"This is an ongoing genocide" - landgrabs conference concludes
02 February 2014

The second day of the international conference on the Sri Lankan state’s forcible and militarised procurement of Tamil lands in the Northeast took place in London on Saturday. The conference, organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils alongside British Tamils Forum, opened with a screening of ‘This Land Belongs to the Army’, a documentary by Tamil Nadu journalist Tamizh Prabhagaran, who was arrested and deported from the island last year. The documentary focused on the extent of militarisation in the Northeast. Professor Oren Yiftachel of the Ben Gurion University, Israel, delivered a talk examining ethnocracies, saying that they “might have elections and citizenship on paper… but below this facade it is about the expansion of one ethnic group”. In a panel discussion, Dr Shapan Adnan from Singapore University, pointed out that “army of archaeologists were released [into the Northeast] after war ended, “rediscovering” religious sites” which espoused a “state sponsored rewriting of history”. Dr David Rampton, a fellow of the London School of Economics, asserted that “the international community is only now beginning to comprehend it was Sinhala nationalism that created the dynamic for many of [the island’s] problems”. Dr Jochen Hippler from University of Duisburg-Essen argued that oppression is a useful tool in Sri Lanka’s nation-building project. On the question of genocide, Hippler stated that “Sri Lanka is trying to turn Tamils from a nation into a minority.” In a talk entitled “President Rajapaksa – biggest mass murderer of the 21st century?” Professor Jake Lynch from the University of Sydney reiterated that the TNA’s landslide victory in the Northern provincial elections was “very clear evidence of Tamil aspirations for self-determination”. In a second panel discussion, Mr K Kurunathan, a retired land commissioner in Sri Lanka, detailed the renaming of Tamil villages into Sinhalese by Sri Lanka, and the seizing of Tamil lands sometimes under the premises of preserving wildlife sanctuaries. President of TNPF, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, pointed out that building military camps do not benefit the local population of the Northeast, and so acquisition of private lands served no “public purpose”. Ponnambalam asserted that that the Sri Lankan constitution and legal system completed the Sinhala Buddhist nature of the Sri Lankan state and said: “There is a clear state transformational process of establishing a Sinhala Buddhist ethnocracy,” “The only barrier to that process was armed struggle of the LTTE... Now the process is unabated,” “In the eyes of the Tamil people the laws itself are the cause of oppression.” Ponnambalam also contested Professor Ramasamy, Deputy Chief Minister for the Malaysian state of Penang, who earlier advocated regime change, highlighting that the opposition were seen as weak for entering the ceasefire agreement, and that a regime’s victory in Sri Lanka was a determined by its Sinhala ethnocratic credentials. He also emphasised the Tamil protests during David Cameron’s visit to Jaffna, which showed that the Tamil “people are willing to take risks despite oppression” and “willing to take action” but were in need of “leadership”. Anuradha Mittal of think-tank, Oakland Institute, led the final session of the day detailing that effective campaigns have been started against companies that do business in Sri Lanka. Former UN Assistant Secretary-General, Denis Halliday built on his earlier discussion of genocide and explained that it is a “process, a strategy and a government policy” and also discussed the many genocidal processes enacted upon Tamils by Sri Lanka. Halliday also pointed out that the “LTTE was not given the chance to show their capabilities and leadership”. TNA MP Suresh Premachandran describing the strong sentiment among the Sinhala polity that the island belongs to Sinhala Buddhists, implored the European Union to lay down preconditions before giving any sort of assistance to Sri Lanka. In a video recording, Jaffna University Lecturer and civil society activist Kumaravadivel Guruparan explained that the Sri Lankan state “wants to redesign and reclaim the Northeast, to make it part of its Sinhala Buddhist state” and also said: “The narrative of a potential liberal space in Sri Lanka denies the constitutional reality of the Sinhala-Buddhist state,” “Tamils have spent all these years trying to show attempts within the Sri Lankan state have been truly exhausted”. Miriam Rose from Foil Vedanta spoke on sea grabs and explained that restricting access to areas of the sea were detrimental to livelihoods. Suresh Premachandran MP, addressing a question from the audience on the TNA’s stance on genocide, said: "I think TNA has a clear view. Me, Sampanthan and Sumanthiran have all spoke in parliament and said there is genocide." The conference was concluded by Dennis Halliday stating “this is a genocide. This is an ongoing genocide.”