Kent and Dollar Farm massacres

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Kent and Dollar Farm massacres
LocationKent and Dollar Farms, Vavuniya, Sri Lanka
Date30 November 1984
Attack type
 Massacre
Weapons Submachine guns, automatic rifles, hand grenades
Deaths82 killed (including civilians, home guards, military personnel)
Perpetrators Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

The Kent and Dollar Farm massacres were the first massacres of Sinhalese civilians carried out by the LTTE during the Sri Lankan Civil War. [1] The massacres took place on 30 November 1984, in two tiny farming villages in the Mullaitivu district in north-eastern Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government labeled this as an attack on civilians by the LTTE. [2]

Contents

Backdrop to the events

The Kent and Dollar farms were located near Manal Aru, a divisional Secretariat in the Tamil district of Mullaitivu. Manal Aru was of immense importance since it was situated on the border of three districts, Mullaitivu, Trincomalee and Anuradhapura, and more importantly it was the sole gateway between the North and the Eastern parts of the island where the Tamil community was the majority. [3] Realising its strategic importance and in a bid to quell the rising threat of Tamil separatism, Manal Aru was renamed as Weli Oya (Sinhalese translation of the Tamil name) and an attempt was sought to colonize the area with Sinhalese people. [4]

The Kent and Dollar farms were donated by a wealthy Tamil landowner in 1978 for the resettlement of Hill Country Tamil refugees displaced by the 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom. [5] The farms were prosperous and the Tamil farmers were cultivating minor crops. However, by October 1983 the Superintendent of Police Arthur Herath saw the farms as being obstacles to the northward expansion of Sinhalese colonization in Padaviya and accused the farmers of being "terrorists" or of "harbouring terrorists". In June 1984, the Vavuniya police led by Arthur Herath raided the farms and the Tamil families were driven away. [2] The government subsequently took over the farms, converted them into open prisons and settled 450 Sinhalese prisoners and their families as part of a program sponsored by the National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali to solve the "Tamil problem". [2] [5] The settlement of prisoners was used to further harass Tamils into leaving the area. The Sinhalese settlers admitted that young Tamil women were abducted, brought there and gang-raped, first by the security forces, next by prison guards and finally by prisoners. [6]

Massacre

About 50 LTTE cadres travelled in the night in two buses armed with rifles, machine guns and grenades. One of the buses went to Dollar Farm and the other to Kent Farm. The attacks was timed to start at about the same time in the early hours of the morning. The LTTE fighters shot and killed the guards, the women and children and most of the male members of the families. Some of the prisoners were thrust into a room in a building and blasted with explosives. 62 Sinhalese; including 3 jail-guards, 31 women and 21 children were killed. The second bus proceeded to the Kent Farm 8 kilometres away and killed 20 more home guards. [7] The death toll of Sinhalese civilians killed by the LTTE attack numbered 65 Sinhalese villagers; including 3 jail-guards, 31 women and 21 children were killed. The second bus that proceeded to Kent Farm killed 20 more home guards. [8]

Aftermath

The next morning, the police and the troops conducted a cordon and search operation and the government claimed that the troops had killed 30 "terrorists", but Tamil sources stated that the victims were all civilians from the neighboring Tamil villages. The LTTE also stated their cadres had returned without suffering any loss. [2]

In the two days immediately after the massacre, Tamil civilians in the surrounding areas were subjected to killings, arrests and disappearances by the Sri Lankan security forces. According to an affidavit of a former detainee provided to the Amnesty International, over 100 Tamil men detained from these areas were brought to the Iratperiyakulam army camp in the northern Vavuniya District, shot dead and their bodies were burned by the Sri Lankan Army. [9]

From 1988 to 1989 Sinhalese villages in Weli Oya was put on a war-footing. A total of 3,364 families, most of them landless peasants, were settled in Weli Oya. A further 35,000 persons comprising 5,925 families were also settled under the same scheme. [10]

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References

  1. ↑ Rubin, Barnett R. (1987). Cycles of Violence: Human Rights in Sri Lanka Since the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. Human Rights Watch. p. 112.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Sabaratnam, T (2004). "Pirapaharan: Vol.2, Chap.23 Manal Aru Becomes Weli Oya". sangam.org. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  3. ↑ Heynes, Stephen (24 May 2016). The Bleeding Island: Scars and Wounds. Partridge Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4828-7478-5.
  4. ↑ SPECIAL REPORT 5, FROM MANAL AARU TO WELI OYA AND THE SPIRIT OF JULY 1983 https://uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport5.htm
  5. 1 2 Playing the "communal Card": Communal Violence and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 1995. p. 90. ISBN   978-1-56432-152-7.
  6. ↑ University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) Sri Lanka, Information Bulletin No.4, 13 February 1995, Padaviya-Weli Oya: bearing the burden of ideology http://www.uthr.org/bulletins/bul4.htm
  7. ↑ "LTTE genocide at Kent and Dollar Farms" (PDF). Daily News. Sri Lanka. 29 May 2009. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  8. ↑ "LTTE violated right to life" (PDF). Daily News. Sri Lanka. 29 May 2009. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  9. ↑ Rubin, Barnett R. (1987). Cycles of Violence: Human Rights in Sri Lanka Since the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. Human Rights Watch. pp. 112–114. ISBN   978-0-938579-43-4.
  10. ↑ "36 years gone, but, dark memories remain".

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