Sri Lankan Tamils and Human Rights

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for securing this debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said, people have been calling for the same things in this Chamber not just for the past few years but for decades, and yet the Government have continually failed to act.

Hundreds of people from the Tamil community in my constituency have written to me in the past few days to ask me to speak in this debate because they are deeply concerned about their families’ futures in north-east Sri Lanka. Last week, thousands of Tamils in Sri Lanka and around the world commemorated their war dead on Maaveerar Naal. Once again, Tamils mourning in Sri Lanka faced oppression and a violent crackdown from the Sri Lankan state apparatus in their attempts to remember their war dead, as they visited the remains of the Tamil cemeteries that the Sri Lankan Government had already bulldozed. This means that 11 Tamils, including a young schoolboy, were arrested by Sri Lankan authorities, after those authorities stormed the remembrance events. The UN has always been clear that Tamils have a fundamental right to remember their war dead on 27 November, and that any attempt to infringe on this is a clear violation of international law. This is yet another reminder of the daily injustices inflicted on the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

It is now nearly 15 years since the end of the armed conflict. Tamils in Sri Lanka are facing an onslaught from their Government, with increasing reports of land grabs, the destruction of Tamil places of worship, and the illegal construction of Buddhist viharas. Tamils and Muslims on the island face horrific state-led abuses, including the continued use, as many colleagues have mentioned today, of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act: the continued use of torture, sexual violence and extrajudicial killings by Sri Lanka’s security forces. Efforts to stifle Tamil voices in Sri Lanka have grown increasingly bold, as seen through the arrest of a Tamil MP, Selvarajah Kajendran, who was detained by the police for commemorating the hunger strike unto death taken by Thileepan, who demanded the right of self-autonomy for the Tamil people.

The increasingly violent anti-Tamil nationalist rhetoric continues to be popularised by every single Sri Lankan policymaker. It is a vile, ethnic nationalist ideology that continues to echo through those corridors of power. It shapes the policies and the Government in ways that marginalise further the Tamil people. Let us be clear: Sri Lanka has a military that is almost double the size of the UK’s. More than 75% of that, though, is deployed in the traditional Tamil homelands. This of course perpetuates a climate of intimidation and human rights abuses, and brutalises the nascent Tamil economy.

A variety of UN bodies and other human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch, have called for justice for the victims of historic and present atrocities inflicted upon the Tamil people. Many of those accused, far from being prosecuted, have been rewarded with lucrative promotions, most notably the appointment of General Shavendra Silva to the head of the Sri Lanka armed forces—a total and utter disgrace. In 2015, through investigation by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, there was strong and corroborated evidence that the 58th division, led by Silva, had extrajudicially executed surrendering soldiers and shelled marked civilian hospitals. For the healing process to begin for the Tamil people, monsters like Silva must face justice and be removed from the positions of power where they can continue to abuse the Tamil people.

As we have heard today, policymakers around the world need to be forceful in bringing forward the sanctions that would actually make a difference. We have increasingly seen calls for sanctions against Sri Lankan war criminals. In Canada, they recently sanctioned several individuals, including the former presidents Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa for their role in the war crimes—crimes against humanity and genocide committed against the Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Canada’s Parliament also groundbreakingly unanimously recognised Tamil genocide in a landmark motion—the first recognition of its kind anywhere in the world. The United States has also issued sanctions on General Silva, and in a recent letter to Secretary of State Blinken, several congressmen and congresswomen from across the aisle urged the State Department to end the diplomatic impunity enjoyed by Sri Lankan perpetrators of human rights abuses.

Despite that, the UK is yet to sanction a single alleged Sri Lankan war criminal. In fact, in the past few years the UK has provided several million pounds in security assistance to Sri Lanka to aid training and capacity building for the Sri Lankan police and security forces. Given these troubling reports, I would like to hear from the Minister a commitment to publish an assessment of the impact of the financial support, and a full overseas security and justice assistance assessment for activities under this programme, to reassure the House that the UK is not contributing to serious human rights violations, as I have previously raised in the House on a number of occasions. The UK’s failure to sanction the Sri Lankan military and Government officials who are credibly accused of war crimes against humanity and genocide is hampering international efforts for justice and accountability, and rightly enraging the Tamil diaspora around the world.

Too many lives have been lost in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. Britain has a historic role in the root cause of this ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, due to our dark colonial past on the island, and our failure to maintain governance structures that allowed different communities to co-exist peacefully on the island. It is Britain’s duty to play a huge and important leading role in supporting the Tamil community as they seek a peaceful, political solution in Sri Lanka that meets the aspirations of all people on that island, including the Tamil people’s aspirations for self-determination.