-06.htm
11. "Sri Lanka: Terror Vs State Terror". ACHR Weekly Review. Asian Human Rights Commission. 2006-11-15. Retrieved 2007-07-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Further reading

• Myrdal, Gunnar (1968). Asian Drama: an Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations. Pantheon. ASIN B000E80DGO.
• Wilson, A. Jeyaratnam (1989). The Break up of Sri Lanka: the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1211-5.
• Yael Danieli, Danny Brom, Joe SillsThe Trauma Of Terrorism: Sharing Knowledge and Shared Care, an International Handbook (See here)
• A.J.WilsonSri Lankan Tamil nationalism (see here)

External links

Unaffiliated sites

• US state department report on Sri Lanka 2005
• UN report on Human rights violations in Sri Lanka 2006
• BBC South Asia report
• ICRC document
• Amnesty International report 1996report 2Chemmani investigators
• Time to recognize State terror

Pro Sri Lankan government sites

• LTTE acts 1acts 2acts 3
• LTTE Reality 1Reality 2

Pro LTTE sites

• State terror in 1979
• State terrorism in Sri Lanka

• History of Sri Lanka
• Political repression
• Politics of Sri Lanka
• Sri Lankan Tamil history
• Tamil Eelam