How the US and Australia interfered in Sri Lanka’s peace process
During Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war, there were periods where peace negotiations were taking place between the two main parties involved – the Sri Lankan Government, and the Tamil Tigers. However, foreign interest in Sri Lanka led to countries like the US (and Australia) trying to influence the outcome of the civil war, and therefore the peace process.
American and Australian interest in Trincomalee Harbour
Sri Lanka has always been highly strategic for a lot of Western nations, because of where it's located and the significant ports in Sri Lanka. Trincomalee Harbour, which is in the traditional Tamil-speaking area, is one of the best deep sea ports in the Indian Ocean region, which historically colonial powers have recognised its importance.
During World War Two, ports in Sri Lanka were used by the British, and that kind of thinking around the utility of these ports has continued even after World War Two all the way to the present day.
In the 1950s, US military reports also identified Trincomalee as a strategic naval/military base. Over time, US involvement in Sri Lanka continued to deepen with the provision of foreign military training to Sri Lanka, noting a shared strong interest in the suppression of international terrorism.
Sri Lanka had also been cooperating with the US in allowing transit through airspace, husbanding of ships and aircraft, and supporting operational missions such as Desert Storm, Desert Shield, and Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, all while Sri Lanka was embroiled in its own civil war, where Eelam Tamils were resisting a slow genocide by the Sri Lankan government.
Dr Niro Kandasamy, a researcher who studies the historical dimensions of conflict and is a lecturer in the Discipline of History at the University of Sydney, says that for Australia, “having Sri Lanka as a key neighbour within its region, within the Indian ocean region, which Australia is also a part of was crucial, both militarily, both for economic reasons and political reasons as well.”
Knowing the significance of the ports in Sri Lanka made it important for Australia to, on behalf of the West, maintain useful relations with Sri Lanka as well.
The US undermines the peace process in Sri Lanka
As Australia cultivated its relationship with Sri Lanka, the US not only trained military units, but also donated military equipment as the conflict in Sri Lanka continued to evolve.
Various senior US officials also engaged in conduct that were considered detrimental to the smooth implementation of the peace process.
Seven months after the ceasefire agreement was signed, a 26-member delegation from the US Pacific Command visited Sri Lanka to study the “capabilities, needs and requirements” of the Sri Lankan Army, Navy and Air Force. It noted that the southern portion of Trincomalee harbour was surrounded by Tamil Tiger bases. Despite the peace process being undertaken, the US recommended that, as this was the most important base in the country, it needed to be secured by the Sri Lankan government.
The ‘Washington Incident’
Whilst this was going on, after six rounds of peace talks, the US proposed having an important joint aid meeting in Washington DC, a meeting the Tamil Tigers could never attend as they had been banned as a “foreign terrorist organisation”. Major countries in the EU had shown support for a joint approach to delivering aid by the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, but the US didn't want that to happen. Under US pressure, the meeting proceeded without the Tamil Tigers participating, undermining the peace talks altogether. This incident, known as the Washington Incident or the Washington Episode, deteriorated the sense of equality between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan government that had been necessary for the peace talks to flourish.
The US continued to destabilise the balance by not only favouring the Sri Lankan government, but also lobbying the EU to ban the LTTE, which it had eventually succeeded to do in May 2006, even when the facilitators of the peace negotiation advise against this. This put the nail in the coffin in terms of both parties having the same ability to negotiate.
Even though the US expressly stated that they supported the peace negotiations, behind the scenes, the they was training the Sri Lankan government’s military and Special Forces, and was donating equipment to them.
If reading this makes you think of what is happening in Gaza, you’re right – history repeats itself.
The crumbling of the peace process
Inevitably, the peace process deteriorated and formally ended in 2006, and the Sri Lankan government renewed the war in earnest, and US support escalated. The US recommended to the Sri Lankan government that they secure Trincomalee Harbour to give them an upper hand in the war. And once peace negotiations fell through, the Sri Lankan army attacked the Tamil Tiger bases surrounding Trincomalee, and take the Harbour – just like the US recommended.
Although there was belief that the US had cut its military ties with Sri Lanka due to human rights concerns during the war, Wikileaks cables prove otherwise. In one cable, the US Ambassador to Colombo writes, “despite our current concerns about the likelihood of intensified conflict and human rights problems, it is important to keep communication lines open and maintain our contacts with the Sri Lankan military.”
In 2007, the US entered into a secret military agreement with the Sri Lankan Government, at a time when no other Government did so – at a time when human rights violations, including massacres, were ongoing.
Australia’s role
Australia took a similar position to the US. Australia had already banned the Tigers as a terrorist organisation in 2001. Even back in 96, the Australian government refused to meet with Tamil groups unless they disavowed the Tigers.
Umesh Perinpayanayagam, a Researcher at the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland, spoke to You Have Been Tod A Lie about the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, or TRO. The TRO were willing to deliver aid to the North and the East, even where there were landmines, and they lobbied the Australian government to channel aid money through them, rather than the Sri Lankan Government. Many EU countries gave money to the TRO, even New Zealand gave money to the TRO. However, the US froze the TRO’s assets because it considers the TRO a support network of the Tigers. Similarly, Australia identified the TRO as funding the Tigers.
Even one of Australia’s diplomats who was posted in Sri Lanka said that as a result of US pressure, Australia banned fundraising for the Tigers, harassing local members of the Tamil community in the process. The Australian Federal Police raided the homes of people alleged to be fundraising for the Tigers, and in May 2007, they arrested Tamils living in Australia with terrorism charges. That same year, a bilateral trade agreement was concluded between Australia and Sri Lanka worth $232 million per year.
Was the US complicit in Genocide?
All of this should be looked at against the backdrop of the heavy US focus on South Asia from 2001, the time of US involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Secure access to Trincomalee Harbour was seen as essential for US naval/military assets in the Indian Ocean. Defeat of the Tamil Tigers was critically important to achieve this objective.
In the final month of the war, as the Sri Lankan government herded civilians into the so-called “No Fire Zones”, the US shared with the Government exclusive satellite images of these areas. Throughout the war, the US provided tacit support to the war effort of the Sri Lankan state, with few relevant details known to the public.
The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, an international opinion tribunal, examines cases regarding violations of human rights. The Tribunal concluded that:
Active US complicity in the genocide arises not only from its sustained efforts to increase the power and effectiveness of the Sri Lankan military, the direct perpetrator of the genocidal acts taking place in the last months of the war, but perhaps even more significantly from its role in blocking and even reversing political and diplomatic initiatives to implement the peace process and in blacking out information on the unfolding critical situation and the unprecedented worldwide protests by Tamil communities in the diaspora. These military and non-military actions constitute “the provision of means to enable or facilitate the commission of the crime”, as determined to be included in “complicity” in genocide by the International Court of Justice in February 2007.
Where to from here?
In 2024, as the genocide of Palestinians by Israel continues, we are seeing how the US has been providing political and military support to Israel and how that has led to increased allegations of the US complicity in this genocide. Similarly, we are seeing Senior Australian politicians, including Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong, and Peter Dutton being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to determine whether they have aided or supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Having regard to the US’s involvement in Sri Lanka and the massacre of thousands of Eelam Tamils, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal’s opinion, and Australia’s long standing political relationship with the US, we need to interrogate Australia’s role in Sri Lanka and how far into history Australia’s complicity in genocide really goes.
