The Human Rights Crisis In The Tamil North & East: An Appeal For International Intervention – Part II
Dr. Brian Senewiratne
[Part I of this series was published on 16 March, 2018]
“Sinhalisation”
There has been a mass relocation of Sinhalese from the South to the Tamil areas by the Government. What is not widely known is that the Sinhalese military and police who have quit their jobs are being relocated in the North with their families.
The result is a massive increase in the number of Sinhalese in the North and East. If this continues, the North and East will be dominated by Sinhalese. The electoral consequences are obvious. This will not be reversible as has happened in Amparai in the East, which was a Tamil area that has been ‘Sinhalised’.
The long-term objective of accelerated Sinhalisation of the Tamil area is to destroy the Tamil homeland and establish a monoethnic identity throughout the island – a Sinhala-Buddhist nation.
“Buddhistisation”
Buddhist temples and structures are proliferating in an area where there are no Buddhist civilians. The only Buddhists are members of the Armed Forces and Police.
What often is that a ‘Bo-tree” (Ficus Religiosa) is planted in an area which is then declared a Buddhist sacred site. A Buddhist temple is then erected.
The British Tamils Forum (BTF) has published an excellent book, “Proliferating Buddhist Structures in Tamil homeland – Sowing the seeds of Disharmony”.
Education in Jaffna in chaos
Daya Somasunderam, Professor of Psychiatry in Jaffna, delivered an important lecture, “A lost Generation of Tamil Youth: Impact of past war trauma, present psychosocial context, globalisation and Education”. What he said was alarming. 70% of students failed the Grade 5 examination annually, and 50% failed the Ordinary Level (O/L) examination. Of those who sit for the Advanced Level (A/L) examination, only 15 % enter Universities.
Even the few who enter universities are not assured of a bright future. The university system that was dong reasonable well up to the early 1980s has deteriorated drastically due to the general chaos
of war, poor resources, and support from the State, loss of able academics and teachers with the general brain drain. This ‘must-read’ publication is on the net.
The difficulty in getting into universities is compounded by the fact that large numbers of Sinhalese from the South are getting into the Jaffna University. Some of them qualify for university education. Others get in because they know the ‘right’ people.
As someone who has been a Senior Lecturer in Medicine in the Peradeniya University in the late 1960s, I am well aware that a significant number of medical students were Tamils, many from Jaffna. There is no place that I know of in any part of the world that has produced more professionals than Jaffna. As such, what is now going on in Jaffna is an absolute disaster. Jaffna will take decades, if ever, to get back to where it was at the top of the educational league table.
Of equal concern is that parents, who can afford to do so, are sending their children abroad. Once trained, they are not going to return. This serious brain drain will affect not only Jaffna but the rest of the country.
Poverty and unemployment in the North
Poverty and unemployment are higher in the Northern Province than anywhere else in Sri Lanka. At the Northern Provincial Council’s 2nd budget reading on 12/12/17, Chief Minister Wigneswaran said that out of all 25 districts in Sri Lanka, Kilinochchi was the poorest. Mullaitivu which was previously the poorest is now number 2 on the list of poverty by district.
Jaffna is the 5th poorest district.
The level of unemployment is also highest in the Northern Province than in any other province.
Sexual violence in the North and East
Sexual violence has increased across the Northern Province. Women widows in their 20s are sexually assaulted at work. Women teachers are sexually assaulted in schools. Gangs commit sexual violence for money. Sri Lankan Tamil men pay huge sums of money to watch filmed village rapes.
Unwanted pregnancies and teenage pregnancies are an issue. Many men come to Jaffna from other places, have relationships with women, marry them and then leave them. Society shuns these women seeing them as indecent.
Sex is a taboo subject in Tamil culture. As such, sex educations is not taught or taught poorly. In what is still a male dominated society, such issues are difficult to deal with.
My book Sri Lanka: Sexual violence of Tamils by the Armed Forces has nearly doubled in size in two years since it was first published in 2015. It is now (March 2018) 264 pages.
Continuing violation of human rights
There continues to be involuntary ‘disappearances’, abduction, arrest without warrant, illegal detention at unknown sites and a failure to release those who are being held without charge or trial. Nothing has changed in the North and East with the replacement of the dreadful Rajapaksa regime by Sirisena.
The 2016/17 Amnesty International Annual report spells it out.
ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS
Tamils suspected of links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continue to be detained under the PTA, which permits extended administrative detention and shifts the burden of proof onto the detainee alleging torture or other ill-treatment. In 2015 the government pledged to repeal the PTA and replace it with legislation that complied with international standards, but had not implemented this commitment by the end of 2016. A draft policy and legal framework for replacement legislation submitted for cabinet approval in October retained many of the PTA’s most problematic elements.
TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT
