Read the full report here : PT_bremen_2013december
Why genocide?
One of the main questions for this Tribunal was to explain why the organizations involved in
this case (and many victims of the whole process) asked the PPT for a Second Session, after
the findings of the First Session of the PPT in Dublin in January 2010, which established
that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan state against the Tamil
populations.
What would be the importance for the victims of qualifying the facts they suffered as genocide, which
would have no effect on possible actions by international and national bodies?
To understand that question, which commonly arises in many other historical situations, it is essential
to comprehend that genocidal social practices are not only attempts to destroy individuals. Genocide is
an attempt to destroy the identity of a group, alienating it from its experience and history, trying to
strip it of the control over its own past, present and future.
The different stages of a genocide form a sequence, the central aim of which is to transform the
society in which genocide takes place by destroying a way of life embodied by a particular group, thus
reorganizing social relations within the rest of society. And the disappearance of the memory of the
victims is an attempt to close the sequence.
The recognition that the Tamil people of Sri Lanka were persecuted, harassed and killed not just as
individuals but as a group with its own identity, is fundamental in any attempt to confront the genocidal
objectives of identity destruction and it is also a way to ratify the right of self-determination of any
people.
Read the full report here : PT_bremen_2013december