TAMIL NATION LIBRARY: Eelam

•  ** Sri Lanka, Island of Terror - An Indictment
  by Thornton, E.M. & Niththyananthan, R.
  Eelam Research Organisation, (ISBN 0 9510073 0 0), 1984

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Back Cover - Note by David Selbourne, Ruskin College, Oxford

This book reveals for the first time the full horror of the terrible events in Sri Lanka in July 1983 when the Tamil population on the island were ruthlessly hunted down and slaughtered in their thousands by Sinhalese mobs and their homes and property put to the torch. The story unfolded here is one that must appall and outrage all who read it.
But the July holocaust was not the spontaneous eruption of anti-Tamil feeling in the Sinhalese-dominated island. It was a carefully organised and skilfully executed operation planned well in advance. This book presents evidence that points the finger of guilt unequivocally at the highest levels of the Sri Lankan ruling elite.

The Sri Lankan government cultivates an image of the island as a model third world democracy. The harsh reality is described in this book—the police state, the horror of the prison camps, the widespread use of torture and extra-judicial execution against the defenseless Tamil population.

The voice of Tamil newspapers on the island has been silenced, the Tamil representation in Parliament outlawed. This book by a prominent expatriate Tamil and a British sympathiser with the Tamil cause, was written to speak for those no longer able to speak for themselves. It is a chilling exposé that must trouble the conscience of the entire civilised world.

This book provides a clear and timely account of one of the most brutal passages of events in contemporary political history. The afflictions of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka— a story of unpunished murder, barbarous rapine, political enfranchisement and wicked forms of discrimination of every kind—are a challenge to the conscience of the world. Yet it is also clear that the Colombo regime will reap the whirlwind for what it has sown; and no dispassionate reader can fail to look forward, with the authors of this book, to the day when justice is done in Sri Lanka, and a suffering people's legitimate aspirations are vindicated.