Talk:Sri Lanka and state terrorism/Archive 1

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• The state of Sri Lanka has indulged in state terrorism not just against its minority community but also against the majority community. I've read that over 20,000 Sinhalese youths were killed on by the Sri Lankan Army and the Indian Army during the 1971 Uprising also during the second phase of the insurrection in 1987... National Geographic carried an article about the bodies of 35 youths killed and hung on poles were people to see in Ambalangoda (?) a coastal town. I've heard well over 60,000 Sinhalese and some Sri Lankan Muslim and Tamil youths were killed without proper recourse to the judicial system. I have not heard any credible evidence that those who were the killers were punished. infact Army generals like Janaka Perera who indulged in it were promotedHuracane 12:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

• Also the role played by the Buddhist establishment in destroying Christian churches and the effort to ban conversion by the government betrays a link between arson, murder and government policy thus establishing State terrorist tendencies. All these have to be brought into this article to make it balanced.Huracane 12:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Remove NPOV tag

SeeTalk:Notable_attacks_by_the_LTTE

What do you mean. There is no relationsip between this article and that. Adding NPOV tags

Factual inaccuracies, distortion and irrelevance

I have added comments in italics of what is wrong with this section . Please read it carefully

1948 - State Sponsored Settlement of Sinhalese in historically Tamil Areas Begins Thousands of Sinhalese settlers were moved into traditional Tamil homelands. Whole villages were emptied their Tamil residents driven out by the Sri Lankan Army and turned into refugees dependant on the government for rations. Their homes and lands were then offered to Sinhala settlers for free. Tamils were not opposed to individual migration but only to large scale government colonization schemes which changed the ethnic composition of an area, i.e. ethnic cleansing.

It is false that Tamil civilians were displaced or harmed. Also false that Sinhalese were settled in Tamil homelands.

Cite your source not opinion Huracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Huracane, If there is a false statement , how can I find a source saying that this is a false statement . Be reasonable. It is upto whoever put the false statement to cite sources or acknowledge his statement is false by failing to cite sources. I have a Masters in SOuth Asian history and know what happened and did not happen Ruchiraw 13:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It is your opinion need sources before you delete or edit established articles.

1950 - Over one million Tamils lost Their Sri Lankan citizenship. Generations of estate Tamils have lived in Sri Lanka for more than a 115 years. In 1948, at independence, the Tamils had 33% of the voting power in the legislature. Upon the disenfranchisement of the estate Tamils (in 1950), however, this proportion dropped to 20%. The Sinhalese obtained more than a 2/3 majority in the Parliament, making it impossible for Tamils to exercise an effective opposition to Sinhalese policies affecting them.

No-one was killed so does not qualify as any kind of terrorism.. Belongs in Sri Lanka history

It is state policy against minority people hence can be state terrorism Huracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No violence involved so no terrorism Ruchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Violence doesnt have to manifest for state terrorism

1956 - 'Sinhala Only' Act Was Introduced. English was removed from its status as the official language and Sinhala was made the official language of Sri Lanka. All government employees were required to be fluent in Sinhala. Most Tamils who worked for the government lost their jobs. Government administration was offered only in Sinhala, even in areas where 99% of the population was literate in Tamil. The Tamil Federal Party led a group Tamil volunteers and staged a sit down Satyagraha, (peaceful protest) of the kind popularized by Mahatma Gandhi in the days of the Indian freedom struggle, in Colombo. This protest was broken up by armed Sinhalese gangs, while Sinhalese policemen stood by and watched. Some protesters were thrown into nearby Beira Lake. Riots then broke out through out Sri Lanka where Tamils were assaulted, homes, shops and property burned. Tamil settlers in the Northern and Eastern province were attacked by neighboring Sinhala villages. In 1956, 150 Tamils were murdered. The violence continued for two more years. In 1958 another 150-200 Tamils were murdered, thousands more were assaulted and Tamil property looted. Over 25,000 Tamil refugees were relocated to the North. As peaceful protests against discrimination continued in 1961 the Sri Lankan Army attacked hundreds of men and women in Jaffna[4].

True but these were ethnic riots and not organized by the Sri Lanka government. As I pointed out ethnic riots happen even in England but that doesn't mean it was organized by the government. Belongs in Sri Lanka history

Sri Lanka is not England, state actors such as the Police, Army and the Judiciary did not intervene toprotect the civilians. Only Sinhalese civilains protected Tamil civilians on a personal level. Genocide of Armenians was not the official policy of Turkey but it did happen, similarly not a single Sri lankan state actor has been prosecuted and punsihed for crimes against humanity, rapes, murder ...hence it implies the state of Sri Lanka through unofficial means palys a role in these eventsHuracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No evidence this was organised by government, it was spontaneous. Armenian genocide was carried out by Turkish army on orders from governmentRuchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

That is not the view of the Turkish government till today just like you aretrying to whitewash the actions of Sri Lanka

1970 - Sri Lanka banned the importing of Tamil media and literature Importing Tamil language films, books, magazines, journals, etc. from Tamil Nadu, India were banned. Sri Lanka also proscribe the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham and the Tamil Youth League. Culturally, the Tamil people were cut off from Tamil Nadu. Foreign exchange for the long established practice of Tamil students going to India for university education stopped. Equally, examinations for external degrees from the University of London were abolished. Having thus cut off Tamil students from their traditional educational opportunities, Sri Lanka government introduced various restrictions on Tamil education.

Distorted as it does not mention all imports were banned including food and clothes due to socialist policies being implemented. This applied to Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim.No-one was killed so does not qualify as any kind of terrorism.

This needs to be further evalauated. Cultural genocide is a sociological term. Can be applied hereHuracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No violence so no terrorism Ruchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Does not agree

1971 - Sri Lanka introduces standardisation of marks for University Education In short Sinhala students did not have to score as well as their Tamil counterparts in order to gain entrance to universities. Professor K.M. de Silva from the University of Peradeniya had this to say at the time "The qualifying mark for admission to the medical faculties was 250 (out of 400) for Tamil students, whereas it was only 229 for the Sinhalese. Worse still, this same pattern of a lower qualifying mark applied even when Sinhalese and Tamil students sat for the examination in English. In short, students sitting for examinations in the same language, but belonging to two ethnic groups, had different qualifying marks." The government then brought in district quotas. This effectively based university entrance on ethnicity. Less than 15% of university seats were available for Tamils.

Distorted since Sinhalese\Tamil and Muslim urban students also couldnt get into university with higher marks thans rural students.No-one was killed so does not qualify as any kind of terrorism. Belongs in Sri Lanka history

Again this is state's stated policy aginst a minority, hence can be termed state terrorismHuracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Terrorism involves violence Ruchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Does not agree

1981 - Destruction of the Jaffna Public Library A large group of 200 Policemen went on rampage on the nights of May 31 to June 2 burning the market area of Jaffna, the office of the Tamil Newspaper, the home of the member of Parliament for Jaffna, the Jaffna Public Library and murder four people. The destruction of the Jaffna Public Library was the incident which appeared to cause the most distress to the people of Jaffna. The 95,000 volumes of the Public Library destroyed by the fire included numerous culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts.

I have researched this and find that no-one was killed.

Cite yoiur sources or its is your opinionHuracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Huracane, If there is a false statement , how can I find a source saying that this is a false statement . Be reasonable. It is upto whoever put the false statement to cite sources or acknowledge his statement is false by failing to cite sources. I have a Masters in SOuth Asian history and know what happened and did not happen Ruchiraw 13:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If burning a public library is not State terrorism then you are a revisionat par excellence

1995 - Over sixty displaced Tamil civilians killed in government air strike ICRC Sixty five Tamil civilians were killed and 150 injured when government forces dropped multiple bombs on a church and surrounding grounds being used to shelter the refugees. The Church of St. Peter and Paul in Navaly had earlier been designated as a refuge by the government and Tamil civilians had been encouraged to take shelter there.

There is no evidence the government deliberately targeted this church. Could have been collateral damage

Again Armenian Genocide was not the stated policy of the State of Tuurkey but still state agents like Army, police and village headman carried it out. Just because government did not officially sanction it doesnt mean that Airmen acted alone. If the government did not want it happen then were the airmen prosecuted and punished ?Huracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If it is an accident, you dont punish pilots. Show me a example where a pilot is punished for collateral damage or friendly fire Ruchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you the pilot, do you know it is an accidet ? Fact is a church is bombed with refugees inside.Period

If you are not the pilot , how do you know its deliberate[User:Ruchiraw|Ruchiraw]] 00:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

2006 - Thirteen Tamil civilians killed on Kayts Islet Amnesty International Thirteen Tamil civilians were reportedly killed in a spate of incidents on Kayts Island, a small islet off the northwestern coast of the Jaffna Peninsula that is strictly controlled by the Sri Lanka Navy, which has a major base there. On 13 May, at about 8.30 p.m., unidentified gunmen reportedly entered the home of Sellathurai Amalathas in Allaipiddy and opened fire. Eight people were killed on the spot, including a four-month-old baby and four-year-old boy, and one other person died later in hospital. In another incident, at around 10:30 p.m. the same night, unidentified gunmen reportedly entered the home of 72-year-old Murugesu Shanmugalingam in Puliyankoodal, also on Kayts Island, and shot him and two other members of his family dead. Ten shops in Puliyankoodal were reportedly burnt down. In Vangalady, gunmen reportedly entered the home of Ratnam Senthuran, a tea shop owner, and shot him dead. Other members of his family also were shot and injured, but managed to escape. Amnesty International has received credible reports that Sri Lanka Navy personnel and armed cadres affiliated with the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, a Tamil political party that is opposed to the LTTE, were present at the scene of the killings.

This has not been proved to be carried out by soldiers. Could have been EPDP but no one knows and no evidence of government ordering it

Does not matter, see Armenian Genocide argument. EPDP is a state actor, whether state or EPDP it is state terrorism because none of the culprits have been cought keepng with the tradition since 1958Huracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

EPDP members are not state employeesRuchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

EPDP is part ofthe government and EPDP members are paid by the millitary a stipend every month

2006 - Sri Lankan forces 'target church' BBC Report AP Article Survivors and witnesses of attack accused Sri Lankan forces for storming and then indiscriminately shooting and lobbing grenades inside the church where hundreds of Tamils were taking shelter. The shootings killed five people in the village and injured over forty, four of these were Tamil fishermen found shot execution style stilling clutching their identification cards.

There is no evidence government ordered this. These may be incidents resulting from local troops misbehaving but no evidence of a policy of state terror. This happened in the American civil war as well but no-one can hold Lincoln responsible for actions of criminals unless he ordered civilians to be killed. Put in state violence as there are eyewitness accounts of Sri lankan forces doing this. Ruchiraw 08:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Local troops have been misbehaving since 1958 and not one individual has been punshed by the state thus indicating these acts have impunity like Amnesty International has accused the state of Sri Lanka of. If impunity exits then it is state terrorismHuracane 12:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether you like it or not, all south asian security forces have not been punished by their states for human rights violations. Doest mean these were ordered by their governmentRuchiraw 13:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Does not matter, I will be creating State terrorism pages on India, Pakistan and D'Desh. Not only that I will create categories by state terrorism by country. Just because India does it (no evidence provided though and India is rated as having a better judicaila syatem than Sri lanka)

Stop Vandalism discuss and wait for consensus before deleting content from Wikipedia articles. World is not going to change in one day, relax we are trying to create a community based and consensus based wikipedia here not just your opinions.Huracane 13:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Huracane, First the articles I deleted do not meet the NPOV policy. The sections deleted were either demonstrablty false or did not belong on this page. I ask you to go through these sections one by one and see how they meet the test of verifiability or the test of actual violence organised by the Sri Lanka state. Half are false and half do not meet the standards of state terrorism, because either there is no violence involved or there is no evidence it was ordered by the government. Now is it your opinion that false statements should be displayed as facts on a Wikipedia page. Some info for you and Realstarslayer.

Neutral Point of View (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikipedia principle which states that all articles must be written from a neutral point of view, that is, they must represent views fairly and without bias.

All these sections should follow the NPOV tutorial[1].

Excerpt from NPOV tutorial

"In 1989, Drs. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah shocked the world by reporting they had discovered a means to tap energy from nuclear fusion at near to room temperatures."

Even though very few scientists believe Pons' and Fleischmann's report was accurate, let alone responsible, probably none would disagree with the assertion made in the previous sentence. However, "[...] shocked the world [...]" is probably more dramatic, and less accurate, than had the statement been "[...] shocked the scientific community [...]". This serves as an example of the difficulty of finding truly objective wording.

As a political example, take the status of Jerusalem. The government of Israel considers it to be that nation's capital, but many other governments do not, and have gone so far as to place their embassies elsewhere. Disagreement about what city is the capital of Israel caused heated arguments on Wikipedia. But the facts as stated above were ones that all could agree on. The solution? Stick to the facts.When a fact is not common knowledge, or when the information being related is a subjective assessment, like the result of a particular poll, the information should be attributed and cited.Ruchiraw 15:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ruchiraw, I am not disputing that you may have a point with some of the items you have listed above, sure they may not fall under the umbrella of State Terrorism. However my problem is with you making changes before anyone has a chance to discuss it properly, and that is why others too are reverting your changes.

I think the solution lies in creating a new page similar to the 'notable attacks' page for the LTTE but covering human rights violations and attacks against civilians by the GoSL, and leaving only those items that can be considered state terrorism here.

Now on to your other arguments, it is well documented that colonization of Tamil areas was undertaken by successive Sri Lankan governments, the only debate should be whether this qualifies as state terrorism.

Now concerning abuses by GoSL military; take the attack on the Pesalai church by SL Navy personnel, the GoSL denied involvement and fabricated a story about crossfire etc...I am not sure they have changed this story even now with overwhelming independent evidence that it was indeed SL Navy personnel and that there was no crossfire nor any fighting in the vicinity of the church. Contrast this with the behaviour of the US Government in regard to another example you brought up before, Abu Gahrib(sp?), the soldiers involved were prosecuted and justice was served. So how can you claim these actions on the part of GoSL military are not GoSL supported if they do not bring the perpetrators to justice and actively try to cover up the incident?--Realstarslayer 15:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

My point is, it an assumption to say the government ordered it. Also I know IPKF raped and killed in Jaffna. Though India never admitted this , it does not mean it is ordered bythe Indian government. This is the way in South Asia, governments never admit or prosecute their security personnel. I feel this to be wrong. Ruchiraw 22:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

And my point is that if the government does not prosecute those soldiers or sailors responsible and instead actively tries to cover-up and lie about the situation that is tacit government support and so state terrorism, whether they ordered it in the first place or not is irrelevant.--Realstarslayer 04:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

And here we go I found a link on the SL Army's page that still runs with some concocted story for the attack on civilians by their armed forces, despite evidence by the hundreds of civilians sheltering in the church, the Bishop of the church and foreign aid workers that there was no fight near the church and that indeed it was military personnel who fired into the church and lobbed grenades as well. Are we to believe that the GoSL should be trusted in this case over all these witnesses? So this is definitely State Terrorism in my books since they are actively aiding the perpetrators of this crime even if they did not order it in the first place.

http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20060627_03

--Realstarslayer 18:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Independant confirmation of Navy involvement: AHRC statement --Realstarslayer 01:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Your statement "it is well documented that colonization of Tamil areas was undertaken by successive Sri Lankan governments". But please add a verifiable non-partisan source

To both Realstarslayer and Huracane. It is an insult to Wikipedia to allow such an anti-Sri Lanka POV to be evident throughout. I will therefore make edit changes to restore the POV.

There is a good article here that covers some of these incidents http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CK17Df01.html. A few quotes follow:

• With respect to the Gal-Oya multi-purpose project - Thousands of Sinhalese families were moved from the Southwestern parts of the country and settled on land belonged to the Tamils. The land settlement and land development laws, which had existed since British rule, insisted that beneficiaries of such schemes must be selected from among people of the district where the scheme was launched. Thousands of Tamil families who lived in the Southern district of Batticaloa, were virtually forced to move out of the region to give way to the Sinhalese colonization.

• The Government took up the restoration of Allai Kulam (Kulam in Tamil means - tank) in the Trincomalee district. Also, they restored the Kantalai Kulam in the Trincomalee district, which was an ancient irrigation tank that had silted up and fallen in disuse during the centuries of colonial rule. Another was the Padavil Kulam in Sinhalese - Padaviya, where there lay the fertile lands of West and North of Trincomalee. These three tanks were restored, forests were cleared and blocked into units for Sinhalese colonists, who were brought from the south, thus purposely changing the demographic map of the Tamil region.

• Prime Minister D S Senanayake, in his independence day anniversary broadcast on February 4, 1951, declared, "Colonization of land development activities are going at full speed and we are now able to bring more [Sinhala] colonists to lands that have been fully developed and provided with irrigation and other facilities than we have ever done before."

• The Tamil leaders objected to the Sinhalese colonization, not because of the loss of territory, but mainly because it resulted in a change of the ethnic composition of the Tamil region. One example: it was due to the government-sponsored settlement in the South of Batticaloa, with the Sinhalese, in the early 1960s, the Government was able to create a new Amparai district out of Batticaloa, where Tamils had predominated since time immemorial, until as late as the 1946 census. The new district appeared as a separate administrative entity after the 1963 census and now has an 80 percent Sinhalese population. The Tamils who lived there were forced out of the region and were outnumbered by the government-sponsored Sinhala colonists.

Do you need more examples?--Realstarslayer 19:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)