The European Union (EU) has banned the Tamil Resistance Movement (TRM) from Europe as a terrorist movement on May 29 2006.1 The TRM includes the LTTE, organisations and individuals being supportive of the LTTE. In Tamil, the term iyakkam, ‘the movement’, is commonly used. The ban was preceded by a joint motion on May 17 2006.2 They are made object of a political comment in the following text.
The State sponsored violence against the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka has a very long history. A startling aspect of this State violence is the large scale massacres of Tamils. Some of them are so spectacular that they are etched in the Tamil psyche. Prior to the signing of the February 2002 ceasefire agreement, there have been hundreds of such massacres. After a two year lull, the violent campaign by the military was relaunched in 2004. This report documents a selected number the massacres prior to the signing of the ceasefire agreement in 2002. Recording the massacres carried out since 2004 will be a separate project.
We reproduced below a judgement made by a bench of five judges, presided over by the Chief Justice, Sarath N. Silva, of Sri Lanka, which leaves no doubt that the court wishes to nullify the impact of Sri Lanka being a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR.