The first pogrom was witnessed in 1915 and the latest one in March 2018. Both of these were pogroms against Tamil-speaking Muslims waged by Sinhala mobs backed by sections of extremist Theravada Buddhist monks, she said.
The majority community of the Sinhala people and the State, which constitutionally accords ‘foremost place to Buddhism’, have failed to punish the monks and their institutions that constitute the bedrock of exclusivist ideology that ultimately controls the Sri Lankan State, she said in an open appeal to the UN Human Rights community.
After the end of the genocidal onslaught on Eelam Tamils in 2009, the SL State is carrying out a program of protracted genocide in the form of structural (demographic, cultural, economic) genocide against the Tamils in the North and Eas, she said adding that the same forces are also targeting Tamil-speaking Muslims and the Christians among the Sinhalese and Tamils.
The recent incidents in Ampara, Digana, Teldeniya, Kandy and other towns are not spontaneous reactions to any particular issue, but an organised strategy to destroy the Muslim economy and morale, she further said.
“I have come again to Geneva to tell the heartbreaking consequences of the failure [on the part of the international community] to order an international investigation on the genocide,” she said in her appeal.
“It is this failure, which has emboldened the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist extremists in the island to initiate violence and pogrom against the Muslims.
“It is this failure that has strengthened them to demand the foremost place to Buddhism in the constitution. They are not prepared to change the unitary State structure.
“It is this failure which has given rise to the same tendency in Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims by the same Theravada Buddhist extremism.
“I urge the international community not to fail anymore in calling for international investigations against 103 year long pogroms and genocide in the island.”
Ananthy's report identified five Sinhala individuals, including two Buddhist monks, Arambepola Rathanasara thero, who is the founder of “Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa” and Ampitiye Sumanarathana thero, who is based in Batticaloa.
Amith Weerasinghe, the owner of “Mahason Balakaya,” which is the single largest online community responsible for anti-Muslim activities in the recent past, Saliya T. Rnawaka, the founder of Sinhale Jathika Sanwidanaya and Dan Priyasad, who previously led a mob which attacked the UN safe house for Rohingya refugees in Colombo. The latter was also identified as spreading false
Ananthy Sasitharan is the minister of Women’s Affairs, Rehabilitation, Social Services, Co-operatives, Food Supply & Distribution, Industries & Enterprises Promotion and Trade & Commerce at the Northern Provincial Council.
She is also a survivor of genocidal war in Vanni. Mrs Sasitharan is still searching for her husband, Elilian, who was a Tamil political leader. Elilan was subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the occupying Sri Lankan military after the end of the war in May 2009.
