1990 Eastern Sri Lanka Massacres of Tamil Civilians

“Unheard Echoes: The 1990 Massacres in Eastern Sri Lanka”

Edited by: Wimal Navaratnam, July 14, 2025, Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

A Global Call for Justice, Memory, and Accountability in the Wake of Tamil Civilian Atrocities

In mid-1990, Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province became the scene of horrific massacres of Tamil civilians amid the renewal of the civil war. Following a breakdown of peace talks in June 1990, government forces and allied militias unleashed a brutal campaign against Tamil villages in Batticaloa, Ampara, and Trincomalee districts. These massacres – often referred to by Tamils as part of “Black September 1990” – saw entire communities rounded up, shot, hacked, or burned to death. Survivors and human rights investigations have documented a clear pattern of systematic violence, with Sri Lankan Army troops frequently aided by Muslim Home Guard paramilitaries in targeting unarmed Tamil men, women, and children. What follows is a detailed timeline of key incidents in 1990, first-hand survivor testimonies, an exploration of the historical and legal context of these atrocities, and an overview of post-war reconciliation efforts and international legal frameworks relevant to seeking justice.

Timeline of Key Incidents

The massacres of 1990 in Eastern Sri Lanka occurred in the context of Eelam War II, which erupted after the collapse of a ceasefire in June that year. On 11 June 1990, the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) abruptly attacked Sri Lankan security forces, killing over 600 police officers who had surrendered across the Eastern Province. This triggered a furious backlash by government troops. Over the following months, the Sri Lankan Army – often joined by Muslim Home Guards (locally recruited militia) – carried out retaliatory massacres in Tamil villages. Major incidents were concentrated between June and September 1990. Below is a summary table of the key massacres of Tamil civilians in Eastern Sri Lanka during 1990, with dates, locations, and brief descriptions:

Date	Location (District)	Description of Massacre
10 June 1990	Sammanthurai (Ampara)	A mob of Muslim Home Guards and locals, reportedly aided by security forces, killed 37 Tamil civilians in the town. This attack on Tamils, coming just before the LTTE’s offensive, heightened communal tensions.
20 June 1990	Kalmunai (Ampara)	In reprisal for the LTTE’s police massacre, Sri Lankan Army (SLA) troops and Muslim Home Guards shelled and entered Kalmunai, rounding up and killing Tamil residents. Between 160 and 250 Tamil civilians were massacred (some burned alive), according to investigations. It was described as “the largest bout of slaughter a single town…had witnessed in such a short time”. Later that week, soldiers allegedly burned 75 more people and 27 headless bodies washed up on Kalmunai’s beach.
June–Aug 1990	Veeramunai & environs (Ampara)	A series of mass killings and disappearances occurred in Tamil villages like Veeramunai, Malwattai, Sorikkalmunai and Thurainilamunai. Starting 20 June, SLA soldiers repeatedly rounded up Tamil males from refugee shelters (temples and schools), murdering many. Over 250 Tamil civilians from this area were killed or “disappeared” by the Army and Muslim home guard militia during June–August. Women were not spared: on 16 July, for example, 8 Tamil women who went to check their homes were gang-raped and killed by soldiers. In total, more than 2,000 homes were torched and entire villages were emptied of Tamils.
5 Sept 1990	Vantharumoolai, Batticaloa	The Eastern University refugee camp massacre: SLA troops surrounded a large refugee camp at Eastern University (Vantharumoolai) and arrested 158 Tamil refugees (mostly young men) who were sheltering there under a white flag. The detainees were packed into buses and taken away; none were ever seen again, in what is considered a mass enforced disappearance. (A presidential commission later concluded all 158 were murdered by the Army.) About two weeks later, 16 more refugees from the same camp were also abducted and disappeared.
9 Sept 1990	Sathurukondan (Batticaloa)	The Sathurukondan Massacre: SLA soldiers, some in civilian dress, herded Tamil residents from Sathurukondan and nearby villages (Kokuvil, Pannichankerni, Pillaiyarady) to a military camp. There, at least 184 Tamil civilians – largely children, women, and the elderly – were savagely killed and their bodies burned with tires. Only one young man survived this massacre with injuries, by hiding under corpses. The government held inquiries, but no one was prosecuted.
20 Sept 1990	Savukkadi (Batticaloa)	In the village of Savukkadi, Sri Lankan soldiers went on a rampage, opening fire on civilians and burning houses. 26 Tamil villagers – including 10 children and an infant – were burnt to death, their bodies dumped in pits. The same morning, troops shot dead 7 Tamil fishermen in the sea offshore. A total of 33 Tamil civilians were killed in this attack.
21 Sept 1990	Puthukudiyiruppu (Batticaloa)	Muslim Home Guard militiamen attacked the Tamil village of Puthukudiyiruppu (on the Batticaloa–Kalmunai Road) and massacred 17 Tamil civilians. Victims, including women and children, were stabbed or shot to death. This was part of the wave of coordinated massacres in late September 1990 carried out by the SLA and allied paramilitaries in Batticaloa.

Black September 1990: The Eastern University and Sathurukondan massacres, both in early September, are collectively remembered by Tamils as “Black September” due to their scale and atrocity. Throughout September, entire families were wiped out. Local leaders recall that no one was left alive in some villages like Sathurukondan, Pillaiyarady, Kalmunai, and Thurainilamunai after these attacks. Community memorials have marked 9 September as a day of mourning in Batticaloa, with black flags and religious services to honor the victims.

The carnage in the East extended beyond September. Human rights groups estimate that by October 1990, roughly 3,000 Tamil civilians had been killed or disappeared in Ampara District alone, and thousands more in Batticaloa and Trincomalee. In October, the LTTE retaliated brutally against Muslims (expelling the entire Muslim population from Jaffna and other northern areas) in what it claimed was revenge for Eastern Province atrocities. The cycle of violence thus uprooted nearly all Muslims from the North and many Tamils from parts of the East by the end of 1990. The Eastern Sri Lanka massacres of 1990 stand as some of the bloodiest episodes of the Sri Lankan Civil War, targeting Tamil civilians on a massive scale.

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Survivor Testimonies

Despite the ferocity of these massacres, a few witnesses lived to recount the horror. Their testimonies provide harrowing insight into what happened on the ground:

• Survivor of the Sathurukondan Massacre: Kanthasamy Krishnakumar, a 21-year-old Tamil man, was the sole known survivor of the September 9, 1990 Sathurukondan massacre. He recalled how around 150 villagers were forced to march to the army camp in the evening. At the camp, the soldiers suddenly set upon the group: “Fifty commandos walked about 150 of us to the camp... Four [people] were separated... attacked with swords... All were then taken to one place, attacked and burnt with tyres,” he recounted. In the chaos, Krishnakumar was slashed and left for dead, but managed to crawl away in the darkness and hide. He later described seeing his entire village wiped out – 184 people killed, including dozens of children. His testimony, recorded before community leaders, details how he escaped by rolling into a ditch while his relatives and neighbors were slaughtered and their bodies set on fire. Krishnakumar’s account helped confirm the scale of the atrocity, as he provided a list of 184 victims from the four villages that had been gathered at the camp. His survival and courage in speaking out made him a key witness, though no justice followed his testimony.
• Eyewitness from the Eastern University Camp: Dr. Thangamuthu Jayasingam served as the officer in charge of the Vantharumoolai Eastern University refugee camp in 1990. He vividly remembers 5 September 1990, when the Sri Lankan Army entered the campus – despite the refugees hoisting white flags – and took away 158 Tamil men and youths in buses. “They were forced into buses and driven away… This was the last time anyone saw any of them,” Dr. Jayasingam recounts. In front of nearly 40,000 displaced people at the camp, soldiers called out names and loaded the selected males onto two buses. Families screamed and begged, but were held back at gunpoint. Jayasingam, as camp administrator, recorded the names of all 158 who were taken. Three days later, a senior Army officer (a Major General) visited the camp and implicitly warned staff not to protest. In the years since, Dr. Jayasingam has repeatedly given evidence to official bodies – including Sri Lankan presidential commissions in 2004 and 2014 – about this incident. He even provided the names of the Army officers involved on that day and noted that the visiting Major General later became the Army Commander. “I want to know what happened to them,” he insists – not only as an official witness but as someone haunted by the agony of the victims’ families. Jayasingam describes being “traumatized” by the memories: “I wake up at night at times when the missing persons’ memory and the camp comes back to haunt me in dreams…”. At memorial events, he has met children who grew up without fathers because of the Vantharumoolai disappearance. “They just want an answer – not even compensation or punishment – just to know the truth,” he says of the families. To date, however, the fate of those 158 (and 16 others taken later) remains officially unknown, and Dr. Jayasingam’s heart-wrenching testimony stands as a plea for accountability that has gone unheeded.

Other survivors and witnesses echoed similar stories from 1990. Some recounted how soldiers used excavators to dig mass graves and bury bodies swiftly after village raids. Tamil villagers who fled these massacres spoke of indiscriminate killings – people shot while trying to surrender or as they sheltered in temples and schools. A humanitarian worker in Batticaloa noted “not a single soul was left” in certain Tamil villages after Army reprisals. These survivor accounts, while few (since few lived to tell the tale), have been crucial in piecing together the truth of what happened in Eastern Sri Lanka in 1990.

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Historical and Legal Context

Historical Background

The massacres of 1990 must be understood against the broader historical backdrop of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. The Eastern Province has long been ethnically mixed – home to Tamils (Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian-origin Tamils), Muslims (Tamil-speaking Muslims), and Sinhalese. Since independence, successive governments engaged in policies aimed at changing the demographics of the Eastern Province. State-sponsored Sinhalese settlements under schemes like the Mahaweli Development Project had, over decades, encroached into traditional Tamil-majority areas. Tamil political leaders viewed this as deliberate “colonization” designed to weaken Tamil presence, creating deep-rooted tensions. A 1990 appeal by the Tamil Rights Group described the violence then unfolding in the East as the culmination of a “carefully planned strategy” by the Sri Lankan state to “depopulate the Eastern Province of Tamil people” and settle it with Sinhalese – essentially to secure control of the land. They cited a Sri Lankan official’s own boast that tens of thousands of Sinhalese peasants had been moved into Eastern districts as part of a war for land.

Within this context, communal relations in the East were fraught. There had been prior clashes between Tamils and Muslims (for instance, riots in 1954 razed the Tamil village of Veeramunai). By the late 1980s, Muslim civilian militias (Home Guards) were being armed by the government, ostensibly to protect Muslim communities from the Tamil Tigers. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Civil War had been raging since 1983 between the government and Tamil militant groups (chiefly the LTTE). In 1990, a tenuous 13-month ceasefire (during which the Indian Peacekeeping Force had departed) collapsed spectacularly. The LTTE broke off peace talks and on 11 June 1990 launched coordinated attacks, overrunning police stations and army camps in the Eastern Province. It was during this offensive that the LTTE fighters massacred approximately 600–700 surrendered police officers (many of them Sinhalese and Muslim) at police posts in Batticaloa, Ampara, and Trincomalee. This massacre of policemen – described as “the saddest day in Sri Lanka’s police history” – inflamed ethnic hatred and provoked brutal retaliation.

Once the war resumed, the Eastern Province descended into an abyss of violence. The Sri Lankan military viewed virtually any Tamil civilian as a potential rebel sympathizer. The counter-insurgency strategy adopted by the government in mid-1990 was extremely heavy-handed and often indistinguishable from collective punishment. Soldiers and paramilitary allies (like the Muslim Home Guards and government-aligned Tamil militias such as PLOTE, TELO, and EPDP) conducted raids on villages, frequently acting on little or no credible intelligence about the LTTE. In many cases, entire male populations (including teenage boys) of Tamil villages were systematically arrested or killed, as the Army appeared intent on “wiping out all possible active supporters of the LTTE” in the region. This resulted in thousands of “disappearances” – a euphemism for abductions leading to secret executions. Asia Watch (Human Rights Watch) noted that “violence against civilians by all parties” reached an unprecedented level in 1990, even by Sri Lankan standards. The military shelled villages and bombed civilian areas indiscriminately, while the LTTE too attacked civilians (notably Muslim villagers in the East and border Sinhalese villages) by the hundreds. According to Human Rights Watch, between June and December 1990, over 4,500 people may have been killed in the north-east war zone, and around 1,000,000 (1 million) people were displaced, including over 100,000 Tamils who fled to India as refugees.

In the Eastern Province, the period from June through September 1990 was marked by tit-for-tat ethnic massacres. The LTTE’s attacks on Muslims (for instance, the massacres at the Kattankudy and Eravur mosques in August 1990, where Tamil militants murdered worshippers) led Muslim militias to take revenge on Tamil neighbors. One report noted that in several mixed areas, “Muslims and Sinhalese on one side and Tamils on the other traded massacres of villagers”, fueling a gruesome cycle. Many of the Muslim Home Guards who perpetrated killings of Tamils were trained and armed by the Army itself. The government, rather than reining in these militias, explicitly supported them – a Cabinet minister announced in November 1990 that the Muslims would be further armed, even as reports came in of Home Guards slaughtering Tamil refugees. Simultaneously, the government also deployed rival Tamil militant groups (former insurgents who were now anti-LTTE, like EPDP/TELO) to operate alongside the Army. These groups too were accused of executing Tamil civilians suspected of LTTE loyalty, contributing to the lawlessness.

Importantly, no meaningful distinction was made between Tamil combatants and civilians by the security forces in many Eastern operations. For example, in the Vantharumoolai university camp incident, defenseless refugees under UN protection (ICRC) were targeted. Likewise, in Sathurukondan, those left in the village were mainly the elderly, women, and small children – hardly insurgents – yet they were massacred indiscriminately. This suggests the intent was often collective retribution or terror. Indeed, observers at the time described the attacks on Eastern Tamils as “genocidal in intent” – aimed at driving out or eliminating Tamils from large parts of the East. An October 1990 appeal in the UK noted that “steps have been initiated at the highest levels… to reduce the Tamil population in the East to a manageable and pliant minority – either by killing them or by forcing them to flee”. By late 1990, virtually the entire Tamil population of certain areas (Trincomalee south, interior Ampara) had been emptied out: those who survived had run to LTTE-controlled jungles or to refugee camps, or escaped to other regions.

In summary, the Eastern Sri Lanka massacres of 1990 occurred amid a complex three-way conflict (government vs LTTE vs Muslim militias), but with the Sri Lankan state bearing primary responsibility for the large-scale, systematic killing of Tamil civilians under the pretext of fighting the LTTE. The historical legacy of ethnic polarization, fears of Tamil separatism, and the government’s demographic engineering of the East all formed the backdrop to what Tamil groups call a “planned genocidal attack” on Eastern Tamils in 1990.

Domestic Legal Context and Aftermath

At the time of these events, Sri Lanka was under a state of emergency and the armed forces enjoyed broad powers. Emergency regulations and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) granted security forces sweeping arrest and detention authority, with virtual immunity for actions taken in “good faith” to suppress terrorism. In practice, this meant that killings of civilians by military or police were rarely investigated, much less prosecuted. Indeed, during the 1990 massacres, government officials often denied that they had occurred. For example, after the Eastern University disappearance of 158 people, Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne told Parliament that “no one was arrested” at the campus – an assertion flatly contradicted by witness accounts. Such denials were common, and they signaled to perpetrators on the ground that there would be no accountability.

Under mounting pressure, the Sri Lankan government did initiate a few inquiries related to 1990 incidents. In late 1990 and the early 1990s, commissions were appointed to examine mass disappearances in the north-east. Notably, a Presidential Commission of Inquiry eventually looked into the Vantharumoolai (Eastern University) and Sathurukondan cases. This commission’s report – delivered in the mid-1990s – actually confirmed that the Army was responsible and even named three officers (Capt. Wijaya Kaluwarachi, Capt. “Dias” Richard alias Mohamed Munas, and Major Majeed) as the key perpetrators of the massacre of 158 refugees. It concluded these officers led the roundup and the victims had been killed and secretly buried. However, no further legal action was taken. As the TamilNet recounts, “no action has been taken against them [the accused officers], and even today the army officers are living freely.” Similarly, for the Sathurukondan massacre of 184 civilians, the government established two investigations, but no one was ever charged or punished. In effect, these commissions became exercises in damage control – their findings were kept largely under wraps, and perpetrators remained in uniform or were transferred elsewhere.

This climate of impunity was not limited to the Eastern Province. In the south of Sri Lanka around the same time (1988–1990), security forces had also been committing mass extrajudicial killings to defeat a Sinhalese insurgency (the JVP uprising). Tens of thousands disappeared in the south, also with near-total impunity. That pattern carried over into the north-east war: Asia Watch (HRW) noted in 1990 that despite “the utter ruthlessness of these killings” of civilians, they were unaware of any serious government investigation leading to prosecutions. Police and soldiers operated as though above the law, and some units (like Special Task Force commandos in the East) developed reputations for brutality.

Legally, Sri Lanka at that time lacked specific laws to prosecute war crimes or crimes against humanity. The ordinary criminal law (penal code) criminalizes murder, but obtaining evidence and testimony was nearly impossible when the army controlled the area and intimidated survivors. Families of victims were often too frightened to file complaints. In many cases from 1990, there weren’t even bodies or death certificates – for instance, not one body was recovered from the Eastern University roundup, leaving families in limbo. The concept of enforced disappearance (now recognized in international law) was not then a defined offense in Sri Lanka. It wasn’t until years later (1994–1998) that Sri Lanka set up dedicated Commissions on Disappearances, which documented around 21,000 cases of missing people from the late 1980s to early 90s (including many from the East). Those commissions, too, recommended prosecutions, but only a handful of low-level cases were ever pursued in court, and not for the biggest massacres.

In the Eastern Province, the aftermath of 1990 was one of deep trauma and ethnic segregation. The massacres permanently altered the demographic landscape: large Tamil populations were displaced from mixed towns like Kalmunai and Ampara. Tamils who survived often fled to LTTE-controlled areas or refugee camps in Batticaloa. The government resettled many of the remaining Muslims and Sinhalese in fortified villages. This effectively led to segregated enclaves and a loss of Tamil presence in some areas. The violence also entrenched mutual distrust between Tamils and Muslims. The LTTE’s expulsion of Muslims from the North in October 1990, cited as retaliation, further ruptured relations. Thus, legally and socially, the Eastern massacres went largely unaddressed by authorities, leaving a legacy of bitterness.

In summary, the legal context in Sri Lanka in 1990 provided scant protection for Tamil civilians. The rule of law was subverted by emergency rule, perpetrators were shielded, and truth was suppressed. It would take decades before even partial acknowledgments came (for example, the government admitted at the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission in 2010-11 that disappearances had happened, but still avoided naming those responsible). Locally, Eastern Tamils refer to the 1990 massacres as a “forgotten genocide”, because no justice has ever been done and the events were for years kept out of official histories. This impunity set the stage for continued atrocities later in the war, as the perpetrators of 1990 faced no consequences.

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Post-War Reconciliation Efforts

The civil war in Sri Lanka ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE, but the wounds of atrocities like those of 1990 remain largely unhealed. In the post-war period, both domestic and international actors have urged Sri Lanka to pursue truth, justice, and reconciliation. Here are some key efforts and developments related to addressing or acknowledging the 1990 Eastern massacres:

• Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) – 2010/11: The Sri Lankan government established the LLRC to examine the conflict’s causes and recommend measures for reconciliation. In its 2011 report, the LLRC acknowledged that serious human rights violations occurred during the war (though it focused mostly on the final years). It recommended investigations into historic cases of civilian killings and disappearances and called for a political solution to ethnic grievances. However, the LLRC’s treatment of earlier atrocities like those in 1990 was limited, and critics noted it failed to provide a roadmap for justice. The government’s implementation of LLRC recommendations was partial; many proposals (such as prosecuting perpetrators of known incidents or instituting a credible truth-seeking mechanism) were not fully carried out.
• Domestic Commissions on Disappearances: Even before the war ended, Sri Lanka had convened several commissions to document disappearances (in 1994, 1998, 2007, etc.). These collected evidence on cases from 1990. For example, a 1998 all-island commission received complaints about the Eastern University camp disappearance. While thousands of cases were verified, successive governments largely ignored the commissions’ recommendations to prosecute or at least disclose the fate of the missing. In 2013, under international pressure, another commission (Paranagama Commission) was tasked to investigate wartime disappearances, and Dr. Thangamuthu Jayasingam (from Vantharumoolai) gave testimony again. Yet, families still didn’t receive answers. This pattern of “commission after commission” with no closure has been a source of frustration and mistrust among Tamil survivors.
• Office on Missing Persons (OMP) – established 2017: As part of post-war reform pledges, the Sri Lankan government created the OMP to trace the tens of thousands of missing from the war, including those missing since 1990. The OMP has the mandate to investigate cases like the Eastern University 158. Some families submitted information to the OMP about their relatives’ disappearance in 1990. However, progress has been slow and often disappointing – many view the OMP as lacking teeth and independence. As Dr. Jayasingam lamented, families continue to ask “are they alive or not?” with no definitive answers. To date, the OMP has not publicly solved any of the 1990 disappearance cases. Its work has been further hampered by political changes and lack of cooperation from security agencies.
• Memorialization and Acknowledgment: In the Eastern Province, local communities have taken the lead in remembrance as part of reconciliation. For instance, annual memorial services are held for the Sathurukondan massacre on September 9 (Black September Day). In 2003, a memorial monument was initiated at the Eastern University grounds where the abductions occurred. Families of victims gather with photographs of their loved ones, demanding justice. These acts of remembering are important for healing, but they often occur without official sanction. In fact, for many years, public commemoration of wartime atrocities was discouraged by the state. Only recently have there been small shifts – for example, some Sri Lankan officials have vaguely acknowledged that abuses (by “both sides”) happened. True reconciliation, however, would require a full accounting and acknowledgment by the government of the harm done to Tamil civilians, something that Tamil representatives and civil societies continue to call for.
• Tamil–Muslim Community Initiatives: The massacres of 1990 drove a wedge between Tamil and Muslim communities in the East. Post-war, some civil society organizations and religious leaders have tried to bridge this divide, recognizing that inter-ethnic reconciliation is crucial for lasting peace. Dialogues have been organized in towns like Kalmunai and Batticaloa where both communities share painful memories (Tamils of 1990, Muslims of LTTE violence). These grassroots efforts aim to foster empathy – for instance, Tamil activists have spoken out condemning the LTTE’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims, while Muslim activists have acknowledged the injustices Tamils suffered at the hands of state-backed forces. While these initiatives show promise in improving community relations, they operate in a fragile environment. Mistrust and the lack of official truth-telling about events like those of 1990 mean that reconciliation at the societal level remains a work in progress.
• International Engagement (UNHRC Resolution 30/1) – 2015: Sri Lanka in 2015 co-sponsored a UN Human Rights Council resolution promising a comprehensive approach to post-war reconciliation. This included commitments to truth-seeking, reparations, and a justice mechanism with international participation. Hopes were raised that finally even older cases might be addressed. However, in the following years, the government backpedaled on these commitments, especially after 2019. No special court or hybrid tribunal was established. The promised truth commission did not materialize. By 2020, Sri Lanka formally withdrew from the agreement, dampening prospects for accountability through domestic channels.

In summary, post-war reconciliation efforts in Sri Lanka have so far failed to deliver justice or closure for the massacres of Tamil civilians in 1990. While there have been numerous commissions and initiatives, victims’ families in the East continue to wait for even basic recognition of what they endured. The lack of accountability has been identified by international observers as a major obstacle to reconciliation – as noted by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the “failure of the Sri Lankan government to address historic war crimes is an early warning of the risk of future violations.” True reconciliation would require confronting these past crimes; until then, efforts at healing remain incomplete. The perseverance of survivors, activists, and some community leaders keeps the memory of 1990 alive, serving as a moral call to action for the Sri Lankan state and the world.

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International Legal Frameworks and Implications

The massacres of Tamil civilians in Eastern Sri Lanka in 1990 implicate several international legal frameworks, including international humanitarian law (laws of war), international human rights law, and norms against genocide and crimes against humanity. Here is how these events fit into the global legal context:

• War Crimes under International Humanitarian Law: Sri Lanka’s civil conflict in 1990 was a non-international armed conflict, meaning Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applied. Common Article 3 explicitly prohibits violence against civilians, including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, and summary execution of those not taking active part in hostilities. The massacres (e.g. rounding up unarmed villagers and executing them) were clear violations of Geneva Convention obligations. Sri Lanka has been a party to the Geneva Conventions since 1959, and thus bound by these rules. Deliberately targeting civilians in war constitutes a war crime. Independent observers at the time – such as Asia Watch – noted that both the LTTE and government forces engaged in massacres of civilians in 1990, acts which unquestionably breach the Geneva Conventions. Decades later, in 2015, a UN investigation into Sri Lanka concluded that war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law were committed by government forces during the civil war. The events of 1990 fall into that pattern. However, one challenge has been that Sri Lanka only incorporated these international war crime provisions into its domestic law in 2006 (through the Geneva Conventions Act). Before that, there was no local statute to directly prosecute war crimes. This gap contributed to the impunity for 1990 crimes.
• Crimes Against Humanity: The scale and systematic nature of the 1990 Eastern Province killings potentially qualify them as crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity are serious offenses (like murder, extermination, enforced disappearance) committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. The coordinated series of massacres, the consistency of tactics (mass arrests followed by executions and disappearances across multiple villages), and involvement of state forces all indicate a systematic attack on Tamil civilians in 1990. For instance, between June and October 1990, at least 3,000 Tamils were killed or disappeared in one district (Ampara) alone – a figure that underscores the widespread nature. If proven that these acts were ordered or condoned as a matter of policy (even an unofficial one) by officials, it solidifies the crimes-against-humanity characterization. Under customary international law and treaties like the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, crimes against humanity do not require an international war – they can occur in internal conflicts or even outside of conflict. Importantly, no statute of limitations applies to such crimes. This means that, in theory, perpetrators of the 1990 massacres could still be held accountable today under international law for crimes against humanity, despite the passage of time. The barrier has been political will and jurisdiction, not the law itself.
• Genocide and Intent to Destroy a Group: Some Tamil advocacy groups and scholars argue that the events in Eastern Sri Lanka constitute part of a genocidal campaign against Tamils. The Genocide Convention (1948), to which Sri Lanka acceded in 1950, defines genocide as certain acts (like killing) committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The “Planned Genocidal Attack” memorandum by the Tamil Rights Group in October 1990 explicitly stated that “the attack on the Tamils in the Eastern Province is genocidal in intent”, accusing the Sri Lankan government of aiming to physically destroy a part of the Tamil population in the East. They pointed out that entire villages of Tamils were wiped out with no survivors (e.g. in Sathurukondan, Kalmunai, etc.), which could evidence an intent to eliminate those communities. Additionally, the framing of the violence by some government and military leaders at the time – treating all Tamils as enemy – could be interpreted as dehumanization consistent with genocidal ideology. However, legally proving genocide is challenging. It requires showing a specific intent to destroy Tamils as an ethnic group. To date, no international tribunal has examined the Eastern Sri Lanka events for genocide, and no state has formally accused Sri Lanka of genocide in a court. Many international observers instead use the term “mass atrocities” or “war crimes” for these events. Still, the Genocide Convention obliges Sri Lanka to prevent and punish genocide, and if an argument were made that genocidal acts occurred in 1990, Sri Lanka’s failure to punish anyone could be seen as a breach of that treaty. In the court of public opinion, segments of the Tamil community continue to regard the 1990 massacres (and other anti-Tamil violence) as part of an ongoing genocide. This perspective has informed international campaigns for recognition of Tamil genocide. Legally, however, establishing genocidal intent behind the 1990 massacres would require access to internal documents or orders, which thus far have not been made public.
• International Human Rights Law: Even outside the context of armed conflict, the atrocities violate fundamental human rights treaties that Sri Lanka is party to. For example, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – which Sri Lanka ratified in 1980 – guarantees the right to life and prohibits arbitrary deprivation of life. The mass extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances of 1990 are clear breaches of the ICCPR. Sri Lanka was (and is) obliged to investigate such violations and provide remedies. The fact that thousands “disappeared” in 1990 with no accountability also runs afoul of the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which Sri Lanka has ratified (enforced disappearance often involves torture and inhumane treatment). In the years since, UN human rights bodies have repeatedly noted Sri Lanka’s failure to meet these obligations. For instance, the UN Human Rights Committee (which oversees the ICCPR) has pressed Sri Lanka on the issue of past disappearances and killings, underlining the duty to investigate and prosecute. In effect, the continued impunity for the 1990 massacres represents an ongoing violation of Sri Lanka’s international human rights commitments.
• UN and International Responses: The international community in 1990 was slow to react to these massacres, partly due to limited information and other global crises at the time (like the Gulf War). However, organizations like Amnesty International and Asia Watch did document and condemn the atrocities. They urged the Sri Lankan government and international community to act. In the decades since, Sri Lanka’s accountability for wartime atrocities (including older ones like these) has become a recurring agenda item at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Notably, the UNHRC Resolution 46/1 (2021) significantly ramped up international oversight: it criticized Sri Lanka’s lack of progress on justice and mandated the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to collect and preserve evidence of war crimes for possible future trials. This was a response to Sri Lanka reneging on earlier promises to pursue a domestic accountability process. The High Commissioner’s reports have explicitly warned that Sri Lanka’s continued impunity for past atrocities – dating back to the late 1980s/1990s and through 2009 – poses a risk of recurrence. The UNHRC’s new evidence-gathering mechanism (operational since 2021) could potentially aid prosecutions down the line, should a court with jurisdiction become available.
• International Criminal Court (ICC) and Other Avenues: Sri Lanka is not a state party to the Rome Statute (the ICC treaty), so the ICC cannot directly prosecute crimes from Sri Lanka unless the UN Security Council refers the situation (which is unlikely due to geopolitical reasons). As such, calls have been made for an ad hoc international tribunal to address Sri Lanka’s war crimes. This could be similar to past tribunals for Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. Resolution 46/1 hints at this possibility, noting that collected evidence could be used in “future accountability proceedings” including in foreign courts. Some countries have also been considering or using universal jurisdiction to go after alleged Sri Lankan war criminals present in their territory. For example, in recent years, individuals accused of atrocities (mostly from the final 2009 phase, but conceptually also applicable to 1990 incidents) have faced travel bans or legal complaints abroad. The principle of universal jurisdiction allows national courts to try certain grave crimes (like torture, war crimes, genocide) regardless of where they were committed. While no trial has yet occurred specifically for the 1990 Eastern massacres, the threat of travel bans and targeted sanctions has emerged. In 2023, the UN High Commissioner warned Sri Lankan authorities that if they do not act, other countries may prosecute perpetrators under universal jurisdiction as a matter of last resort.

In conclusion, the 1990 Eastern Sri Lanka massacres clearly violated international law and today are widely recognized as part of the corpus of war crimes and human rights abuses perpetrated during Sri Lanka’s conflict. International legal frameworks provide avenues in theory for justice – war crimes and crimes against humanity are not subject to amnesty or time-bar, and the duty to prosecute them falls to the state or the international community. In practice, however, achieving accountability has been difficult. The Sri Lankan state has so far shielded those responsible, and international mechanisms have been slow to gear up. The situation stands as a test of the international community’s commitment to “Never Again”: whether it will remain merely an atrocity documented in reports, or eventually see perpetrators in the dock, depends on political will both within Sri Lanka and globally. For the victims and their families, over three decades have passed without justice, but the principles enshrined in international law continue to affirm that such heinous crimes demand accountability. The world’s response in the coming years will determine if those principles are upheld for the massacres of 1990.

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⚖️ Disclaimer

This dossier is intended for educational and awareness-raising purposes. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, the content herein is based on publicly available sources, survivor accounts, and historical reports, some of which may be contested or incomplete. The document does not purport to offer legal conclusions, and should not be interpreted as a formal indictment of any individual or entity. Readers are urged to critically engage with the material and consult further sources for comprehensive understanding. The inclusion of testimonies and allegations reflects their importance to collective memory and ongoing dialogue about truth, reconciliation, and justice. No portion of this dossier should be construed as endorsing violence, hatred, or retribution.

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🖋️ Editor's Note

The events chronicled in this dossier represent one of the most painful and obscured chapters in Sri Lanka's modern history. As editors, we approached this undertaking not only as researchers, but as stewards of memory — curating voices long silenced and narratives long denied. We recognize the emotional gravity of this subject, and have taken care to present it with dignity, depth, and nuance. This is a living document: shaped by testimony, revision, and new discoveries. If you are a survivor, witness, scholar, or advocate with additional insights, we welcome your contributions in the spirit of shared remembrance and accountability.

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🔍 Research Methodology

The compilation of this dossier followed a multi-source qualitative research framework, including:

• Archival Review: Examination of reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN archives, and Sri Lankan government commissions (where available).
• Testimony Collection: Integration of direct survivor statements recorded by journalists, NGOs, community advocates, and independent truth-seeking bodies.
• Comparative Chronology: Timeline mapping across incidents, cross-referenced using news bulletins, academic journals, and eyewitness statements.
• Legal Analysis: Interpretation of international humanitarian law and human rights standards applicable to 1990 Sri Lanka, including the Geneva Conventions and Rome Statute principles.
• Ethnographic Contextualization: Understanding communal dynamics and historical background through regional studies and oral histories, especially in Tamil-speaking regions of Ampara and Batticaloa.
• Peer Validation: Where feasible, events and figures have been triangulated using corroborative accounts from multiple independent observers.

This methodology is rooted in a commitment to transparency, sensitivity, and rigorous documentation — recognizing the vital role of memory in pursuit of justice.

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     In solidarity,

     Wimal Navaratnam

     Human Rights Advocate | ABC Tamil Oli (ECOSOC)

      Email: tamilolicanada@gmail.com