Forum Against War Crimes and Genocide - Karnataka Chapter organized a hall meeting in Bangalore on 2 July 2011. Many human rights activists and public from Karnataka took part in this seminar and extended their solidarity towards the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The Karnataka chapter of the forum comprises of various organizations like People Democratic Front, Dalit Self Respect movement, Pedestrian pictures, Karnataka Students Organization, Karnataka Jan Shakthi, Karnataka Vidhyarthi, All India Progressive Women association, New Socialist Alternative, Tamils solidarity, NCHRO and various Tamil organizations in Karnataka.

The hall meeting happened in Kannada and English. The meeting which started at 4:30PM ended up at 8:30PM with more than 100 people attending the event. Photos depicting war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Sri Lankan Army were put on display. The kannada translation of the summary of UN report of accountability on Sri Lanka and Permanent People’s tribunal report were distributed to the participants. The event was anchored by Mr. Narayanan from Pedestrian pictures. The documentary film “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” telecast by Channel 4 was screened in the event.

The forum was inaugurated by Mr. Nagaragere Ramesh from People Democractic Front. He pointed out that “The incidents which happened in 18th, 19th May 2009 have stunned not only the human rights activists but also the complete humanity. This is not just a Tamils issue.” He raised questions on whether  we are going to keep our eyes closed even after seeing such  brutal acts. He pointed out that “Tamils were meted out a kind of treatment similar to what the Jews received in the hands of Nazis during Second World War. The Indian government is still supporting the genocidal Sri Lankan government.  Despite its cultural ties with Sri Lanka, the Indian people kept silent during the war. Now the people slowly started talking about the atrocities committed to Tamils in Sri Lanka during war. Even after the war the Tamils in Sri Lanka are still live in distress and pain and they should get justice for the  atrocities committed on them. The Sri Lankan government has lost the moral grounds to rule the Tamil speaking people. The former army General Sarath Fonseka should also be prosecuted for all war crimes. We all share the responsibility to fight against these atrocities. The forum has formed with the objective of getting justice to the Tamils in Sri Lanka against all sort of crimes committed to them. An international independent investigation on the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Army is essential and this kind of public seminar on Sri Lanka’s war crimes should continue”.

Mr. G.Ramakrishnan, Karnataka’s famous writer gave a key note address in the meeting. He said “The language barrier broke after watching Channel 4 documentary film. Recently the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a press meet mentioned that the Tigers were defeated completely in Sri Lanka and we should think about the return of peace in Sri Lanka. He failed to mention about the Tamil civilians who were killed in the war. The World super powers have created much destruction by partitioning a country or by merging two countries into a single one. British partitioned India into two, while they merged the countries of Tamils and Sinhalese into one single country adding chaos to the life of Tamils in Sri Lanka. United States of America have created a situation where any country can wage war on the other country in the name of terrorism and this is what happened in Sri Lanka as well. Even after the end of war, no international media or others were allowed inside Sri Lanka to find the current situation. Sri Lankan government is carrying out all kinds of unlawful activities with the help of huge masses. We should bring out all the unlawful, inhuman activities committed by the Sri Lankan government and its army. There is no use of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and hence there should be an independent international investigation.”  Prof Paul Newman from Bengaluru University has briefed about the Permanent People Tribunal (Dublin) report and UN Advisory Panel report on Sri Lankan government war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Prof Paul Newman in his speech quoted UN Panel report that Sri Lankan Army intentionally shelled schools, hospitals , “ No fire zones “ and more than 40000 civilians were killed in the final stages of war. He mentioned the excerpts from the letter submitted by the Catholic Diocese  of Mannar to LLRC,  “ Based on information from the Kacheris of Mullaithivu and Kilinochi about the population in Vanni in early October 2008 and number of people who came to government controlled areas after that ., 1,46,000 people seem to be unaccounted for. According to the Kacheri, the population in Vanni was 4,29,059 in early part of October 2008. According to UN OCHA update as of 10th July 2009, the total number of people who came out of the Vanni to government controlled areas after this is estimated to be 2,82, 380.“ For these war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Sri Lankan government must be prosecuted by an international investigation mechanism.

Professor and human rights activist, Mr Haragopal briefed the audience in the topic of “ Sri Lankan Model of War”. A brief summary of his speech is given below:International human rights laws were enacted after witnessing the crimes against humanity during the World War II. About 44 countries conglomerated in Sri Lanka and congratulated Sri Lanka’s victory in its brutal war against Tamils. Further, they went ahead to convey the world to follow the Sri Lankan Model which is the most worrisome than the brutal war.At present, UN is playing a just mute spectator without any powers to act against the Sri Lanka. Like Bhopal gas tragedy ‘experiment’, with the support from International powers including India, Sri Lanka had successfully demonstrated an experiment how to crush the people fighting against the government. Sri Lanka was able to conduct its genocidal only with the support of India and USA. The Tamil Nadu government, the Indian government, RAW and CIA were part of this brutal war experiment. It is an alliance of capitalism and corrupted powers.US’s capitalistic objective of controlling South Asian economics is the primary reason behind its support to the Sri Lankan government. Despite the fact that Tamils constitutes about 30 % in the Sri Lankan population, they were treated as second class citizens in all domains. The LTTE were formed as a result. The Channel 4‘s documentary film “Sri Lanka’ Killing Fields” clearly evidence of the brutality of the Sri Lankan Army. The Army’s ill-treatment of dead bodies explains the absence of humanity among the soldiers.               

Sri Lanka has successfully demonstrated a model how to crush the nationalist struggle. Bangladesh Army announced  that it will follow the Sri Lankan Model. Sri Lankan war gives us a message about the readiness of the international oppressing nations to wage war against entire humanity. Further it cautions us that “if anyone stands up with the rights struggle or with rebels in any manner, he will be killed like rebels”.

Another tragedy is that these oppressive nations also control the information by using the media  to hide the truth. Most of the media lost their credibility by hiding the truth and by publishing incorrect news. The media is acting with extreme cautious in preventing the formation of civilized society with right thinking.Tamils in Sri Lanka has given us a rich lesson on how to fight a battle during crisis by sacrificing their lives.

Mr Jagadeesh Chandra Bose from New Sociliast Alternative gave a speech about the 60 year old history of Tamils in Sri Lanka and its summary given below: The Tamils living in North East part of the island are natives of the island and they are not Tamils immigrated from Tamil Nadu. They are ethnic nationalist race with historic homeland and self autonomous rights. In this context only, Tamils launched a nationalist struggle for separate nation against the oppressing Sinhalese government to protect their rights. Jagadeesh also briefed the history of up country Tamils who were forcibly taken from South India to Lanka by British regime to work as tea plantation labourers. Finally he concluded with Sri Lankan state’s oppression over the working classes of Sinhalese and said that neither Tamils nor Sinhalese were happy with the brutal policies of Sri Lankan State. 

Mr.Khalid Waseem, a Ph.D student from Kashmir gave a speech on “Kashmir and Eezham nationality struggle”. He mentioned that “More than 8000 people disappeared from Kashmir in the past 20 years much similar to what is happening in Sri Lanka. The Indian army practicing a culture of killing the Kashmir civilians in the name of ‘encounters’ against foreign terrorists. The nationality struggle for Eezham and Kashmir has many similarities in common.  In Eezham, the Tamils are killed in the name of Sinhala nationalism and Buddha while in Kashmir, the Kashmiris are killed in the name of Indian nationalism and Gandhi”.

Mr.Venkatesan from Save Tamils movement gave a short speech on “Genocide…Never again”.  He pointed out that “Though the Geneva Convention on Genocide prevention and punishment act was introduced followed by genocide on Jews in 1948, there are various incidents of genocide been carried out on various communities till date. The abetters were giving various reasons for their genocidal crimes, earlier it was in the name of anti-communism and now it’s happening in the name of ‘war on terror’.  Every time when there is genocide, only few groups fight against it and no one was punished for their act of genocide though few were punished under the act of war crimes”. He stressed that “Genocide can be prevented only when there are serious punishments according to the Geneva Convention for committing  genocide. Let the genocide of Tamils in Lanka  be the last one in the human history and let us all fight together towards it”.

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