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Written by: Morgana Adby

The National Council of Canadian Tamils released a statement opposing Sri Lanka’s appointment of Sumangala Dias as ambassador to Canada.. The NCCT accused Dias of war crimes during the devastating Eelam War. Politicians like MPP Doly Begum joined their voices to the NCCT’s on Twitter.

At Issue

On paper, Air Chief Marshal Sumangala Dias is well qualified for diplomacy. He has received several honorariums, including the Desha Puthra Sammanaya during the second phase of fighting with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). About a decade after that conflict, he was the Senior Air Coordinator for the Humanitarian Operations until 2009. He has consistently held high ranking positions since 2005.

However, he is also accused of serious war crimes relating to the genocide against Tamils in the region. In his position during the height of the conflict, he is accused of participating in the air strikes against civilians by the NCCT.

The Accusations

Genocide occurs when a power seeks to destroy whole, or a substantial part of a people. Both Sri Lanka and Canada have yet to recognize the genocide comitted against the Tamils in the Eelam War. A 2015 UN report on the atrocities in the Eelam War informed that customs were broken on both sides. Between 2002 and 2011, there was a rampant disregard for human life and dignity. According to the BBC, roughly 40,000 Tamils died in the Eelam War’s final offensive. The precise number of deaths may never be known, but other estimates go as high as 140,000.

Those deaths were not the usual cost of war. The Sri Lankan government urged humanitarian organizations, including the UN, to leave the war zone. UN staffers stopped counting casualties before the war’s closing slaughter. Tamil women were sexually assaulted with impunity. The Sri Lankan president even compared the Tamil people to appendicitis, and that if he “starv[ed] the Tamil people out.” The Sinhala, Sri Lanka’s majority ethnic group, took action to destroy the Tamil people.

In 2015, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) called for a special court to try war crimes from the Eelam War. The court would have international and Sri Lankan oversight. But this court never came to pass. The UN has no power to implement such systems without Sri Lanka’s consent. The Sri Lankan government protected those that committed atrocities in the war, even promoting and calling them war heros.

The Tamils are barred from gathering in remembrance of those that died while in the LTTE. Apparently, it degraded the honour of Sri Lanka’s recognized war heros.

This painting over makes it extremely difficult to determine to what extent Dias was a part of the war crimes. The NCCT’s press release connects him at least geographically with bombing missions against civilian targets while he was Base Commander of Hingurakgoda Base, and later coordination as a Senior Air Coordinator with Sri Lankan Army divisions also accused of war crimes. One thing is certain: the Sri Lankan government is comfortable celebrating and protecting war criminals.

Is This Overblown? Is Diplomacy Just Like This?

A truism about diplomacy is that it is an exercise in influencing power. It is not about who is right. Not even about who is most aligned with Canadian interests. It is about creating a relationship with someone that has sovereignty over a foreign state. The most effective way to build that relationship is to accept the legitimacy of whichever diplomats Sri Lanka prefers.

However, there are other facets to consider, like Canada’s relationship with all domestic Sri Lankans, and its own humanitarian branding. Canada has a framework for disallowing diplomats with certain human rights abuses from being recognized or even entering Canada, through the Sergei Magnitsky Law.

Conservatives frequently call for this policy to be used against Chinese diplomats that they claim are perpetrating genocide against the Uyghurs. If Canada recognized the Tamil genocide, the Sergei Magnitsky law would likely be more prevalent in discourse.

But Canada does not recognize the genocide. Sri Lanka does not recognize the genocide. Not all Sri Lankans in Canada are Tamil, and Sri Lankans in Canada have a wide variety of stances.

A key issue is memory. In a piece comparing the Rwandan and Sri Lankan genocides, Sherry Aiken and Cheran Rudhramoorthy explain, “In Sri Lanka today, memory and memorialization are radical counterpoints to official state narratives that resist accounting for the past.” The state narrative supports itself through the legitimization of alleged war criminals such as Dias. When Dias and his fellows are seen as national heroes instead of war criminals they fill in character roles in the Sri Lankan state’s narrative. Without a counter narrative to remember the truth, the lie wins out and people forget what really happened.

One Canadian that buys into this narrative is Dr. Chandre Dharmawardana. He is a scientist for the National Research Council of Canada and University of Montreal. He is a well-respected Sri Lankan immigrant whose contributions to both Canada and Sri Lanka are incontestable. However, he is also an outspoken denier of the genocide against Tamils. In one piece, he asks where the mass graves are. Here, he claims that many of the disappeared Tamils were either killed by LTTE or are refugees living in the West.

These claims do not hold water. The second claim seems to be the most possible, but the only evidence provided is that 1) Tamil Tigers controlled the regions where disappearances took place, and 2) the disappearances are without record. We know that records of Tamils were distorted, and we know that many people were displaced from the regions they called home during the war. The predident of Sri Lanka admited that 20 000 missing Tamils were dead in January.

The UN and international observers acknowledge mismanagement and violence done by the LTTE, but that does not mean that the Sri Lankan government did not commit a genocide against civillians, or that they should promote alleged war criminals to diplomatic positions. Acknowledging the Sri Lankan state’s crimes and understanding that the LTTE also committed atrocities are not mutually exclusive.

But these claims will still be made, and if the Sri Lankan state legitimizes more people like Dias those claims will seem more valid and the truth will be forgotten. A “war without witnesses,” is easy to overwrite. Honest investigation is the first step to reconciliation, but that cannot follow without the cooperation of those that opposed LTTE.

Another contributor with the Sri Lankan Canadian Action Coalition writes that, “Even today, these terrorists hide in plain sight in the Western countries. Instead of being brought to justice and made answerable to their heinous crimes, they live a luxury lives and plotting [sic] to bring back carnage and mayhem to the ‘pearl of the Indian ocean’. They have mastered playing the victim so much so that now they own vote blocks and elected MPs in the West.”

Note the conflation between LTTE and Tamil civilians, and the gaslighting of civilian Tamil refugees. The appointment of Dias is just another reinforcement of this narrative. An attempt to oversimplify and overwrite history, rather than investigate the present day implications.

These voices exist in Canada. Recognition of the genocide is more than words, it is also about warranting accountability. It gives Canada the licence to take action when people like Dias are appointed as ambassador, by demonstrating that a line has been crossed. Just as Canada cannot sell military equipment that would be used in war crimes, Canada ought consider the tangible consequences of this appointment.

Narratives that work to cover up genocide--even this particular genocide--exist in Canada. We have a part to play in recognizing and remembering the history of the Tamil. We need to combat misinformation, and look for truth, as so many Canadian Tamils are asking. At the very least, we should be aware that this appointment legitimizes Dias, and be prepared for the consequences.

Canadians will need to sleep at night knowing that Canada is legitimizing Sri Lanka’s cover up. Perhaps the effectiveness of fresh branding should not be a shock to Canadians. After all, marketing to drown out historic genocide is something familiar to this nation.

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