Tag: Third Elam War

Applying the Sri Lankan Genocide Model in Gaza 7

~ The Koboi Project

The Mullaivakkal massacre of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) took place in May 2009, on a rural beach in an era when social media had not as yet established itself as a powerhouse of alternative news. While images and news of the slaughter was ciurculating among the Tamil Diaspora, nothing of them made it past the Mainstream Media’s blockade of news of this event. The SLA was enabled in their merciless goal of elimination the Tamil Tigers and the defacto Tamil state, regardless of the cost in civillian lives. Today, by contrast, the Israeli Defence Force’s (IDF) massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is presented in mainstream media, not so much because the media has reformed, but because it is now unable to ignore the pervasiveness of social media and citizen journalism. Gazans have been able to document and present the horror of their experience of destruction, displacement, and death, to the global gaze and conscience.

In the context of this reflection on the state of mainstream journalism, I want to recount a personal experience that symbolizes the decrepit state of the media. As the Third Elam War was coming to its violent close, I joined fellow Tamils in the public gatherings that took place in Vancouver. One of these gatherings was outside the CBC Regional Broadcast Centre in Vancouver and was aimed at appealing to the CBC to address the ongoing massacre of civilians in the Jaffna peninsula. I remember the mood as relatively sedate and not boisterous or assertive in any way. I was standing towards the front of the group when the acclaimed news anchor Ian Hanomansing, came along, presumably to prepare for the day’s news broadcast. Mr Hanomansing was, at that time, the co-anchor of CBC News: Vancouver, an evening newscast. The leader of our group led a party across the road with a petition and tried to hand it over. I went forward instinctively and found myself in line of sight to observe the pleading demeanor of the leader as he asked for our appeal to be forwarded to CBC management. I will never forget the evasive countenance of this esteemed Journalist, as he shuffled past our party without any engagement. This image, couched as it is inpersonal and communal experience of rejection and erasure, is seared in my awareness as an icon for the end of mainstream journalism in Canada – the end of truth in the neo-liberal era.

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7g3tATZ9eDY/maxresdefault.jpg

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 3

~ The Koboi Project

As I have said in previous posts (see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza and applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 2), I am having a sense of deja vu as I follow the recent events in Gaza. I am brought back to the state of psychic shock that I found myself in early 2009 as the short-lived Tamil nation of Elam came to its crushing end. In this post, I will outline the history of the formation of the de-facto Tamil state.

The island of Sri Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948 with the majority Sinhalese taking the reins of a unitary state which incorporated ancestral Tamil areas in the North and the East. After decades of discrimination and futile non-violent resistance, some Tamils organized to take up arms to wage a violent struggle. Indeed, in 1972 Velupillai Prabhakaran and others formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). In 1976, the TNT became the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) under the leadership of Prabhakaran. In July 1983 the LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in an action in the Jaffna peninsula, and this led to race riots in Colombo in which hundreds of Tamils were killed and thousands more were displaced. This was the start of a full-fledged guerrilla war referred to as the “First Eelam War.”

In 1987 India brokered the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and deployed peacekeeping troops in Northern Sri Lanka to enforce it. When the LTTE refused to disarm, a full-scale war between the LTTE and India. After incurring heavy losses, the Indian troops withdrew in 1990 and the Tigers took control of large sections of northern Sri Lanka, and the fighting resumed between them and Sri Lankan troops. This was the beginning of the “Second Eelam War” which ended in a truce in 1995, with the LTTE controlling one-third of all Sri Lankan territory and two-thirds of the island’s coastline.

The “Third Elam War” began with the breakdown of the short-lived truce in April 1995 and a brutal 6 year war ensued across the North and East of the island. It was during this war, that the United States declared that the LTTE was a terrorist organisation. This US declaration was made in 1997. It was followed a British declaration in 2001 and other nations then followed suit. This “third Elam war” ended in 2001 when a ceasefire was instituted through a Memorandum of Understanding which was formalized in the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, made under the auspices of Norwegian mediation.

From 1984 onwards the LTTE set up a functioning government in the territory under their control. They ran a sophisticated administration comprising a judicial system, a civil police force, Human Rights organizations, health and education systems, a Bank, as well as radio and Television stations Periods of Sri Lankan military occupation not withstanding, this de-facto Tamil state was fully functional and was recognized by many global institutions; notably, the World Bank’s Sri Lanka representative made the following statement in 2005, ‘Given the fact that there is an officially recognized LTTE-controlled area, a kind of unofficial state, and since it is a party to the ceasefire agreement with the Government, the LTTE has the status of a legitimate stakeholder’. 

Note: This WordPress post was originally headed by the image of a Tamil Elam flag. I re-posted it on Facebook and was warned about posting offensive material and my re-post was blocked. In this context, it is important to understand that, the Tamil Elam flag (above) is different from the LTTE flag (the LTTE is a proscribed organization). For a detailed explanation please see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 4.

Images: https://naimnikmat.blogspot.com/2019/10/siapa-ltte-dan-mengapa-ltte-ni-tiba.html
https://koboiproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/78545-save_20191011_122638.jpg

The cronology presented above has been compiled from the following three articles:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-srilanka-war-timeline-sb-idUSTRE54F16620090518/
https://www.wionews.com/photos/a-timeline-to-tamil-tigers-37-year-marathon-struggle-against-lankan-army-for-separate-state-219592
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Eelam#cite_note-sunday-42

https://academic.oup.com/isq/article/61/2/337/3078982?login=false

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590600850434

https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/tamil-eelam-flags-fly-high-canada-and-uk