The Mullivaikkal Genocide: 253,818 (aug 1, 1956 – apr 1, 2009)

Description:

The Tamil Genocide (also known as the Mullivaikkal Massacre or Mullivaikkal Genocide, commemorated annually as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day on May 18) was carried out by the Government of Sri Lanka (Sinhala-Buddhist Sri Lankan government under President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa), the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (particularly the Sri Lankan Army under Senior Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva), Sri Lankan Air Force, Sri Lankan Navy, and Sri Lankan Police against the Tamil minority population, primarily ethnic Tamil civilians trapped in the Vanni region of northern Rakhine State between January 2009 (beginning of final military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam/LTTE) and May 18, 2009 (official end of civil war when Sri Lankan military overran final LTTE positions in Mullivaikkal), with an estimated death toll between 40,000 (initial UN estimate for civilian deaths, later revised upward) and 169,796 (International Truth and Justice Project upper estimate based on census data, World Bank statistics, and unaccounted persons), with the UN's internal 2012 report estimating at least 70,000 civilians killed and local census records indicating at least 146,679 people unaccounted for and presumed dead.

The Sri Lankan military and government forces also engaged in systematic and indiscriminate shelling of designated No Fire Zones/NFZs (safe zones where government encouraged civilians to concentrate, then deliberately shelled them with heavy weapons including Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers/MBRLs, long-range artillery, howitzers, aerial bombardment, mortars, and small arms fire from land, air, and sea, killing up to 1,000 Tamil civilians per day by May 2009 according to UN staff), deliberate targeting of hospitals and medical facilities (repeated shelling of Mullivaikkal hospital on May 2 and 12, 2009 killing dozens despite International Committee of the Red Cross providing exact coordinates to prevent targeting), systematic shelling of UN hubs and food distribution centers where women and children queued (deliberately killed despite no LTTE activity and government having foreknowledge of exact times and locations), extrajudicial executions and summary killings of surrendering Tamil civilians and LTTE fighters waving white flags (US State Department documented soldiers shooting at civilians attempting to surrender with white flags and children, ordering them back to bunkers, throwing grenades into bunkers containing surrendering families, and running tanks over bunkers destroying everything inside), mass rape and sexual violence against hundreds of Tamil women and girls, torture and severe beatings, maiming of approximately 25,000-30,000 civilians through shelling, denial of humanitarian assistance by deliberately understating civilian numbers in the conflict zone (causing shortage of food and civilians starving to death), forced disappearances (over 70,000 unaccounted for according to UN internal review), arbitrary arrests and detention in military screening camps, blocking civilian evacuation from conflict zones while maintaining military assault, use of chemical weapons or white phosphorus (alleged), destruction of Tamil cultural sites and villages, and systematically inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction of the Tamil population including denying food, water, and medical care.

It has been labeled as genocide by the Parliament of Canada (which in 2022 unanimously adopted a motion making May 18 Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day, though the Canadian government clarified this does not represent official governmental recognition), Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who in May 2023 issued a statement marking the first Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day, though Canada's foreign ministry subsequently told Sri Lanka's government that Canada "had not made any finding that genocide had taken place"), the Province of Ontario Canada (which passed the Tamil Genocide Education Week Act in 2021, though a 2024 Federal Court ruling clarified the law's dominant purpose is to commemorate Tamil Ontarians' experience rather than make a legal finding of genocide), the Northern Provincial Council of Sri Lanka (which in April 2015 passed a resolution calling for UN investigation of Tamil genocide and ICC referral), the City of Barcelona Spain (whose Municipal Council in January 2019 passed a resolution calling for international investigation into "the genocide perpetrated by the government of Sri Lanka"), the City of Palermo Italy (which in September 2021 signed a memorandum recognizing Tamil genocide and promoting Tamil Genocide Education Week), Tamil Nadu State Assembly in India (which in 2013 adopted a resolution recognizing genocide and urging economic embargo on Sri Lanka), international human rights lawyer Francis Boyle (former lawyer for Bosnia genocide case at ICJ, who extensively argues in his book "The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka" that the final phase constituted genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention and that extermination of Tamils in the Vanni in 2009 "also constituted genocide" citing parallels to Srebrenica), human rights lawyer Anji Manivannan (who argued Sri Lankan government leaders possessed specific genocidal intent in targeting a substantial part of the Tamil population of the Vanni for destruction), Professor Jude Lal Fernando (who situated genocidal intent within historical context of majoritarian nation-building), former UN staffer Benjamin Dix (who stated "it is very fair to say that the [Sri Lankan] Army committed genocide" against the Tamil people), Spanish lawyer Carlos Castresana Fernández (who described the crimes as "one genocide that has been forgotten"), the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, Tamil diaspora organizations worldwide including the International Centre for Prevention and Prosecution of Genocide (ICPPG) and Tamil Genocide Memorial (TGM), genocide scholars who characterize the events as meeting UN Genocide Convention criteria particularly regarding genocidal intent, and numerous human rights organizations, legal experts, and academics who frame the atrocities as genocide.

However, the classification as genocide in the strict legal sense remains highly contested and politically divisive. The UN has not officially labeled the events as genocide, though UN investigations found credible evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

No international court has made a genocide determination, and no country has made an official governmental genocide recognition (as distinct from parliamentary resolutions or commemorations). The Sri Lankan government vehemently denies genocide charges and maintains military operations were legitimate counter-insurgency against the LTTE terrorist organization.

Critics of genocide classification, including the Sri Lankan government and some scholars, argue there was no genocidal intent (dolus specialis), that Sri Lanka resettled Tamils post-conflict and invested in northern infrastructure (inconsistent with genocidal aims), that the LTTE bears primary responsibility for civilian deaths by using human shields, and that death tolls are inflated by reliance on unverified LTTE-sourced data. The debate over whether the Mullivaikkal massacre constitutes genocide versus war crimes and crimes against humanity continues, though there is widespread international consensus that grave violations of international humanitarian law occurred.

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