Allegations of chemical weapons use in the Sri Lankan Civil War

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There are allegations that chemical weapons were used by the Sri Lankan military and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the Sri Lankan Civil War. No strong evidence for indicating the consistent use of such weapons during the war have been found thus far. [1] [2]

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Allegations against the Sri Lankan military

The LTTE has accused the Sri Lankan military of obtaining and using chemical weapons against its combatants and Tamil civilians. In 2001 the LTTE claimed that the government had obtained banned chemical weapons, and warned of "dangerous consequences" should they be deployed on the battlefield. The accusation was made in relation to the government's purchase of RPO-A Shmel Thermobaric rocket launchers, which are neither banned nor are chemical weapons. [3] [4] The pro-LTTE politician [5] Joseph Pararajasingham also referred to these as banned chemical weapons solely intended to annihilate the Tamil people. [6]

In 2009 a senior LTTE commander claimed to have witnessed and escaped extensive chemical attacks against LTTE combatants. [7] A 2009 United States diplomatic cable leak however indicates that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka reported that their medical teams treating the wounded during the final stages of the war came across no evidence of chemical weapons use by government forces as alleged by Tamil groups. [2] The UN Secretary General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka reported allegations that chemical agents were used against civilians, but stated that it could not reach a conclusion regarding their credibility. [8]

In 2010 the wife of cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda has claimed that he went missing after he started researching the Sri Lankan military's use of chemical weapons in war and started publicizing his findings to diplomats outside Sri Lanka. [9] [10] [11]

The 2014 documentary This Land Belongs to the Army aired interviews with alleged soldiers who claimed that chemical weapons were used on LTTE combatants and civilians and described their operation and impact. It also broadcast images which claimed to show victims of these attacks suffering from chemical burns. [12] In January 2014, the Roman Catholic Bishops in the former war zone called for an international inquiry as to whether government forces used cluster munitions and chemical weapons in densely populated areas. [13]

Allegations against the LTTE

The Sri Lankan government has accused the LTTE of planning and carrying out chemical attacks. In 2007 the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake claimed that security forces had intercepted rebels transporting large quantities of acid in preparation for a major attack. [14] In 2009 the Sri Lankan military reported that they had captured a stock of gas masks and chemical resistant suits from an LTTE camp in Mullaithivu. The Defence Ministry claimed that the LTTE had been carrying out low impact chemical gas attacks during the course of the final Eelam war, and that this discovery was evidence of a plot for a massive chemical attack. [15] Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona stated that the government has requested an investigation from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons into charges of chemical weapons use by the LTTE. [2]

In 1990 the LTTE conducted a chemical attack using commercially obtained barrels of chlorine gas against a Sri Lanka army encampment in eastern Kiran, in the Batticaloa district. This was noted as the first non-state use of a chemical weapon in warfare. [16] [17] [18] [19] LTTE also used the non-lethal agent CS gas against advancing government troops but with little effect due to the troops being prepared for chemical warfare however several soldiers developed breathing difficulties. The aerosol version of CS gas is commonly used for tear gas in riot control but it is used in several variants some of which can cause severe burns. [20] [21] The symptoms reported by soldiers however were mild and limited to breathing difficulties, vomiting and skin rashes. [22]

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Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam 1976–2009 militant Tamil organisation in Sri Lanka

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was a Tamil militant organization that was based in northeastern Sri Lanka. Its aim was to secure an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east in response to the state policies of successive Sri Lankan governments that were widely considered to be discriminatory towards the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, as well as the oppressive actions—including anti-Tamil pogroms in 1956 and 1958—carried out by the majority Sinhalese.

Sri Lankan Civil War 1983–2009 civil war between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil separatists

The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.

Velupillai Prabhakaran Leader of militant Tamil organisation in Sri Lanka (1954–2009)

Velupillai Prabhakaran was a Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The LTTE waged war in Sri Lanka for more than 25 years, to create an independent state for the Sri Lankan Tamil people.

The Black Tigers were a wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant Tamil separatist organization. They were specially selected and trained LTTE cadres whose missions included mounting suicide attacks, military and political targets, among them Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. From their formation in 1987 until the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, more than 330 Black Tigers made suicide attacks on air, land and sea, mostly in Sri Lanka.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan is a Sri Lankan politician and former militant. After fighting for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for over 20 years, he rose to prominence as the leader of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), a breakaway faction of the LTTE.

Vaharai bombing

The Vaharai bombing is a disputed event in the Sri Lankan civil war. It occurred on November 7, 2006 when, according to survivors of the incident interviewed by Reuters, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fired artillery at Sri Lankan military personnel from near a school where minority Sri Lankan Tamil refugees displaced by the current phase of the Sri Lankan civil war had taken shelter. The Sri Lankan Army returned fire and around 45 civilians were killed. Over 100 were injured and admitted to the local hospitals. However, people who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed that the LTTE did not fire artillery. Further, the rebel LTTE denies firing artillery from close to the school. The incident occurred at around 11.35 a.m close to Kathiraveli, a coastal village in Vaharai peninsula of the Batticaloa district in eastern Sri Lanka.

Eelam War I is the name given to the initial phase of the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. Although tensions between the government and Tamil militant groups had been brewing since the 1970s, full-scale war did not break out until an attack by the LTTE on a Sri Lanka Army patrol in Jaffna, in the north of the country, on July 23, 1983, which killed 13 soldiers. The attack, and the subsequent riots in the south, are generally considered the start of the conflict. This fighting continued until 1985, when peace talks were held between the two sides in Thimphu, Bhutan in hopes of seeking a negotiated settlement. They proved fruitless and fighting soon resumed.

Eelam War II Armed conflict between Sri Lankan military and LTTE

Eelam War II is the name given to the second phase of armed conflict between Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The war started after the failure of peace talks between the Premadasa government and the LTTE. This phase of the war was initiated by the LTTE who massacred almost 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police personnel after they were ordered by the Premadasa government to surrender to the LTTE. The truce was broken on June 10, 1990 when the LTTE in October expelled all the 28,000 Muslims residing in Jaffna.

Air Tigers Air force of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

The Air Tigers or Sky Tigers was the air-wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who used it against the Government of Sri Lanka. They also called themselves the Tamileelam Air Force (TAF). Though the existence of the Sky Tigers had been the subject of speculation for many years, the existence of the wing was only revealed after an attack in March 2007, during Eelam War IV.

Eelam War IV

Eelam War IV is the name given to the fourth phase of armed conflict between the Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Renewed hostilities began on the 26 July 2006, when Sri Lanka Air Force fighter jets bombed several LTTE camps around Mavil Aru anicut. The government's casus belli was that the LTTE had cut off the water supply to surrounding paddy fields in the area. Shutting down the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru on July 21 depriving the water to over 15,000 people - Sinhalese and Muslim settlers under Sri Lankan state-sponsored colonisation schemes in Trincomalee district. They were denied of water for drinking and also cultivating over 30,000 acres of paddy and other crops. The fighting resumed after a four-year ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and LTTE. Continued fighting led to several territorial gains for the Sri Lankan Army, including the capture of Sampur, Vakarai and other parts of the east. The war took on an added dimension when the LTTE Air Tigers bombed Katunayake airbase on March 26, 2007, the first rebel air attack without external assistance in history.

The Kattankudy Mosque Massacre was the killing of over 147 Muslim men and boys on 3 August, 1990. Around 30 armed Tamil militants raided four mosques in Kattankudy where over 300 people were prostrating in Isha prayers. The Sri Lankan government, survivors, and observers accuse the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of committing the crime. The LTTE denied involvement and never retracted the denial.

The Northern Theater of Eelam War IV refers to the fighting that took place in the northern province of Sri Lanka between July 2006 and May 18, 2009.

The 2008–2009 SLA Northern offensive was an armed conflict in the northern Province of Sri Lanka between the military of Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The battle broke with the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive attempting to break through the LTTE defence lines in the north of the island, aiming to conclude the country's 25-year-old civil war by military victory.

Jaffna hospital massacre Massacre in October 1987 during the Sri Lankan Civil War

The Jaffna hospital massacre occurred on October 21 and 22, 1987, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, when troops of the Indian Peace Keeping Force entered the premises of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, an island nation in South Asia, and killed between 60–70 patients and staff. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the government of Sri Lanka, and independent observers such as the University Teachers for Human Rights and others have called it a massacre of civilians.

Chemical terrorism is the form of terrorism that uses the toxic effects of chemicals to kill, injure, or otherwise adversely affect the interests of its targets. It can broadly be considered a form of chemical warfare.

History of Sri Lanka (1948–present)

The history of Sri Lanka from 1948 to the present is marked by the independence of the country through to Dominion and becoming a Republic. The main factor has been conflict and civil war regarding the status of minority Tamils.

War crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War

There were war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the Sri Lankan Civil War, particularly during the final months of the Eelam War IV phase in 2009. The war crimes include attacks on civilians and civilian buildings by both sides; executions of combatants and prisoners by both sides; enforced disappearances by the Sri Lankan military and paramilitary groups backed by them; acute shortages of food, medicine, and clean water for civilians trapped in the war zone; and child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers.

This Land Belongs to the Army is a 2014 documentary film by Indian journalist and filmmaker Maga.Tamizh Prabhagaran. This film shows Sri Lankan civil war and shows the current post-war status of Sri Lanka. It also shows several controversial acts by the Sri Lankan government and the armed forces including Sinhalization and Land grabbing by the military. The film also features new testimonies from Tamil victims and an exclusive interview with a who is said to be a Sri Lankan Army officer, who speaks about the use of chemical and heavy weapons during the civil war.

Terrorism in Sri Lanka has been a highly destructive phenomenon during the periods of the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009) and the first and second JVP insurrections. A common definition of terrorism is the systematic use or threatened use of violence to intimidate a population or government for political, religious, or ideological goals. Sri Lanka is a country that has experienced some of the worst known acts of modern terrorism, such as suicide bombings, massacres of civilians and assassination of political and social leaders, that posed a significant threat to the society, economy and development of the country. The Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1978 is the legislation, that provides the powers to law enforcement officers to deal with issues related to terrorism in Sri Lanka. It was first enacted as a temporary law in 1979 under the presidency of J. R. Jayewardene, and later made permanent in 1982.

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