Two years ago, in May 2024, an AI-generated image bearing the words All Eyes on Rafah became one of the most widely shared posts on Instagram. With around 44 million users sharing it, the image drew global attention to one of the most brutal military strategies known to mankind, where the settler-colonial state of Israel forcefully trapped nearly a million Palestinians in Rafah Block-2371 designated as a ‘No Fire Zone’ then bombed it, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. It is, however, less known that 14 years prior, this method was first tested on the Tamils of Eezham.
In 2008, the Tamils, waging a 25-year-long armed national liberation struggle, were cornered in the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka (occupied Tamil Eezham). In September 2008, the Sri Lankan state, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, in its aim to capture the liberated Tamil Eezham launched a gruesome military campaign. In the final months of this campaign, the United Nations reported that around 300,000 Tamil civilians were trapped in these “No Fire Zones” in Mullivaikkal.
The Sri Lankan government deliberately under-reported the civilian population in the area to 70,000, thus artificially creating a severe shortage of food and humanitarian aid leading to widespread starvation. Many of those who survived these conditions were killed in intense shelling, which claimed the life of 40,000 civilians. Further, those who survived the shelling were stripped naked and shot dead by the Sri Lankan army; women were sexually tortured and mutilated; schools and hospitals were bombed, with nearly 1000 Tamils being killed on average per day in May 2009. With the murder of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the de facto Tamil Eezham nation, the military campaign came to an end on 18th May 2009 with a death toll of 150,000 Tamils.
The atrocities against Tamils neither began nor ended in Mullivaikkal; they have their roots in the imperialist divide-and-rule policy engineered by the British in the last century. Over the years, the fascist Sinhala government was repeatedly armed by imperialist powers and their lackeys. With America arming them with International Monetary Fund dollars and military strategies, China supplying free F-7 warplanes, Pakistan sending trained spies and tanks, Israel providing dozens of warplanes and boats, and India with its unwavering political, economical and military support had their hands stained with the blood of the innocent Tamils.
Today, 17 years after the genocide, Tamil communities still continue to suffer, now under the National People’s Power (NPP) regime, which proudly presents itself as communist in words, but remains in essence another chauvinist watchdog of imperialism in action.
