It also prompted Jehan Perera, the Sinhala journalist turned "peace activist" to attribute Tamil silence to a "debilitating fear". Both interpretations implied that the Tamil people are incapable of independent thought.

This seemingly strange behaviour by the Tamil people raises several questions. It is hoped that this analysis would not only serve to explain this behaviour but also help those who seek to bring peace to understand the process required to bring about "peace with justice"

Why should the death of Dr Thiruchelvam who enjoyed an enormous reputation within the international community as a ‘peace maker’ be greeted with silence by the very people who hanker for that peace?

The answer to this question lies in the array of conflicting emotions evoked by the death of Dr Thiruchelvam.

On the one hand there is profound sadness for yet another life lost and sympathy for his wife, children and others who have to cope with a loss that would forever leave a vacuum in their hearts and lives.

On the other there is considerable resentment that a talented, well-educated and obviously influential man should have permitted the Sinhala political establishment exploit his Tamil identity and his carefully cultivated “moderate” credentials. 

After all, it was a government whose publicly proclaimed policy of “peace through war” is a plain euphemism for a “military solution” aimed at beating the Tamil people into submission. 

The Tamil people have not been blind to the fact that it was Dr Thiruchelvam's continued association with the so called “devolutionary package” for the last four years that had given the Sri Lankan government the excuse to persist with the myth that a “political solution” was in the offing while pursuing a military solution. 

It was a myth, that Sri Lanka’s Western backers were quite happy to buy in order to continue their backing despite mounting evidence of atrocities by the Sri Lankan government. These were atrocities which were increasingly being recognised as “war crimes” by academics and NGOs within those very countries backing Sri Lanka’s military actions

War Crimes:
These war crimes include mass murders of Tamil civilians, the rape of Tamil women and the criminal use of food as a weapon of war. Listed below are those acts which occurred within the last few years and are part of the Sri Lankan Government's publicly proclaimed strategy of "peace through war". These crimes are also a matter of public record having been well documented by reputable international agencies.

Mass Murders
In May 1995, the British Refugee Council publication, Sri Lanka Monitor reported 

"... in Colombo, Kandy and elsewhere in the South, hundreds of Tamils were arbitrarily arrested and tortured. Many 'disappeared' and bodies were found floating in the waterways and lakes near Colombo”.

In August 1996, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported how a Tamil Catholic Church in the village of Navaly was bombed, killing over one hundred and twenty people on 6 July 1996. 

In September, the same year Medicine Sans Frontier (MSF) reported that a school (in the Tamil village of Nagar Kovil) was bombed by a low- flying Pucara aircraft during the school’s lunch hour, killing at least 34 children. In both instances the bombings were deliberate.

Amnesty’s reports since the 1980’s show that these killings have indeed increased exponentially over the years.

In March 1997, the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, (whose patrons include Noam Chomsky and whose President is Nobel Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel) appealed to the members of UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) at its 53rd Sessions in March 1997 - "to take urgent measures to end the genocidal situation existing in Sri Lanka today”.

Likewise in September 1997, the Australian Human Rights Foundation, in a press release issued following the murder of a Christian Tamil priest by Sri Lankan troops called it “ a war of genocide”.

The latest atrocity to come to light is the discovery of mass graves in Jaffna, the Tamil City under Sri Lankan army occupation since October 1995. 

The preliminary digging has so far yielded two skeletons, one with its hands tied with rope. These were exhumed from the site of a mass grave where it is alleged hundreds of Tamil youths are buried. In its report dated 27 November 1997, Amnesty concluded that over 600 Tamils arrested in the previous 12 months had been tortured and killed.

Rapes
The rape of Tamil women by the Sri Lankan armed forces is again well documented. 

Two and half years ago, the South China Morning Post (11 Jan 1997) quoted Human Rights activists in saying that 

"more than 150 women, mostly minority Tamils, were raped by police and armed forces personnel last year".

Amnesty International said in September 1996 that it (Amnesty International) has documented several cases of rape by members of the armed forces.

Then there was the much-publicized case of Krishanthi Kumarawami, an 18 year old student at Chundukulli Girls High School who was detained, raped and then killed. On learning of Krishnthi's detention her mother Rasamma (59), Vice Principal of a school in Jaffna, son Pranban (16) and neighbour Kirupaharan (35) went to the army camp. They were detained and later disappeared.

After much agitation by the Tamil people, an investigation was initiated and the bodies of all were found in a shallow grave. A junior army officer was found guilty of the crime. It is the same army officer who has pointed to the existence of other mass graves.

British Refugee Council in its publication of November 1996 cited the case of a 10 year old Tamil child , Thenuka Selvarajah of Atchuvelli who was raped by army men.

The latest case of rape is that of Ida Hamilitta, a former member of the LTTE who was raped and then shot dead in her home at 1.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning 13 July 1999.

Case of rapes are too numerous to be listed other than pointing out that they clearly are part of the "war crimes" being committed against the Tamil people.

The Criminal Use of Food as a weapon of war:
Sri Lanka's continued use of food as a weapon of war has been shown to be a "war crime' by US academic Jordan Paust. 

In an article in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transactional Law entitled "The Human Rights to Food, Medicine and Medical Supplies, and Freedom from Arbitrary and Inhuman Detention and Controls in Sri Lanka” Professor Jordon J Paust, the Law Foundation Professor at the University of Houston, has pointed out that the denial of medical supplies and medicines is a serious war crime.

According to Professor Paust the intentional withholding of food and medical supplies from LTTE-controlled areas is a clear violation of Article 3, and as such, a war crime. He has also quoted the US State Department Country Reports (1997 & 1998) to say, 

"within the 1997 Country Report, one finds a shocking confirmation of war crime policies and activities with respect to medicine and medical supplies… War crime policies are further documented in the 1998 Country Report”

According to Paust: 

"Serious violations of basic human rights and humanitarian law occur in Sri Lanka when food, medicine and medical supplies are used a political weapons. Those least able to cope, especially children, are the primary victims of such criminal tactics. Such denials must be exposed. ….It is time for the international community to recognise that, in addition to medicine and medical supplies, food should be treated as neutral property during an armed conflict. Because of the highly predictable consequences, both short-term and long-term. Food should never be used as a weapon of war. Moreover the international community should strive to assure that corridors for the free passage of food and medical supplies are negotiated or imposed during any armed conflict. For the children and others who suffer, criminal and civil sanctions are inadequate and come too late, if at all"

Studied Silence:
Dr Thiruchelvam's studied silence in the light of these well-publicized acts of violence raises several questions.

It has been suggested that Dr Thiruchelvam's mode of operation was such that he worked behind the scenes, that he believed that “peace” required negotiations and that condemnation of atrocities even when it had become genocidal was unhelpful. 

This argument implies that what Dr Thiruchelvam sought was an arrangement for Tamils to continue to live under a Sinhala dominated polity. Hence, his disinclination to not embarrass his political masters.

 Dr Thiruchelvam probably regarded himself as a realist who understood that the elitist Sinhala political establishment which has gained and maintained political power (under the unitary constitution) throughout the last fifty years by selling to the Sinhalese masses a thoroughly hollow and foul opiate of a monolithic, indivisible sovereignty based on the “superior rights” of the Sinhalese, is unlikely on its own accord to come to any meaningful arrangement to share political power (and sovereignty) with the Tamil nation. 

Perhaps Dr Thiruchelvam thought that any such move to "share political power" was doomed because it would be tantamount to no less than an admission that their political posturing over the last fifty years has simply been an exercise in political opportunism. 

In the light of the above it has been suggested that Dr Thiruchelvam, the pragmatic Tamil politician came to the conclusion that Sri Lanka’s elitist political establishment would rather see rivers of Sinhala and Tamil blood flow than share political power with the Tamil people on the basis that Sri Lanka is an Island of two nations. 

Dr Thiruchelvam therefore chose to seek concessions. This meant not antagonizing those from whom this concession had to be extracted and hence his studied silence. 

This course of action, however, went against history by ignoring the lessons of the last fifty years. It simply ignored that for fifty years the Tamil leadership which had sought accommodation with the ruling Sinhala political establishment failed miserably in its efforts.

Why did Dr Thiruchelvam, the Harvard educated Tamil politician choose to ignore history. Several answers suggest themselves. 

Perhaps Dr Thiruchelvam believed that the Tamils, who had been beaten, starved, raped and their lands plundered could take it no more and sought a minimalist solution that would end it all. In other words a solution that the Kumaratunge Government had sought through its strategy of "peace through war"

More probably, Dr Thiruchelvam thought that his personal relationship with the Sinhala elite was sufficient to turn the tide of history. Dr Jehan Perera, the Sinhala journalist turned peace activist and very much part of the political establishment says that (Dr Thiruchelvam) was  "personable enough to be welcomed to the home and hearth of those at the highest level of national politics on every side of the (Sinhala political) divide" The implication being that here was a man who was acceptable to the Sinhala political establishment. 

But, despite Dr Thiruchelvam's tacit support to the Government and his personal relationship with Mrs. Kumaratunge there is little evidence to suggest that he was able to persuade the Government to seek a political solution. 

On the contrary, it appears that the Government had sought to use Dr Thiruchelvam to deflect adverse international opinion. 

Dr Thiruchelvam could have used his ability and his reputation to help bring about a just solution. Instead, he chose to seek accommodation .

In a recent article, Nadesan Satyendra, the Cambridge based Tamil activist has encapsulated the sentiments of an overwhelming number of Tamils at the death of Dr Thiruchelvam as follows

Neelan Thiruchelvam could have paved the way for a just peace if he had been willing to recognise that whatever role that the TULF had to play in the context of an armed struggle, should begin with the acceptance that an armed struggle can be directed only from within.

Even though he may not have taken arms, Neelan Thiruchelvam could have lent his powerful voice to the cause of freedom - the cause of freedom that his party had so eloquently espoused in 1977, and for which his brothers and sisters were continuing to put their lives on line.

Again, as a 'human rights advocate', Neelan Thiruchelvam could have used his undoubted influence in the international arena to initiate an investigation into the war crimes committed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga and those under her command and into the systematic use of torture, rape, extra judicial killings, food blockade as instruments of state terrorism.

Neelan Thiruchelvam could have used the opportunity afforded by his personal relationship with President Chandrika Kumaratunga, to urge upon her that it was not enough to tell the Sinhala people that the war in the North-East was draining economic resources and hampering development; that it was necessary to tell them that the war against the Tamil people was unwinnable, because it was unjust; and that it was unwinnable because the spirit of a people resisting alien rule of their homeland cannot be suppressed.