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93-1198: The village has been the location of recent fighting in the Sri Lankan Civil War , according to the Sri Lankan government. This Northern Province, Sri Lanka location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sri Lankan civil war Sri Lankan government victory [REDACTED] Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [REDACTED] PLOTE (1983–1989) [REDACTED] EROS (1983–1990) [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Armed Forces [REDACTED] Indian Armed Forces ( 1987–1990 ) [REDACTED] Pakistan Armed Forces ( 2006-2009 ) [REDACTED] Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Armed Forces : 95,000 (2001) 118,000 (2002) 158,000 (2003) 151,000 (2004) 111,000 (2005) 150,900 (2006) 210,000 (2008) Estimates of death toll: The Sri Lankan civil war ( Tamil : இலங்கை உள்நாட்டுப் போர் , romanized:  Ilaṅkai uḷnāṭṭup pōr ; Sinhala : ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සිවිල් යුද්ධය , romanized:  śrī laṁkāvē sivil yuddhaya )

186-555: A land mine blast. Their deaths badly affected military morale. The LTTE also scored a major victory when one of its suicide bombers killed Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in May 1993. In November 1993 the LTTE defeated the army in the Battle of Pooneryn . This attack left 532 Sri Lankan soldiers and 135 sailors either dead or missing in action . In the 1994 parliamentary elections

279-413: A Tamil girl, they could just beat her and do it. If her parents tried to stop them, they could beat them or kill them. It was their empire. I saw the naked dead bodies of women without heads and other parts of their bodies. I saw a mother and child dead and the child's body was without its head." "The Channel 4 video and photographs of what appear to be dead female cadre, including video footage in which

372-563: A common sight. Throughout the country, government death squads hunted down, kidnapped or killed Sinhalese or Tamil youth suspected of sympathizing with the JVP or the LTTE, respectively. In October 1990 the LTTE expelled all the Muslims residing in Northern province . A total of 72,000 Muslims were forced to leave their homes, taking nothing but the clothes on their backs. The largest battle of

465-553: A happy mood. I do not know the names of the four army officers who raped me. I never saw them again after the day they raped me. "You are so fit, you must be a Tiger." "They don't allow you to have sex, no wonder you're so hungry for it." "All the time that we walked the soldiers were talking about us, saying, "These girls are ideal to satisfy our needs." They spoke in broken Tamil because they wanted us to know what they were up to and to frighten us," "I saw one girl going away and then heard screaming. I feared she had been raped behind

558-717: A long time, but the Federal Party (as well as its offshoot, the TULF), deeply conservative and dominated by Vellalar casteism, did not attempt to form a national alliance with the leftists in their fight for language rights. Following the sweeping electoral victory of the United National Party (UNP) in July 1977, the TULF became the leading opposition party, with around one-sixth of the total electoral vote winning on

651-522: A number of concessions to Tamil demands, including devolution of power to the provinces , a merger – subject to later referendum – of the northern and eastern provinces into a single province , and official status for the Tamil language (this was enacted as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka ). India agreed to establish order in the north and east through

744-411: A party platform of secession from Sri Lanka. After the 1977 riots the J.R. Jayewardene government made one concession to the Tamil population; it lifted the policy of standardization for university admission that had driven many Tamil youths into militancy. The concession was regarded by the militants as too little too late, and violent attacks continued. By this time TULF started losing its grip over

837-562: A speech at the ICES-Colombo, indicated that the appropriate investigations into massacres and disappearances of civilians including many children in the Sathurukondan , Eastern University , Mylanthanai and the mass murder and burial of school children at Sooriyakanda were hampered by the adoption of emergency regulations which contributed to a climate of impunity. Along roadsides in the north and east, burning bodies became

930-506: A time when the Sri Lankan government stated it was close to defeating the LTTE, India dropped 25 tons of food and medicine by parachute into areas held by the LTTE in a direct move of support to the rebels. Negotiations were held, and the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed on 29 July 1987 by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Jayewardene . Under this accord the Sri Lankan government made

1023-555: Is widely attributed to the initial backing it received from RAW. It is believed that by supporting different militant groups, the Indian government hoped to keep the Tamil independence movement divided and be able to exert overt control over it. India became more actively involved in the late 1980s, and on 5 June 1987 the Indian Air Force airdropped food parcels to Jaffna while it was under siege by Sri Lankan forces. At

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1116-577: The 1956 anti-Tamil pogrom and the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom , in which Sinhalese mobs attacked hundreds of Tamils in Sinhalese-majority areas. Sinhalese in Tamil-majority areas were also attacked by Tamil mobs. Dozens, if not hundreds, mostly Tamils, perished, while thousands of both groups fled to areas where they were in the majority. The civil war was a direct result of the escalation of the confrontational politics that followed. In

1209-574: The 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom . This continued in the 1960s with the deployment of the Sri Lankan Army in Jaffna , who were reported to have molested and occasionally raped Tamil women. Further rapes of Tamils were carried out by Sinhalese mobs during the 1977 , 1981 and 1983 anti-Tamil pogroms . Following the outbreak of war , rape was used by the almost entirely Sinhalese Sri Lankan armed forces , in an attempt to collectively punish

1302-578: The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and to cease assisting Tamil insurgents. Militant groups including the LTTE, although initially reluctant, agreed to surrender their arms to the IPKF, which initially oversaw a cease-fire and a modest disarmament of the militant groups. The Sri Lankan armed forces were confined to barracks in the north and east, and Sinhalese settlers were disarmed. In October 1987, 12 LTTE members who were prisoners of

1395-552: The Indian Tamil ethnic minority by making it virtually impossible for them to obtain citizenship in the country. Approximately 700,000 Indian Tamils were made stateless. Over the next three decades, more than 300,000 Indian Tamils were deported back to India. It wasn't until 2003 – 55 years after independence – that all Indian Tamils living in Sri Lanka were granted citizenship, but, by this time, they only made up 5% of

1488-503: The Kumarapuram massacre , Tampalakamam massacre , Puthukkudiyiruppu massacre , etc., all of them carried out by government forces. Government troops initially cut off the peninsula from the rest of the island, and then, after seven weeks of heavy fighting, succeeded in bringing Jaffna under government control for the first time in nearly a decade. In a high-profile ceremony, Sri Lankan Defense Minister Col. Anuruddha Ratwatte raised

1581-606: The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) members N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil. In November 1936, a motion that "in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular " and that "entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated" were passed by

1674-635: The PLO , was that there should be only one. In November 1984, Sinhalese convicts were settled in the Kent and Dollar farms after the Tamil civilians living there were evicted by the Sri Lankan Army. The settlement of prisoners was used to further harass Tamils into leaving the area. The Sinhala settlers confirmed that young Tamil women were abducted, brought there and gang-raped, first by the forces, next by prison guards and finally by prisoners. Initially,

1767-604: The Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka stated, "A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths." The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly refused an independent, international investigation to ascertain the full impact of the war, with some reports claiming that government forces were raping and torturing Tamils involved in collating deaths and disappearances. Since

1860-572: The Sinhala Only Act , the abrogation of the Banda-Chelva pact and continuing Tamil protests against discrimination, an island-wide pogrom was unleashed against Tamils by organized Sinhala mobs. Sinhala journalist Tarzie Vittachi recounts the frequent use of rape by these mobs in his book "Emergency '58", where he describes a Sinhala 'Hamudawa' (army) composed of Sinhala laborers from various state departments and farms, who went on

1953-629: The Sinhalese -dominated Sri Lanka government. Violent persecution erupted in the form of the 1956 , 1958 , 1977 , 1981 and 1983 anti-Tamil pogroms , as well as the 1981 burning of the Jaffna Public Library . These were carried out by the majority Sinhalese mobs often with state support, in the years following Sri Lanka's independence from the British Empire in 1948. Shortly after gaining independence, Sinhalese

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2046-675: The Sri Lankan Tamils from working in the Ceylon Civil Service and other public services . The Tamil -speaking minorities of Ceylon (Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Moors ) viewed the Act as linguistic, cultural and economic discrimination against them. Many Tamil-speaking civil servants / public servants were forced to resign because they weren't fluent in Sinhala. Tension over this policy led to

2139-637: The Valvettithurai massacre . The Anuradhapura massacre sparked the Kumudini boat massacre in which over 23 Tamil civilians died. Over time the LTTE merged with or largely exterminated almost all the other militant Tamil groups. As a result, many Tamil splinter groups ended up working with the Sri Lankan government as paramilitaries or denounced violence and joined mainstream politics; some Tamil-oriented political parties remained, all opposed to LTTE's vision of an independent state. Peace talks between

2232-514: The Vanni region in the interior. Most of the refugees returned later the next year. The LTTE responded by launching Operation Unceasing Waves and decisively won the Battle of Mullaitivu on 18 July 1996, leaving 1,173 army troops dead which included 207 officers and men executed after surrendering to the LTTE. The government launched another offensive in August 1996. Another 200,000 civilians fled

2325-679: The banning of the import of Tamil-language media and the preference given by the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka to Buddhism , the main religion followed by the Sinhalese. Prabhakaran formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) in 1972. The formation of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) with the Vaddukkodei (Vattukottai) resolution of 1976 led to a hardening of attitudes. The resolution called for

2418-427: The 'traditional enemy of the Sinhalese'. At the time of independence in 1948, Tamils comprised around 30% of the higher ranks of civil service, while comprising around 20% of the island's population. In 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike passed the " Sinhala Only Act ", which replaced English with Sinhala as the only official language of the country. This was seen as a deliberate attempt to discourage

2511-674: The British to employ Tamils from India to work on tea plantations, furthering fears of racial decline among the Sinhalese. English language schools were also established in Jaffna by the American Ceylon Mission , which provided English-language skills for the Tamil population in Jaffna. The British favored English speakers, so Tamils outcompeted their Sinhalese counterparts in the civil service sector. In 1919, major Sinhalese and Tamil political organizations united to form

2604-658: The Ceylon National Congress, under the leadership of Ponnambalam Arunachalam , to press the colonial government for more constitutional reforms. British colonial administrator William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo town seat in 1920, which alternated between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. After their election to the State Council in 1936,

2697-657: The Colombo Tamil leadership, and in the end rejected and annihilated them. The most prominent of these groups was the TNT, which changed its name to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or the LTTE , in 1976. The LTTE initially carried out a campaign of violence against the state, particularly targeting policemen and also moderate Tamil politicians who attempted a dialogue with the government. Their first major operation

2790-501: The IPKF in Sri Lanka resulted in the deaths of 1200 Indian soldiers and over 5000 Sri Lankans. The cost for the Indian government was estimated at over ₹10.3 billion. Support for the LTTE in India dropped considerably in 1991, after the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber, Thenmozhi Rajaratnam . The Indian press subsequently reported that Prabhakaran decided to eliminate Gandhi, as he considered

2883-495: The IPKF raped thousands of Tamil women. One IPKF official excused these rapes by stating the following: "I agree that rape is a heinous crime. But my dear, all wars have them. There are psychological reasons for them such as battle fatigue." "One day I was asked to bring a mammoty [type of spade] by Captain Lalith Hewa. When I took it to him he was with a woman who had no clothes on. This woman and her husband were brought to

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2976-533: The IPKF to take control of most areas in the north of the country enabled the Sri Lanka government to shift its forces to the south to quell the protests. This led to an uprising by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the south, which was put down bloodily over the next two years. While most Tamil militant groups laid down their weapons and agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, the LTTE refused to disarm its fighters. Keen to ensure

3069-591: The Jaffna peninsula and the air force relentlessly bombed the north. In the second half of 1990, 4500 Tamils were killed or disappeared by security forces in Batticaloa and Amparai District alone. The LTTE responded by attacking Sinhalese and Muslim villages and massacring civilians. One of the largest civilian massacres of the war occurred when the LTTE massacred 166 Muslim civilians at Palliyagodella . The government trained and armed Home Guard Muslim units. Notable international jurist Neelan Thiruchelvam , in

3162-588: The LTTE and the government began in Thimphu in 1985, but they soon failed and the war continued. In 1986 many civilians were massacred as part of this conflict. In 1987 government troops pushed LTTE fighters to the northern city of Jaffna . In April 1987 the conflict exploded with ferocity, as both government forces and LTTE fighters engaged in a series of bloody operations. The Sri Lankan military launched an offensive, called "Operation Liberation" or Vadamarachchi Operation , during May–June 1987 to regain control of

3255-554: The LTTE carried out their first suicide attack. Captain Miller of the Black Tigers drove a small truck carrying explosives through the wall of a fortified Sri Lankan army camp, reportedly killing 40 soldiers. The LTTE carried out over 378 suicide attacks , one of the largest suicide campaigns in the world, and the suicide attack became a trademark of the LTTE and a characteristic of the civil war. [REDACTED] Involvement

3348-513: The LTTE gained prominence due to devastating attacks such as the Kent and Dollar Farm massacres of 1984, where 62 men, women and children were attacked during the night as they slept and were hacked to death with fatal blows to the head from axes. Attacks were often carried out in revenge for attacks committed by the Sri Lankan Army , such as the Anuradhapura massacre which immediately followed

3441-537: The LTTE to fight the IPKF and its proxy Tamil National Army (TNA). Although casualties among the IPKF mounted, and calls for the withdrawal of the IPKF from both sides of the Sri Lankan conflict grew, Gandhi refused to remove the IPKF from Sri Lanka. However, following his defeat in Indian parliamentary elections in December 1989, new Prime Minister V.P. Singh ordered the withdrawal of the IPKF, and their last ship left Sri Lanka on 24 March 1990. The 32-month presence of

3534-477: The North-East during the civil war. "Our Tamil armed group brothers of freedom fighters who helped the army watched us being sexually assaulted; but some I saw had tears in their eyes as their hands are tied. The army did not even leave me as a 13 years old or my sister who is 6 years old. My sisters' bodies got frozen and never talk about any thing. Our mothers told us not to say any thing to our neighbors or

3627-529: The Provincial Council would go ahead with a unilateral declaration of independence of the northern and eastern provinces, as in the case of Rhodesia . President Premadasa moved to quickly dissolve the Council (March 1990). At the same time LTTE used terror tactics to scare Sinhalese and Muslim farmers away from the north and east of the island, and swiftly took control of a significant portion of

3720-668: The State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary. However, in 1944, J.R. Jayawardena moved in the State Council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language. Ethnic tensions were exacerbated immediately after independence in 1948, when a controversial law was passed by the Ceylon Parliament called the Ceylon Citizenship Act , which deliberately discriminated against

3813-484: The Tamil population, who were often seen as being supportive of the LTTE . Both Tamil females and males were targeted for rape, including children. Other groups which committed rape against Tamils included the Indian Peace Keeping Force and Sri Lankan Police . The LTTE has been noted for its general lack of use of sexual violence, though there have been isolated instances of rape of Tamils by LTTE members. Some LTTE members accused of rape faced execution from

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3906-499: The Tamils. In the London Observer of 20 September 1981, Brian Eads reported that "25 people died, scores of women were gang raped, and thousands were made homeless, losing all their meagre belongings". Black July 1983 was the largest pogrom orchestrated by the Sri Lankan government against the Tamils. Up to 3000 Tamils were massacred in cold blood throughout the island. Countless women were raped with impunity. Prior to

3999-577: The UNP was defeated and the People's Alliance , headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga , came to power on a peace platform. During the Presidential election campaign an LTTE bomb attack was carried out during a rally held at Thotalanga, Grandpass , eliminating the entire leadership of UNP, including its presidential candidate, Gamini Dissanayake . Kumaratunga became the president with a 62% majority. A cease-fire

4092-474: The army, particularly when the soldiers were drunk on toddy. In response to Tamils voting for a party that espoused Tamil independence , state forces orchestrated another violent pogrom on Tamils in 1977. Hundreds of Tamils were killed and raped throughout the island. The following Tamil victims of rape are from the Sansoni commission report of 1980: In a letter addressed to President J. R. Jayewardene ,

4185-504: The assassination, although he stopped short of outright acceptance of responsibility. In a 2011 interview, Kumaran Pathmanathan , who was the Treasurer of LTTE and its chief arms procurer, apologized to India for Velupillai Prabhakaran's "mistake" of killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He further said Rajiv's assassination was "well planned and done actually with Prabhakaran and (LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman). Everyone knows

4278-463: The camp earlier that day. Lalith Hewa had raped the woman and later attacked her and her husband with the mammoty I brought to him. Both of them died. Lalith Hewa tried to bury them there himself but he couldn't do it. Then the bodies were brought to Chemmani . I can show you where the bodies were buried." "Sri Lankan soldiers have raped both women and young girls on a massive scale, and often with impunity, since reporting often leads to reprisals against

4371-415: The capital, and elsewhere (see Black July ). According to Tamil Center for Human Rights 5,638 Tamils were massacred and 250,000 Tamils fled were displaced internally during Black July ; majority of them fled Sinhala-majority areas. This is considered the beginning of the civil war. Apart from the LTTE, there initially was a plethora of militant groups (see list ). The LTTE's position, adopted from that of

4464-470: The cease-fire broke down. The government then launched an offensive and tried to retake Jaffna but failed. This phase of the war soon acquired the name Eelam War II , and featured unprecedented brutality. On 11 June 1990 the LTTE massacred 600 policemen in the Eastern Province after they had surrendered on promises of safe-conduct. The government placed an embargo on food and medicine entering

4557-541: The continued Indian presence in Sri Lanka. These led to the Sri Lankan government's call for India to quit the island, and the government allegedly entered into a secret deal with the LTTE that culminated in a cease-fire. However, the LTTE and IPKF continued to have frequent clashes. In April 1989 the Ranasinghe Premadasa government ordered the Sri Lanka army to clandestinely hand over arms consignments to

4650-420: The creation of a secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam, based on the right of self-determination . The TULF clandestinely supported the armed actions of the young militants who were dubbed "our boys" . TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam even provided letters of reference to the LTTE and to other Tamil insurgent groups to raise funds. Amirthalingam introduced Prabhakaran to N.S. Krishnan, who later became

4743-535: The end of the civil war, the Sri Lankan state has been subject to much global criticism for violating human rights as a result of committing war crimes through bombing civilian targets, usage of heavy weaponry, the abduction and massacres of Sri Lankan Tamils and sexual violence . The LTTE gained notoriety for carrying out numerous attacks against civilians of all ethnicities, particularly those of Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Muslim ethnicity, using child soldiers , assassinations of politicians and dissenters, and

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4836-590: The end of the war in 2009 , and persisted in the post-war era , with human rights groups describing it as 'systematic'. Government forces consistently deny all the charges of mass rape, with one senior army official saying the following in 2010: "Throughout their training, our boys are taught to hate the Tigers, they see them as disgusting animals, not fit to live. I am 200 per cent sure that they didn't rape Tamil women. Why would they fuck them if they hate them so much?" In May 1958 following tensions arising from

4929-439: The ex-Prime Minister to be against the Tamil liberation struggle and feared that he might re-induct the IPKF, which Prabhakaran termed the "satanic force", if he won the 1991 Indian general election . In 1998 a court in India presided over by Special Judge V. Navaneetham found the LTTE and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran responsible for the assassination. In a 2006 interview, LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham expressed regret over

5022-469: The examination in their language. Officially the policy was designed to increase the representation of students from rural areas. In practice the policy reduced the numbers of Sri Lankan Tamil students who had previously, based on their examination scores alone, gained admission in a higher proportion than their participation in the examination. They were now required to gain higher marks than Sinhalese students to gain admission to universities. For instance,

5115-583: The final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War were detained by the Sri Lankan security forces in several camps in Vavuniya District , known by the generic name "Manik Farm", which was then the largest refugee camp in the world. The camps were known for their poor conditions and incidents of sexual violence by the Sri Lankan security forces. I was totally naked. I felt pain in my body. I did not know what I should do so I screamed. The man standing beside me reached down and placed his hand over my mouth. I

5208-408: The first international representative of LTTE. It was Krishnan who introduced Prabhakaran to Anton Balasingham, who later became the chief political strategist and chief negotiator of LTTE. The "boys" were the product of the post-war population explosion. Many partially educated, unemployed Tamil youth fell for revolutionary solutions to their problems. The leftist parties had remained "non-communal" for

5301-488: The girls managed to scream and run away. I was raped." "When they were at the hospital, one day I saw a group of six soldiers raping a young Tamil girl. I saw this with my own eyes." "They shoot people at random, stab people, rape them, cut their tongues out, cut women's breasts off. I have witnessed all this with my own eyes. I saw a lot of small children, who were so innocent, getting killed in large numbers. A large number of elders were also killed. If they wanted to rape

5394-431: The girls," "They beat me, pulled my hair, and banged my head on a wall. They beat me with their hands and kicked me with their boots. One of the soldiers said, "We will teach you a lesson." I lost consciousness that day and when I came to, I realized I had been raped. Then more soldiers came and raped me. This went on for many days. I can’t remember how many times and how many soldiers raped me." "you are getting out, this

5487-612: The government committed suicide , leading to an anti-Sinhalese pogrom committed by Tamil militants, especially the LTTE, throughout the Eastern Province in which 150 Sinhalese were killed and tens of thousands were made refugees. The signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, so soon after J.R. Jayawardene's declaration that he would fight the Indians to the last bullet, led to unrest in the south. The arrival of

5580-412: The government could not protect them or their cultural heritage and persuaded many of them to back a separate state. In July 1983 the LTTE launched a deadly ambush on Sri Lanka army patrol Four Four Bravo outside the town of Thirunelveli , killing an officer and 12 soldiers. Using nationalistic sentiments to their advantage, members of the ruling UNP organized massacres and pogroms in Colombo ,

5673-420: The house. They talked in Sinhala language. At that time I was all alone at home, as my parents had gone to one of our relatives' house which is at a distance away from our home. While talking with me, one of the men who had come forcefully dragged me and committed the crime by force." "Everybody knew that when he [KK] takes someone out of the cell, he will rape them." About 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced in

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5766-508: The island's population. Prior to 1950, various minority groups, excluding the Sri Lankan Tamils , had been attacked by Sinhalese Buddhists, these included Christians, Muslims and Malayalis . The Sri Lankan Tamils however had remained largely untouched. Early Sinhala Buddhist propaganda was directed mainly against foreign and religious ethnic minorities. This changed in the 1950s as the Sri Lankan Tamils were rediscovered to be

5859-482: The late 1960s several Tamil youth, among them Velupillai Prabhakaran , also became involved in these activities. They carried out several hit-and-run operations against pro-government Tamil politicians, Sri Lanka police and the civil administration. During the 1970s the Policy of standardization was initiated. Under the policy, students were admitted to university in proportion to the number of applicants who sat for

5952-413: The leader of the LTTE. In May 1981 the burning of the Jaffna library , in the presence of two Sinhalese cabinet members, by what witnesses described as uniformed police and Sinhalese mobs, resulted in the destruction of more than 90,000 books, including palm leaf scrolls of immense historical value. This violent example of ethnic biblioclasm was a major turning point in convincing the Tamil people that

6045-471: The leader of the main Tamil party , A. Amirthalingam accused Sinhala hoodlums of raping around 200 women during the 1977 pogrom. His wife Mangayarkarasi Amirthalingam emotionally recounted some incidents of rape that occurred during the 1977 pogrom and said "Tamil women could not walk the streets during nights in safety." In 1981 members of the ruling United National Party organized another pogrom against

6138-465: The leadership. Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who fled to India have also been victims of frequent rape and sex slavery by Indian security guards and intelligence police . Many rapes went unreported during the conflict due to various factors, including intimidation from the perpetrators, impunity for the crime, and the severe stigma attached to it in conservative Tamil society. Sex slavery and mass rape of Tamils by government forces peaked at

6231-439: The militant groups. LTTE ordered civilians to boycott the local government elections of 1983 in which even TULF contested. Voter turnout was as low as 10%. Thereafter, Tamil political parties were unable to represent the interests of the Tamil community. Supported by the ongoing politics of conflict in Sri Lanka, politicised Tamil youth in the north and east started to form militant groups . These groups developed independently of

6324-399: The naked bodies of women are deliberately exposed, accompanied by lurid comments by SLA soldiers, raising a strong inference that rape or sexual violence may have occurred prior to or after execution." "The girls usually didn't talk back to them, because they knew that in the camp if they talked anything could happen to them. It was quite open, everyone could see the military officers touching

6417-542: The national flag inside the Jaffna Fort on 5 December 1995. The government estimated that approximately 2500 soldiers and rebels were killed in the offensive, and an estimated 7,000 wounded. Many civilians were killed in this conflict, such as the Navaly church bombing in which over 125 civilians died. The LTTE and more than 350,000 civilians, compelled by SL military operations and LTTE pressure to leave Jaffna, fled to

6510-419: The pogrom during the week of 18 July 1983, three Tamil schoolgirls were raped by Sinhalese soldiers in Jaffna , following which one of victims committed suicide. The following accounts of rape occurred during the pogrom: Full-scale war broke out between the Sri Lankan Army and Tamil militant groups after Black July 1983. The Sri Lankan armed forces resorted to punitive mass rape of thousands of Tamil women in

6603-493: The presence of his little child. His mind cracked under the shock." Following the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom , the Ceylon government sent the military to the north under emergency rule, which enabled them to "operate brutally with impunity". According to Professor Neil DeVotta, Tamils were subsequently "ordered about and searched in a humiliating fashion" by soldiers, as well as being beaten or stoned by soldiers in passing military vehicles. Tamil women were also occasionally raped by

6696-409: The qualifying mark for admission to the medical faculties was 250 out of 400 for Tamil students, but only 229 for Sinhalese. The number of Sri Lankan Tamil students entering universities fell dramatically. The policy was abandoned in 1977. Other forms of official discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamils included the state-sponsored colonization of traditional Tamil areas by Sinhalese peasants ,

6789-417: The rampage raping, looting and beating up hundreds of Tamils. One account of rape recounted by Vittachi describes a Tamil officer who became mentally unstable as a result of being unable to defend his wife and daughter from the sexual assault: "Another Tamil officer working in the same Government department was not so fortunate. The thugs stormed into his house and assaulted his wife and grown-up daughter in

6882-415: The sentry post. I just kept on walking and didn't look because I was so scared. She was about eighteen or nineteen years old. I saw her taken out of the line in front of me and step through the barbed wire and be led away. I was afraid to turn back and look in case they saw me but when the path turned a corner I could see the girl behind the sentry post, crying, half naked, with all her clothes badly ripped. It

6975-420: The success of the accord, the IPKF then tried to demobilize the LTTE by force and ended up in full-scale conflict with them. The three-year-long conflict was also marked by the IPKF being accused of committing various abuses by many human rights groups as well as some within the Indian media. The IPKF also soon met stiff opposition from the Tamils. Simultaneously, nationalist sentiment led many Sinhalese to oppose

7068-521: The territory in the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. This marked the Sri Lankan military's first conventional warfare on Sri Lankan soil since independence. The offensive was successful, and LTTE leader Prabhakaran and Sea Tiger leader Thillaiyampalam Sivanesan alias Soosai narrowly escaped from advancing troops at Valvettithurai. Key military personnel involved in the operation were Lt Col. Vipul Boteju, Lt. Col. Sarath Jayawardane, Col. Vijaya Wimalaratne and Brig. Gen. Denzil Kobbekaduwa . In July 1987

7161-578: The territory. When the Indian Peace-Keeping Force withdrew in 1989–90, the LTTE established many government-like functions in the areas under its control. A tentative cease-fire held in 1990 as the LTTE occupied itself with destroying rival Tamil groups while the government cracked down on the JVP uprising with the Operation Combine . When both major combatants had established their power bases, they turned on each other and

7254-562: The truth". India remained an outside observer of the conflict after the assassination. The violence continued unabated despite the steps taken to appease Tamil sentiments, such as the 13th Amendment (enacted in November 1987). Meanwhile, the Chief Minister of the then North and East Provincial Council , Vartharaja Perumal , put forward a 19-point demand to resolve the ethnic crisis. He threatened if these demands were not met that

7347-514: The use of suicide bombings against military, political and civilian targets. The origins of the Sri Lankan civil war lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils . The roots of the modern conflict extend back to the colonial era , when the country was known as Ceylon. The British colonial period lasted from 1815 to 1948, during which the British sought monetary gain from Sri Lanka's supply of tea, coffee, coconuts, and rubber. A labour shortage led

7440-471: The victims and their families.." "The one who had brought us there came up to me and the other soldier went up to the other girl...we started screaming. The one with me stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth and began fondling and cuddling me. He touched and squeezed my breasts. He sucked my cheek. ... We were behind a bush. I tried to push him away but he pulled and tore my blouse. Then he pulled my bra off. He removed his trousers. He took off my knickers. Then he

7533-579: The violence. The town of Kilinochchi was taken on 29 September. On 13 May 1997, 20,000 government troops tried to open a supply line through the LTTE-controlled Vanni, but failed. Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka has occurred repeatedly during the island's long ethnic conflict. The first instances of rape of Tamil women by Sinhalese mobs were documented during

7626-594: The war took place in July 1991, when 5,000 LTTE fighters surrounded the army's Elephant Pass base, which controlled access to the Jaffna Peninsula . More than 2,000 died on both sides in the month-long siege, before 10,000 government troops arrived to relieve the base. In February 1992 another series of government offensives failed to capture Jaffna. Lt. Gen. Denzil Kobbekaduwa together with Maj. Gen. Vijaya Wimalaratne and Rear Adm. Mohan Jayamaha , died on 8 August 1992 at Araly (Aeraella) point Jaffna due to

7719-480: The world as she did not trust the world and worried that our future will be destroyed as we were told. One day a sister from our neighborhood committed suicide. We asked what happened, the parents kept quiet. Later my mother told me that she was raped and killed herself as she does not want to see this terrifying world." From October 1987, the IPKF commenced war on the LTTE in order to disarm them. During this conflict,

7812-595: Was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers) led by Velupillai Prabhakaran . The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by

7905-521: Was agreed to in January 1995, but the ensuing negotiations proved fruitless. The LTTE broke the cease-fire and blew up two gunboats, SLNS Sooraya and SLNS Ranasuru of the Sri Lanka Navy on 19 April, thereby beginning the next phase of the war, dubbed Eelam War III . The new government then pursued a policy of "war for peace". Determined to retake the key rebel stronghold of Jaffna, which

7998-413: Was crying inside the camp. I asked why. She said they'd taken her daughter away and she hadn't heard from her at all. There are many people taken from the camps that go missing. The women are sexually abused. Nobody dares to talk. They know they're being watched. They're afraid they'll go missing." "One evening when I was returning after a bath with some others, suddenly a group of soldiers appeared. Some of

8091-515: Was dreadful. I was very angry and disappointed. I felt helpless and afraid but I had to survive myself. Then in the shed where we were searched, another person asked if I'd also seen all the girls being taken away and raped." "I was transferred to the Batticaloa army camp where I was treated like a slave. I was made to clean and do all the chores and treated very badly. I was kept in this army detention for nearly five months." "One elderly mother

8184-413: Was helpless. I was crying and I could not even cry for help. He told me to shut up. He used bad words and said that “if you scream again we will kill you”. He said that I was not to tell anyone of my interrogation and if I did they would “kill me in the night”. He said that they won the war and they wanted Tamil women to bear Sinhala children. They gave me my clothes. They watched me dress. They were still in

8277-431: Was naked and he did everything he had to do to me. It was too painful to me. He raped me. The whole ordeal lasted about 1/2 hour." "Sri Lankan security forces are using systematic rape and murder of Tamil women to subjugate the Tamil population... Impunity continues to reign as rape is used as a weapon of war in Sri Lanka." "Two persons who were armed and in their uniform entered the house saying that they wanted to search

8370-478: Was occupied by 2,000 rebels, it poured troops into the peninsula in the successful Operation Riviresa . In one particular incident in August 1995, Air Force jets bombed St. Peter's church at Navali (Naavaella), killing at least 65 refugees and wounding 150 others. In another instance in the same year, over 40 people were massacred in Nagerkovil and more civilian massacres followed in subsequent years, such as

8463-745: Was particularly strong in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu , where ethnic kinship led to strong support for the independence of Sri Lankan Tamils. Throughout the conflict the Indian central and state governments supported both sides in different ways. From August 1983 until May 1987 the Indian government, through its intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), provided arms, training and monetary support to six Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups including LTTE, Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Army (TELA). LTTE's rise

8556-580: Was recognized as the sole official language of the nation. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009 , bringing the civil war to an end. Up to 70,000 had been killed by 2007. Immediately following the end of war, on 20 May 2009, the UN estimated a total of 80,000–100,000 deaths. However, in 2011, referring to the final phase of the war in 2009,

8649-415: Was the assassination of the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah , in 1975 by Prabhakaran. The LTTE's modus operandi of the early war was based on assassinations, whereas the mode of operation of the then government was through setting up a series of checkpoints around the city. The attempted assassination in 1978 of a Tamil Member of Parliament, M. Canagaratnam , was carried out personally by Prabhakaran,

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