2006 anti-Tamil riots in Trincomalee

Trincomalee District has long been a flashpoint of ethnic conflict with nearly equal proportion of the country's three major ethnic groups. The state's policy of settling Sinhalese peasants in predominantly Tamil areas had reduced the Tamil population of the district from 64.8% in 1881 to 33.7% by 1981. This issue was a major bone of contention between the two communities, with Tamil leaders resisting what they saw as attempts by successive Sinhalese-led governments to alter the demography of the traditional homeland of the Tamil-speaking people, thus marginalizing them politically and culturally. With the beginning of the Sri Lankan civil war, the Sri Lankan armed forces had launched a policy of forcibly displacing the Tamil population of the district in the mid-1980s, depopulating entire villages, to break the territorial contiguity of traditional homeland claimed by Tamil nationalists. The progressive Sinhalisation of the Trincomalee town and the resultant decline of Tamil influence also extended to its trading sector with decade-long efforts to drive the Tamils out of it. It was in this context of insecurity felt by the local Tamils that the latest spate of communal unrest was sparked by the illegal erection of a Buddha statue behind the town's main market on 15 May 2005 by Sinhalese nationalist groups with the support of the Navy's Eastern Commander, Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera. This was opposed by the local Tamils as an act of provocation by Sinhalese Buddhists and the ensuing protests and violent incidents led to the security forces being reinforced in the area to protect the statue. The issue politically galvanized the Tamil voters and contributed to the victory of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in local elections. On 7 April 2006, Vanniyasingham Vigneswaran, a prominent Tamil political activist and a supporter of the LTTE, was assassinated by state-affiliated paramilitary forces. He had led the protests against the Buddha statue and spearheaded the TNA victory after campaigning on the issues of the statue and the massacre of students. Following Vigneswaran's funeral on the morning of 11 April, the LTTE was suspected to have carried out the claymore mine attacks on the security forces and police in the district on that evening and the following morning, killing and injuring dozens. == Anti-Tamil riots ==

12 April As the Trincomalee town was buzzing with commercial activity in preparation for the upcoming Tamil and Sinhala New Year celebrations, a parcel bomb exploded at the vegetable market on Central Road around 3:50 pm. Six Sinhalese civilians and a soldier were killed. Soon after the explosion, some naval personnel stationed nearby came running to the blast site shooting at random, reportedly hitting some people. Most witnesses claimed that the Navy was specially brutal toward civilians. A Tamil youth who was shot at by a sailor but was missed as he was trying to get to his father's shop on Central Road witnessed the brutality of the naval personnel. The youth saw a sailor handing a man over to a sword-wielding thug telling him, "This is a Tamil, chop him". He also saw another sailor striking the head of a Tamil woman lying on the road injured from the market blast with the butt of his gun. In Linganagar, a petrol station was burned and a Tamil man standing in front of it was hacked to death; two Tamils travelling on a motorcycle were slashed and burned alive; three burned bodies of Tamils were found inside a three-wheeler the next day, reported pro-rebel TamilNet citing medical sources. Tamil youths were slashed in areas in Keniyadi and near Madathady junction. While the violence raged for two hours, the security forces and the police stationed in the area remained spectators without intervening. The policemen were ordered by their Headquarters Inspector not to take action against the Sinhalese gangs. Further evidence of state complicity was reinforced by the fact that all attempts by the businesses to contact the top security officials by telephone went unanswered despite the assurance given to them earlier that year that they could be called in case of an emergency. Although the government and some media reports suggested that the violence was a spontaneous reaction to the bomb blast, a team of Colombo-based civil society groups after undertaking a fact-finding mission reported that there had been "an element of pre-planning". and another 19 people. Tamil families sheltered in the school Varothiayanagar Bharathi Vidiyalayam recounted their ordeal:"Our houses were burnt, properties were destroyed and we were attacked by thugs with knives and clubs while the State armed forces and police looked on. No one came to our rescue. We fled from our houses and sought refuge elsewhere to save our lives." 21 April On 21 April, further anti-Tamil violence erupted in other areas of the district following a claymore mine explosion in Kiliveddy in which a Sinhalese home guard was killed. An armed Sinhalese mob went on a rampage, burning down 45 houses in the Tamil villages Menkamam and Bharathipuram. Several Tamil civilians were killed, including a 32-year-old labourer Jeyachandran and another youth who were shot and hacked to death. Several Tamil women were also raped. Hundreds of Tamil families fled their homes to seek shelter in temples and schools. == Reaction ==

Tamil National Alliance On 14 April 2006, the Parliamentary Group of the Tamil National Alliance issued a statement condemning violence, accusing the state of orchestrating the ethnic cleansing of the Tamil population of Trincomalee:"Like the July 1983 genocidal pogrom against the Tamils, the current violence against the Tamil speaking people has been unleashed in Trincomalee with the connivance of the SL Navy...The TNA considers that these continuous acts of State Terror are being unleashed on the Tamil speaking people, with the specific objective of terrorizing the Tamil speaking people into fleeing the Trincomalee District with the intention of ethnically cleansing the District of Tamils." LTTE On 14 April 2006, the LTTE's district political head S. Elilan issued a warning of major escalation if the violence continued:"If the genocide attacks by State armed forces with the connivance of Sinhalese hoodlums continue in the Trincomalee district we would be forced to take steps to safeguard the lives and properties of innocent Tamil people in the district and that would lead to undesirable serious consequence on the current peace process." Chamber of Commerce On 15 April 2006, members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries of Trincomalee District (CCITD) representing local businesses issued a statement during a conference accusing the security forces and the police of inaction every time their businesses had been targeted in rioting since 1977. They demanded compensation for the losses suffered and an assurance that pre-planned attacks on their businesses will not occur. == Aftermath ==

As the armed conflict between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE resumed, Trincomalee town alone had had the highest rate of killing of civilians by state-linked forces by the start of 2007 and majority of the civilians killed in the district as a whole during this period were Tamils with perpetrators being overwhelmingly linked to the state. Tamil business community in particular continued to be the targets of attacks in Trincomalee. == See also ==