| Kent and Dollar Farm massacres | |
|---|---|
| Location | Kent and Dollar Farms, Vavuniya, Sri Lanka |
| Date | 30 November 1984 |
Attack type | Massacre |
| Weapons | Submachine guns, automatic rifles, hand grenades |
| Deaths | 82 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]
Backdrop to the events[edit]
The Kent and Dollar farms were bought on a 99-year lease from the state in 1965. They were located near Manal Aru, a divisional Secretariat in the Tamil district of Mullaitivu. The 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.[3] They were prosperous and the Hill Country 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". Herath also claimed that the Indian Tamils in the area were economic competition to the local Sri Lankan Tamils from Vavuniya and Jaffna, and that they were encroaching on state land meant for Sri Lankan Tamils. Several Jaffna traders, alleged by T. Sabaratnam to have been instigated by Herath, also echoed this sentiment.[2]
In June 1984, the Vavuniya police led by Herath raided the farms and the Hill Country Tamil families were taken to the hill country. In meetings following the evictions, National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali claimed that the farms were on state lands that were given on a lease, and that the state was reclaiming the land to settle prisoners. He also claimed that he was not opposed to Tamils, but the terrorists were forcibly recruiting Hill Country Tamil children from the farm, and that the relocation of the Hill Country Tamil families was therefore done for their protection.[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 Athulathmudali to solve the "Tamil problem".[2][3] 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.[4]
Massacre[edit]
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.[5] 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.[6] The LTTE had claimed that the victims were armed; however, Human Rights Watch reported that the violence was one-sided against the victims.[7]
Aftermath[edit]
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. The same day, the LTTE massacred 11 Sinhalese at Kokkilai.[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.[8]
In response to the massacres of Sinhalese, S. L. Gunasekara and Davinda Senanayake issued a report that recommended the increased militarization of the colonies. The government implemented the recommendation by increasing army presence in Weli Oya, but the LTTE continued attacking the settlements.[2] 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.[9]
References[edit]
- ^ Rubin, Barnett R. (1987). Cycles of Violence: Human Rights in Sri Lanka Since the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. Human Rights Watch. p. 112.
- ^ a b c d e f Sabaratnam, T (2004). "Pirapaharan: Vol.2, Chap.23 Manal Aru Becomes Weli Oya". sangam.org. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
- ^ a b Playing the "communal Card": Communal Violence and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 1995. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-56432-152-7.
- ^ 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
- ^ "LTTE genocide at Kent and Dollar Farms" (PDF). Daily News. Sri Lanka. 29 May 2009. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
- ^ "LTTE violated right to life" (PDF). Daily News. Sri Lanka. 29 May 2009. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
- ^ Rubin, Barnett (1987). Cycles of Violence: Human Rights in Sri Lanka Since the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. Human Rights Watch. ISBN 9780938579434.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "36 years gone, but, dark memories remain".
Further reading[edit]
- Gunaratna, Rohan. (1998). Sri Lanka's Ethnic Crisis and National Security, Colombo: South Asian Network on Conflict Research. ISBN 955-8093-00-9
- Gunaratna, Rohan. (1 October 1987). War and Peace in Sri Lanka: With a Post-Accord Report From Jaffna, Sri Lanka: Institute of Fundamental Studies. ISBN 955-8093-00-9
- Gunasekara, S.L. (4 November 2003). The Wages of Sin, ISBN 955-8552-01-1
- Suicide terrorism: a global threat, Security, Jane's, 20 October 2000
- Kent Farm and Dollar Farm massacre; Pictures of murdered civilians, Lanka Library, 11 June 2006
- LTTE Tamil Tiger Atrocities, 2002
