The Sri Lankan civil war was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. 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 Lanka government.
The Sri Lankan state has been accused of state terrorism against the Tamil minority as well as the Sinhalese majority, during the two Marxist–Leninist insurrections. The Sri Lankan government and the Sri Lankan Armed Forces have been charged with massacres, indiscriminate shelling and bombing, extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, disappearance, arbitrary detention, forced displacement and economic blockade. According to Amnesty International, state terror was institutionalized into Sri Lanka's laws, government and society.
Killing field may also refer to:
Mullivaikal Hospital was a makeshift hospital located in the Safe Zone in northern Sri Lanka. An alleged series of shellings and aerial attacks began on 23 April 2009 when the Mullivaikal Hospital was hit by three artillery shells. It continued on 28 and 29 April when the Mullivaikkal Primary Health Center was hit multiple times over two days with six killed and many injured including one medical staffer. On the 29th and the 30th the Mullivaikal Hospital was again hit multiple times with nine more killed and fifteen injured. There were two attacks against the Mullivaikal Hospital on 2 May, one at 9 a.m. and a second at 10.30 a.m. resulting in sixty-eight killed and eighty-seven wounded, including medical staffers. On the morning of 12 May 2009 it was hit by an artillery mortar, killing at least forty-nine patients and injuring more than fifty others. All of these attacks were allegedly by the Sri Lankan Army; however, the Sri Lankan Government denied the allegation stating there is no evidence.
War crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war are war crimes and crimes against humanity which the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been accused of committing during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war 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; sexual violence by the Sri Lankan military; the systematic denial of food, medicine, and clean water by the government to civilians trapped in the war zone; child recruitment, hostage taking, use of military equipment in the proximity of civilians and use of forced labor by the Tamil Tigers.
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was a commission of inquiry appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in May 2010 after the 26-year-long civil war in Sri Lanka to function as a Truth and reconciliation commission. The commission was mandated to investigate the facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the ceasefire agreement made operational on 27 February 2002, the lessons that should be learnt from those events and the institutional, administrative and legislative measures which need to be taken in order to prevent any recurrence of such concerns in the future, and to promote further national unity and reconciliation among all communities. After an 18-month inquiry, the commission submitted its report to the President on 15 November 2011. The report was made public on 16 December 2011, after being tabled in the parliament.
The Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka was a 2011 report produced by a panel of experts appointed by United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon to advise him on the issue of accountability with regard to any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The report is referred to by some as the Darusman Report, after the name of the chairman of the panel.
Sri Lanka's Killing Fields is an investigatory documentary about the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War broadcast by the British TV station Channel 4 on 14 June 2011. Described as one of the most graphic documentaries in British TV history, the documentary featured amateur video from the conflict zone filmed by civilians and Sri Lankan soldiers which depicted "horrific war crimes".
Lies Agreed Upon is a documentary produced by Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence in response to a documentary aired by Channel 4, named Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, about the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The documentary gives the Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence response to war crimes accusations and rebuts points made by the producers of the Channel 4 documentary, who presented it as "a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the quarter-century-long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the secessionist rebels, the Tamil Tigers." Lies Agreed Upon was first aired at an official function held at Hilton Colombo on 1 August 2011, one and half months after the broadcasting of "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields". Ministry of Defence released another report named Humanitarian Operation – Factual Analysis : July 2006 – May 2009 on the same day.
Callum Macrae is a Scottish filmmaker, writer and journalist currently with Outsider Television, which he had co-founded with Alex Sutherland in 1993.
The 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was the 23rd Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 15 to 17 November 2013. Commonwealth leaders agreed on Sri Lanka as the 2013 host for the meeting when they met in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 2009. Sri Lanka, which was originally slated to host the summit in 2011, was accused of committing atrocities during the Sri Lankan civil war and the summit was instead held in Perth, Australia; Colombo was given the 2013 summit instead. The leaders of Canada, Mauritius, and India boycotted the summit, citing alleged human rights violations by Sri Lanka against its Tamil minority. Protests were also banned during the summit. President Mahinda Rajapaksa summarised the summit's events as: "Issues covered in the communique include development, political values, global threats, challenges and Commonwealth cooperation." However, the meeting was overshadowed by controversy over Sri Lanka's human rights record and the alleged war crimes during the final stages of the civil war. This was the first time in 40 years that the Head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II, was not present at the CHOGM.
No Fire Zone: In the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka is an investigative documentary about the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The documentary covers the period from September 2008 until the end of the war in 2009 in which thousands of Tamil people were killed by shelling and extrajudicial executions by the Sri Lankan Army including Balachandran Prabhakaran, the 12-year-old son of the slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. The Sri Lankan army has denied the allegations in the documentary. However, on 21 October 2015 the BBC reported that Maxwell Paranagama, a government-appointed Sri Lankan judge, says allegations the army committed war crimes during the long conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels are "credible". He went on to say there was evidence to suggest that footage obtained by the Channel 4 documentary No Fire Zone - showing prisoners naked, blindfolded, with arms tied and shot dead by soldiers - was genuine.
The White Flag incident is the massacre of surrendering leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and their families by the Sri Lankan Army on 18 May 2009 in Mullivaikal, Mullaitivu, Vanni, Sri Lanka. The LTTE's Political Wing leader, Balasingham Nadesan and Pulidevan agreed to surrender and contacted the United Nations, the governments of Norway, United Kingdom, United States and the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were given assurance by Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, and told to surrender at a particular place by Basil Rajapakse. LTTE's request for a third party witness to oversee the surrender was not granted by the Sri Lankan government. The LTTE surrendered to the 58 Division carrying white flags, but were reportedly shot dead. Sarath Fonseka, then the Sri Lankan Army Chief stated that they had been shot dead on the orders of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to Shavendra Silva, commander of the 58 Division. Balachandran Prabhakaran, Prabhakaran's 12-year-old son, was also killed after surrendering along with his bodyguards. A UN Panel states the LTTE leaders intended to surrender. The Sri Lankan government has denied any accusations of wrongdoing.
Events from the year 2012 in Sri Lanka.
Shoba, also known as Shobana Dharmaraja, was a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist and television broadcaster for the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). She died in the final days of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 with video evidence that she was captured by the Sri Lankan military before being raped, tortured and murdered. A senior United Nations official deemed the footage to be authentic. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also verified that it was her.
Sri Lanka's Unfinished War is a 2013 documentary examining the alleged genocide and crimes against humanity against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government. It was presented by Frances Harrison former BBC correspondent to Sri Lanka, and was first screened on the BBC World News on November 9, 2013. Sri Lanka's Unfinished War which presents harrowing cases of testimony from interviewees, brings to light evidence on the systematic post-war rape and torture in detention, organized by the State on the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Government denied the evidence that was put forth to them from the video..
I Witnessed Genocide: Inside Sri Lanka's Killing Fields is a 2011 investigative documentary film by Ms. Priyamvatha of the Indian news channel Headlines Today. Ms. Priyamvatha went undercover to the Vanni to report on the survivors of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day is a remembrance day observed by Sri Lankan Tamils to remember those who were killed during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. It is held each year on 18 May, the date on which the civil war ended in 2009, and is named after Mullivaikkal, a village on the northeastern coast of Sri Lanka which was the scene of the final battle of the civil war and the site of the Mullivaikkal massacre.
