Kingston academics are urging their students to raise awareness over ongoing human rights crisis for Tamils in Sri Lanka as part of a Human Rights awareness week.

Professors Philip Spencer and Andrew Higginbottom prompted KU students to join a Kingston study group to examine multiple evidence of the Sri Lankan government’s ongoing violations of human rights against the Tamil minority.

“This is what university is about: not just sitting around but finding out what happened“, said Pr Spencer, who heads the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence, at Kingston University.

For three hours, four eye-witnesses of the Sri Lankan civil war took the floor one after another with supporting video and pictures to voice their concerns about evidence of human right violations against Tamil civilians.

A Sri Lankan Tamil student who does not want to be identified took the floor. “The UN role has not been successful for us”, she said, after confirming that "as yet, UN has not ordered an independent enquiry over alleged war crimes or taken action against the ongoing detention of 100 000 Tamil civilians”.  

A war without witnesses

“The ultimate ignorance is to know and not to act”, said Nirmanusan Balasundram, a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist, after reminding students that the Sri Lankan government had banned all journalists and NGOs from entering the conflict zone in the northern part of the island from the start of its three years offensive in 2006.

Mr Balasundram said: “The Sri Lankan government had hidden plans to kill the people.” He concluded: “The international community has completely failed to stop that.”

As a project manager for a local NGO, Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), Arjunan Ethiveerasingam showed a series of distressing pictures and videos shot during the last stages of civilian phosphorous bomb shelling, which TRO staff sent “illegally” by satelite.  

“There were 370,000 civilians living in displaced camps (IDP) before the 2009 offensive. In June 2009, only 270,000 Tamils were registered in government internal camps. Where are the 100,000 missing?” Mr Ethiveerasingam asked.

Crucial material

Asked by the audience what students could do to help, Dr Higginbottom said: “More non-Tamils must take part in the protests, and attempt to raise awareness”.

He added: “if students want to help, they need to get information about the Sri Lankan conflict, and discuss their findings in study groups. Understanding the material is crucial here. They can also lobby to open up remaining detention camps by, for instance, contacting their MP or the government. “

Aju Ajanthan, a postgraduate student who is member of the KU Tamil society said: “Because of the 2009 conflict, a lot of Tamils have lost hope. We need to start campaigning again, and take a step further. But we need the help of non-Tamil students.”