Twelve years after the Sri Lankan civil war, the government of Sri Lanka has not only failed to deliver justice for the minority Tamils but has made every effort to conceal the atrocities committed against them. 

On 9 January 2021, the Sri Lankan authorities, in their attempt to distort history, bulldozed a Tamil war memorial, which was established in memory of Tamil civilians who were massacred in Mullivaikkal during the final stages of the civil war. The demolishing of the war memorial led to student protests and drew instant condemnation from Indian political leaders.  

Since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948, the Sinhala state has systematically oppressed the minority Tamils. The Sinhala Only Act, passed in 1956, replaced English as the official language of Sri Lanka with Sinhalese. This was a blatant act of discrimination against Tamils as their access to education and employment was unfairly narrowed. In 1981, Sinhala mobs set ablaze the Jaffna Public Library, a symbol of Tamil culture and identity, and destroyed invaluable ancient Tamil literature and history. In July 1983, ethnic tensions led to the outbreak of civil war. This was fought over 26 horrendous years between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) before it came to an end on 18 May 2009. Twelve years later, the war crimes committed during the civil war remain unaccounted for.

In June 2015, the Colombo High Court sentenced Staff Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake to death for murdering eight Tamil civilians, including children, during the war at Mirusuvil, in northern Sri Lanka. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka upheld the decision in May 2019. However, the president of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, pardoned Sunil Ratnayake on 26 March 2020. During his presidential campaign, Rajapaksa promised to free “war heroes” jailed on offenses he disregarded as “baseless”.

Amnesty’s Regional Director, Biraj Patnaik, commented that “after many long years, the victims of the Mirusuvil massacre […] finally got a semblance of justice in 2015. It is despicable to have that justice reversed through an arbitrary executive decision.”  

On 21 August 2019, Lt. Gen Shavendra Silva was appointed as Commander of the Sri Lankan army despite “serious allegations of gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law against him and his troops during the war”. A United Nations panel has accused Sri Lanka’s 58th Division, commanded by Lt. Gen Shavendra Silva, of shooting unarmed rebels in the final stage of the war and organising the torture of people in custody. According to the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), a human rights organisation, the 58th Division was the unit accountable for ceaseless and deliberate attacks on hospitals, food distribution queues, and displacement camps in 2009, which resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths in a matter of months. 

The US has imposed sanctions on Lt. Gen Shavendra Silva over war crimes and a travel ban against him and his family. Mike Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State, asserted that “The US will not waver in its pursuit of accountability for those who commit war crimes and violate human rights.”

In August 2019, Michele Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, remarked that the promotion of Lt. Gen Shavendra Silva undermines “reconciliation efforts, particularly in the eyes of victims and survivors who suffered greatly in the war. It also sets back security sector reform and is likely to impact on Sri Lanka’s ability to continue contributing to UN peacekeeping efforts.”

The Sri Lankan government’s failure to hold war criminals accountable and their ongoing attempts to wipe out the atrocities committed by the State makes Sri Lanka an unsafe place for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils. Despite international condemnation, justice has not been served.

Ahimsya has an LLB from the University of Essex and is currently doing the Bar Professional Training Course at UWE Bristol. Her fields of interests are international trade law and administrative law. She aspires to be a human rights activist in the future.