{"id":112770,"date":"2021-03-17T17:05:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T00:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112770"},"modified":"2021-03-17T17:05:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T00:05:47","slug":"british-parliament-must-also-discuss-payment-of-reparations-to-sri-lanka-for-colonial-crimes-committed-in-ceylon-1796-1948","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/17\/british-parliament-must-also-discuss-payment-of-reparations-to-sri-lanka-for-colonial-crimes-committed-in-ceylon-1796-1948\/","title":{"rendered":"British Parliament must also discuss payment of reparations to Sri Lanka for colonial crimes committed in Ceylon (1796 \u2013 1948)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

On\nMarch 18, 2021 the British Parliament will be having a full-scale discussion on\nthe Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with a view to holding\nthe Govt. of Sri Lanka, its machinery, and senior officials accountable for\nalleged war crimes in the last days of the war against terrorism which ended on\nMay 18, 2009. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone\nconversant with the high number of atrocities committed during the British\ncolonial period in Sri Lanka (1796 \u2013 1948) may not know whether to laugh or cry\nover this debate in the British Parliament. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is\none of the great ironies of our time that the countries that had hounded and\ncontinue to hound ex \u2013 colonies, such as Sri Lanka, wherever possible at every\nnook and corner of the UN system, are mostly the very same countries which had\nsystematically destroyed the civilizational foundations of the colonies and violated\nthe human rights of the subject people in European colonies in Asia and Africa.\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sri\nLanka the three prime European colonial countries are Portugal, the Netherlands\nand Britain. Each one is of these countries is shamelessly evasive when it\ncomes to accountability for the crimes committed by their colonial rulers in\nSri Lanka.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Book<\/strong>\nAccountability issues should not be made into a one-way street. It will bring\nboth International Law, United Nations and even the British Parliament into\ndisrepute and give rise to credibility issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New\nBook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new\nbook has been just released titled \u2018<\/strong>Freedom\nStruggles of Sri Lanka -Lessons Learned and the Way Forward\u2019 that discuss\nfairly comprehensively British liability for a range of wrong doings across the\nboard. Published by Godage International Printers, its Chief Editor is\nProfessor C.M. Madduma Bandara, a well \u2013 known Cambridge University alumnus. The\nbook contains some useful information and analyses of relevance to the present\ndifficulties faced by Sri Lanka in the international arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Chapter on “\u00c7olonial Crimes of British\nCeylon” by lawyer Senaka Weeraratna, compiles wide-ranging evidence of\ncrimes against humanity committed by the British colonial rulers. It builds a\nstrong case that can justifiably become the basis for seeking reparations.\nAmong the other chapters, the final ones on the future scenarios and \n“Way Forward”, may undoubtedly prove useful for the present-day\npolitical leadership. Its future prognosis is equally powerful since it employs\nsome scenario development methodologies. The book also unravels some rare\nhistorical sources like the ‘British Parliamentary Select Committee Report of\n1850, which had found fault with a British Governor i.e. Viscount\nTorrington, for his complicity in the brutal and inhumane suppression of\nthe Matale Rebellion in 1848. Hundreds of innocent civilians had lost their\nlives in the punitive expeditions launched by the Colonial Govt. under the\nwatch of Torrington in the Kandyan areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While valuing such attempts by the British Parliament of\nthe day for their yearning for further inquiry and rectification of colonial\nwrongs, it also provides many lessons for present-day parliamentarians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bogey of\nHuman Rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today,\nthe West preaches human rights, demands accountability and upholding of\nuniversally accepted standards on human rights. British human rights\ncampaigners point accusing fingers at Sri Lanka. Yet, a detailed scrutiny of\ncolonial rule in British occupied Ceylon (1796 \u2013 1948) reveals a sad saga of\nhuman rights violation of a gross kind such as tyranny, plunder, divide and\nrule, and a vicious policy of violence and discrimination directed mainly\nagainst Sinhala Buddhists and confiscation of their precious inherited lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21st<\/sup> century\ninternational legal doctrines need to be availed of to present a case for\ncompensation from the current British Government for genocide and mass murder\nof people of Uva \u2013 Wellassa in 1817 – 1820.  The rectification of\nHistorical Injustices is a prime duty of any self \u2013 respecting nation.\nIndependence is never complete without meting out Justice to those who were\nwronged by an unjust colonial system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka\u2019s National patriots such as Keppetipola, Madugalle, Ven. Kudapola Unnanse\nand several others who were convicted on the footing of a Victor\u2019s (White\nMan\u2019s) Justice by colonial Judges presiding in what was in reality nothing more\nthan Kangaroo Courts, for their leading role in popular uprisings in 1818 and\n1848 deserve to be exonerated through public re \u2013trials. The colonial Governors\nsuch as Robert Brownrigg, Viscount Torrington, Robert Chalmers and other\nofficials such as George Turnour must be tried posthumously, in a Nuremberg\nlike Trial, for their reprisal killings and drafting harsh laws that were later\nimitated on a bigger scale by the Third Reich in the massacre of the people of\nLidice in Nazi \u2013 occupied  Czechoslovakia in June 1942. Trial in absentia\nis a criminal proceeding in a court of law in which the person who is subject\nto it is not physically present at those proceedings. \u2018In absentia\u2019 is Latin\nfor in the absence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Land\ngrab in Kandyan areas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

British\ninjustice was felt mostly in the enactment of waste land laws. <\/strong>Kandyan peasants\nwere made landless. They were reduced to a landless state by the takeover of\ntheir lands for the plantation industry (initially coffee, then tea) under a\nseries of waste land laws commencing with the Crown Lands (Encroachments)\nOrdinance, No. 12 of 1840.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kandyan chena<\/em> which\ntraditionally had no documentary proof of ownership was taken over for\nplantation agriculture. This is demonstrated by the names of estates with older\nnames ending with hena<\/em> or\nchena crop names. This affected the food security of the people. Evidence of\nstarvation sometimes resulting in death is revealed in the writings of authors\nsuch as Le Merseur. The British systematically transferred the wealth of the\nKandyan region into their own coffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\naccountability process for these colonial crimes is warranted through an\napology, catharsis and adequate reparations. An Apology must be particularly\ndirected to the descendants of the Sinhala Buddhist Kandyans who were singled\nout victims of colonial brutalities. These are the descendants of a highly\noppressed group of people who were also deprived of their inheritance by the\ncolonial rulers planting thousands of indentured Indian labour in their lands\nwithout their consent. 19th century British official documents reveal how the\nfreedom struggles against British colonial rule were suppressed in a most\nbrutal, genocidal manner in one of the darkest pages of European colonial\nhistory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wars of\nIndependence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwere two major wars for independence from British colonial domination. The\nfirst uprising took place in 1818 in Uva \u2013 Wellassa and the second uprising\ntook place in Matale (1848). Both insurrections were brutally crushed. Millewa Adikarange Durand\nAppuhamy ( <\/em>Rebels, Outlaws and Enemies to the British (Colombo:\nGunasena, 1990)<\/strong>, comments as follows in respect to the crushing\nof the Kandyan Sinhala uprising in 1818 :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nbrute force was employed in Kandy to reduce the inhabitants to savages and to\ndehumanize them. Everything was done to wipe out their traditions, customs,\nculture and religion. Mind you, the Kandyans were promised that this would not\nhappen, and that their customs and traditions would be maintained (cl. 4, 8 of\nthe Convention). However, Kandyan villages and farms were burnt down. Their paddy-fields\nwere scorched. Their cattle slaughtered and their fruit bearing trees were\nsimply chopped down. Starved and ill, they were finished off with the gun as if\nthey were stray dogs in a stranger\u2019s land. British civilians then flocked in to\ntake over their lands, clear the virgin forests, and convert them to cash crops\nfor the benefit solely of the settlers and their financiers in Britain. To the\nKandyans, the most concrete and the foremost in value was land. This land not\nonly gave them their daily bread but also their dignity. It was to preserve\nthis land that they fought off successfully three western imperial nations,\nBritain included. Now having ceded their country to trickery, they remained\nhelpless against the planters who insolently trampled over their lands and\ntheir rights to their lands\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncrushing of the uprising in Matale in 1848 is described in a nutshell in a\nremarkable critical article \u2018English in Ceylon\u2019 published in USA in 1851 (The\nUnited States Magazine and Democratic Review. Print: Vol. XXVIII, No. CLV,\n\u2013 1851 May). It is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nhistory of Lord Torrington\u2019s administration in Ceylon affords an epitome of\nEnglish rule, wherever throughout the world, by force, or fraud, or violence,\nshe has succeeded in planting her guilty flag. The horrors perpetrated during\n1848 in the island-gem of the East, are the counterpart of those of which, from\ntime to time, during a period of seven centuries, the green isle of the West\nhas been the victim\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the animals were destroyed en masse \u2013\nelephants the mode of transport used by both King and villager alike for\ncultivation, tanks, religious processions soon became the target of British huntsmen.\nSamuel Baker headed the elephant slaughter killing 30-40 elephants on a daily\nbasis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is estimated that the British decimated\nover 10, 000 elephants in Ceylon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holocaust of elephants by the British Raj in Sri Lanka<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Holocaust of elephants by the British Raj in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/blockquote>