Condemn the genocidal attacks by the Rajapaksa Regime

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, ILPS International Coordinating Committee

Photos of dead and wounded men, women and children similar to those we have seen for years in the US wars of aggression on and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the Israeli invasion of Gaza last December have reached the outside world despite efforts by the Sri Lankan government to create a news blackout. The regime has taken great pains to keep out journalists and independent international agencies from the war front.

The reactionary Rajapaksa regime is rabidly whipping up Sinhalese chauvinism in order to carry out genocidal attacks against the Tamil people. The broad masses of the Tamil people have waged a heroic resistance. The Tamils in the diaspora and progressive organizations throughout the world have vigorously condemned the attacks and have called for a stop to the barbaric war being waged by the Sri Lankan reactionary army against the Tamil people.

The International League of Peoples' Struggle condemns the criminal use of chemical weapons, nerve gas, cluster bombs and other types of bombs and artillery fire by the Sri Lankan army against the Tamil people. Under the auspices of the US, the Sri Lankan regime gets open political support from India and its military acquires its war materiel from Pakistan, a notorious military proxy of the US in the region. The blatant use of banned weapons constitutes a war crime under the Geneva conventions.

The displacement of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians is the direct result of the tactics of the Sri Lankan army under the direction of the defense chief Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who is President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother. The reactionary army has bombed civilians even in the government designated “no-fire-zones” and has maliciously blamed the bombing on the LTTE supposedly to win sympathy from the international public.

The Rajapaksa regime is using US-inspired tactics of “base denial” operations. It seeks to physically separate the Tamil population from the LTTE guerrillas by falsely accusing the latter of holding the former as hostage and using genocidal weapons against the Tamil communities. It aims thereby to isolate the armed LTTE forces for encirclement and destruction by the presumed militarily superior Sri Lankan reactionary armed forces.

The civilian population are then herded into strategic hamlets where they are kept under inhuman conditions and subjected to close watch, witchhunt, torture and murder by the intelligence and combat services of the Sri Lankan military. The regime has carried out extra-judicial killings and employed torture against suspected LTTE members and supporters.

The Rajapaksa regime defends its brutal methods by saying that, “You can’t expect all the normal things that happen in a normal society because the LTTE are not like that.” This calls to mind the Bush’s regime’s defense of waterboarding and other torture methods against Al Qaeda suspects by tagging them as “illegal combatants”. Gotabahaya Rajapaksa who carries dual citizenship, Sri Lankan and American, has often compared the war against the LTTE to the US “war on terror” against the so-called Islamist militants.

The International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) supports the Tamil people's just struggle for national liberation and democracy. They have the right to national self-determination, up to the right to secede from a chauvinist, oppressive and genocidal Sri Lankan state. They have the right to use all forms and means of struggle in order to realize their national salvation and aspirations. We condemn in the strongest terms the ultra-reactionary Rajapaksa regime.

We support the efforts of the Tamil émigré organizations and other progressive organizations in condemning the reactionary Sri Lankan regime for waging a war of genocide against the Tamil people. We denounce the support given to the reactionary Rajapaksa regime by India and western imperialist governments which feign concern for the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilian refugees but at the same time brand the Tamil national liberation movement as terrorist and applaud the Sri Lankan army’s brutal suppression campaign it.

We call on all the member-organizations and allies of the ILPS, all other progressive organizations and the broad masses of the freedom-loving people of the world to support the Tamil people, condemn the atrocities being committed by the Sri Lankan government and exert pressure to stop its genocidal war against the Tamil people. We call on the international community to support the Tamil people in their struggle for national self-determination and democracy.