Sinhala Sri Lankan State Terrorists are waging war against Tamil people. The Tears of Tamil women will haunt the Sinhala race for ever.

The Sinhala aggressors are bombing, killing, stealing, torturing and raping the Tamils in Tamil Homeland. Therefore, the Tamil men, women and Children have no choice but to fight against and chase the Sinhala alien out of Tamil Homeland.

[PICTURE: Father and 3 year old daughter during the last rites at the burial grounds in Colombo.]

Sarathambal was a minority Sri Lankan Tamil woman who was gang raped and killed on 28 December 1999. This became an internationally known incident of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

According to AHRC report on 28 December 1999, Mrs. Sarathambal Saravanbavananthakurukal, 29, daughter of a local Hindu temple priest was forcibly dragged out from her home, in Pungututheevu, near Jaffna Peninsula, allegedly by Sri Lankan Navy sailors.
According to the Amnesty International her house was situated at about 500 m from the nearest naval base and her father and brother were tied up allegedly by four security officers dressed in black. Her dead body was found on barren land about 100 m away from their home the next day.

After public protest at the village where the incident happenedand in Jaffna her body was sent to the capital Colombo for post-mortem by a senior medical officer who indicated that the cause of death was `asphyxia due to gagging her underpants had been stuffed inside her mouth, and that forcible sexual intercourse had taken place`.

The government under then president Chandrika Kumaratunga ordered an immediate investigation but in mid-March 2000, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women Radhika Coomaraswamy, emphasized the lack of government response to allegations of sexual violence by security personnel in Sri Lanka.

Further more she noted, that, despite a presidential directive, little effort had been made to investigate the December 1999 gang-rape and murder of Sarathambal Saravanbavananthatkurukal.

Amnesty International also allege that the victim`s father and brother were allegedly threatened not to reveal the identity of the four men who came to the house. Also Director of the Sri Lanka Police`s Criminal Investigation Department, who had been instructed by the President of Sri Lanka to investigate the rape and murder,
The burial of Sarathambal took place at the Khanate cemetery, Borella in Colombo. Chandrasekara Sarma the farther of the deceased and her three-year old daughter performed the last rites.

At the inquest held subsequently a sobbing Chandrasekara Iyer Rajasekara Sarma, 19, giving evidence said the deceased was his elder sister. On the day of incident at 8.30 p.m. I was at home listening to a radio program when suddenly four persons in black uniform with shoes forced opened the doors of the house and entered. They tied my hands, covered my eyes and assaulted me. They throttled my neck to prevent me from shouting and dragged me behind the house ..... two of them dragged my sister away to a nearby deserted house. According to the witness, the rapists and murderers spoke in Tamil with heavy Sinhala accent.

Sarathambaal is only one among scores of Tamil women routinely subjected to sexual violence and murder by the Sri Lankan armed forces. There is a long list of hapless and defenceless Tamil women falling victims to thugs in uniform.


1. (1) On March 19, 2001 in Mannar, ten Navy personnel arrested two Tamil women Wijikala Nanthakumar ( 22) an expectant mother and Sivamani Arjunan (24) mother of three children have gone to Mannar on personal errands. On the way to the Counter Insurgency Unit (CIU) in Mannar, the Navy personnel started making sexual advances towards these totally helpless women. On arriving at the CIU at 11.30 p.m. both women were stripped naked, blind-folded and sexually assaulted. Wijikala was brutally and repeatedly gang raped by two naval ratings. Sivamani was also gang raped and subjected to several hours of torture while the rest of the men in uniform sadistically relished witnessing the rape through openings in the wall!

(2) Rajani Velayuthapillai, aged 23 years was detained by the Sri Lankan army personnel at Kondavil military check-post on her way back from Maanippai on October 03, 1996. She was returning after saying adieu to some of her close relatives prior to flying to Canada to join her fianc e. The soldiers on duty gang raped her and dumped her body in a pit of an abandoned lavatory near the Kondavil military check-post.

(3) Thenuka Selvarajah, a 5th grade student at Atchuvely Mahavidyalayam, was abducted and gang raped by army personnel attached to Puttur army camp on November 2, 1996. Luckily the sexually abused and psychologically tormented child escaped her abductors to tell her story to the school principal.

(4) Mrs. Murugesapillai Koneswary, mother of 4 children, of Central Camp, Amparai District, was passing though the check point at Central Camp on 17 May, 1997 when she was verbally assaulted and sexually harassed by four police officers on duty at that time. Reportedly, Mrs. Koneswary was not one to quietly take the harassment and thus defended herself, shouting at the officers and demanding that they leave her alone. At approximately 11.00 p.m. the same night, an unknown number of armed men in uniform entered Mrs. Koneswary`s home. By 11.30 she was dead. She died instantly when a hand grenade was exploded on her private part. This was apparently done to destroy all evidence of gang rape. Mrs. Koneswary`s home, a thatched hut with a concrete floor, bore the marks of the explosion.

(5) Velan Rasammah (38) a widow and her sister Nalliah Dharshini (28) were raped by four army soldiers at Thannamunai, a village 6 km north of Batticaloa. The incident took place on March 17, 1997 at 11.00 p.m. At an identification parade the victims identified only one soldier among a total of 150.

(6) On March 22, 1997 the police opened fire at a middle-aged couple in Batticaloa. Mrs. Mervyn Ockerz (52) who was shot in the head died on the spot. Her husband Kingsley Ockerz (55) was seriously wounded.

There is a mountain of damning evidence to prove that the Sri Lankan armed forces is using rape as a weapon of war. To the Tamils honouring and defending the chastity of Tamil women is an article of faith with them. And Tamil women will chose death in preference to losing their chastity.

Since the government of President Rajabuckse is indifferent to crimes committed by members of the armed forces in a pervasive climate of immunity from punishment, such state sponsored terrorism is on the rise. The long arm of the law simply refuses to catch the rapists and murders, except in very rare cases, when the victims are Tamils!

International condemnation of such acts and protest demonstrations have also proved futile and ineffective despite the fact a woman is the all powerful executive president. As always the case the Tamil people have been virtually left to fend themselves for survival.
Let no one entertain any illusion that the Sinhala racist government will ever punish those who commit war crimes and mete out justice to the Tamil victims of state terrorism.

If anything, war criminals will be rewarded with promotions and high profile diplomatic postings. The accused soldiers in the Kirishanti Kumaraswamy rape and murder trial told court that they were only carrying out orders of their commanders to bury dead bodies at Chemmani. One of the commander in charge of theJaffna peninsula at that time (1996) was Brigadier Janaka Perera who was later promoted to the post of Deputy Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff and them appointed Sri Lankan Ambassador to AUSTRALIA!

Since 1983 the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces have declared war on the Tamil people unleashing military terror in order to subjugate them by force. In order to maintain their oppressive rule over the Tamil people the Sinhala occupation army has committed, and continue to commit, horrendous human rights violations.

As already stated Sri Lankan state sponsored terrorism against Tamil people is on the rise. The basic right to life and liberty of every Tamil is in jeopardy under the oppressive rule of President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Rape, murder, extra-judicial killings, disappearances, torture etc. have become so common that even Amnesty International appears to evince only superficial interest in such crimes against humanity. According to a 1999 Amnesty International report `torture has been among the most common human rights violations reported in Sri Lanka.`

Sri Lanka has ratified both the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention Against Torture. In addition, Sri Lanka has also enacted enabling legislation in the form of the Torture Act to give effect to the Convention Against Torture. But in practice they remain a dead letter.

Today, the Tamil people are not only subject to a brutal war in the Northeast which results in death and destruction, but they are also routinely subject to indignities of arbitrary arrests, detentions without trial, rape, torture and murder under judicial custody by the Sinhala armed forces.

There is a proverb in Tamil which says that it is foolish for a man to be on the look out for a good omen while having a cat in his pouch. So are the Tamil people today. Until they physically force the Sinhala army to vacate the illegal occupation of our Tamil Homeland and cut loose the chains of Sri Lanka`s hegemonic rule, the woes of Tamils will continue to multiply in geometric progression.