A MASSACRE MADE IN BRAZIL

Transcription

1 A MASSACRE MADE IN BRAZIL Country manufactured bombs that the government of Sri Lanka used in attack condemned by the UN. Brazilian ammunition supplies almost half the nations facing ethnic and religious conflicts Solano Nascimento At the end of 2008 and during the first semester of last year, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces carried out the last and most bloody assault against ethnic Tamil separatists from the North of the country, producing what international organizations considered one of the greatest humanitarian crises of Because of this attack, the United Nations accused the government of Sri Lanka of committing a war crime and of violating human rights. The planes came and dropped bombs, and we ran to the shelters, says Karmenkam Thaviththra, a shy, puny 14-year-old teenager who lived in Kilinochchi, a city half-destroyed by bombing, and nowadays lives in a refugee camp. We walked among the bodies, some without hands, some without heads. Brazil contributed to this tragedy. In January last year, 116 tonnes of Braziliam bombs were sold to the Sri Lanka Air Force. Made out of forged steel, loaded with explosives and weighing from a little over 100 kilogrammes up to one tonne, these bombs destructive power is magnified by two fuses, which guarantee two explosions. Comparison between official export data and maps showing world ethnic and religious conflicts reveals that the sale was not an exception. Over the last

2 10 years, Brazil has exported, at the cost of U$ 17.8 million, a total 777 tonnes of bombs, rockets, missiles and other types of ammunition to countries in which these armed conflicts have already killed 1.3 million people. Amongst the 18 nations that registered warring last year, seven are supplied with ammunition by Brazilian companies, which need government authorization so to export. When questioned about the final destination of bombs bought from Brazil, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces spokesman is unambiguous. It wasn t only from Brazil, but also from other countries that supplied us with equipment, bombs, said brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. We use them againt the terrorists. Two bloodthirsty sides Sri Lanka is a tropical island shaped like a teardrop, almost touching the extreme South of India. There, 21 million people live in a 65.6 thousand square kilometre area that has already been occupied by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. The country became independent in 1948 and changed its name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka. This was when the ethnic conflict first began to appear a conflict which, over the last few decades, flared up between the government, representing the interests of the Sri Lankan majority (or 74% of the population, largely Buddhist), and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group, defending the establishment of an autonomous State in the North of the country to harbour the 18% of Tamils, almost all of them Hindu. The violence between the two groups became more intense from 1983 on, when the LTTE ambushed and massacred thirteen Sri Lankan soldiers in Jaffna, in the North. Southern Sri Lankans reacted by taking to the streets, setting houses on fire and murdering hundreds of Tamils.

3 The years that followed were marked by brief periods of ceasefire and by long periods of warring. Both sides used kidnapping, torture, execution, disappearances and persecution as war tactics. Bodies were burned, thrown out to sea or quartered in public, to serve as an example. An estimated 80 to 100 thousand people died because of the conflict. In the book Anil s Ghost, a novel based on a true story, author Michael Ondaatje, born in Sri Lanka, wrote: The only hope was that the conflicted parties ended up mutually destroying each other. This wasn t what happened. At the end of 2008, the Armed Forces advanced on towns and villages which were totally or partly controlled by separatists. The government ignored appeals for ceasefire by Europe and by international organizations and, at the end of May 2009, announced the LTTE s defeat. According to the military spokeman, the Sri Lanka government took great care not to cause civilian deaths during the attack. When we found out there were civilians in a certain area, we suspended shelling so that they could leave, says Nanayakkara. This is not what an incursion through the North of the country indicates, even months after the conflict. Even hospitals The city of Vavuniya, a kind of gateway to the region, is guarded by hundreds of soldiers. Following the A-9 highway which crosses the North of the country, one comes first to a military barrier which demands written authorization so one can pass through, given by the Armed Forces in the capital Colombo. Roughly 40 kilometres after the barrier, the first signs of bombing can be seen. Houses were partially destroyed by the attacks; walls were knocked down.

4 It is in Kilinochchi, however, that the greatest scars of the government attack can be seen. The city lies halfway between Vavuniya and Jaffna, and at the height of the separatist movement even began to operate as capital of the autonomous State. Around 80% of all Kilinochchi buildings show some sign of bombing, and half the homes hit were damaged to the point of becoming uninhabitable. Small two-storey buildings were stripped of their upper floors, and the city water tank was destroyed. The city is still occupied by the military, who try to stop visitors from photographing the destroyed buildings. The Kilinochchi General Hospital improvised facilities in an Ydayarkaddu school so as to treat those who were injured in the attack. The facilities were bombarded in the beginning of last year. There was no time to take the sick away, and around 50 of them died, says a local resident, imploring, with tears in his eyes, not to be identified, for he saw acquaintances suffer retaliation for giving information to journalists. The shelling also killed a nurse and two auxiliary nurses. At least two other hospitals were attacked in the region, resulting in dozens of deaths. The Northeast of the country where, as in the North, the Tamil predominate was also targeted during the attack. Nadrasa Sajithan, 14, a resident of Mullaithivu, learnt through trauma that he had to hide during bombing. Two uncles of mine left the shelter to see the house and the coconut plantation, and the bombs hit them, says the teenager. As well as the government, criticized for killing innocent people who did not belong to the separatist group, the LTTE was accused by Amnesty International, by the Human Rights Watch and by the UN of war crimes for using local residents as human shields. The UN estimates that over seven thousand Tamil civilians were killed in the Sri Lanka Armed Forces assault. In a refugee camp

5 on the outskirts of Vavuniya, sisters Thamapalm Pushparani, Basaran Selvarani and Geeva Vijayarani say they lost their husbands and a sister-in-law in the bombing. Life is hard, says Pushparani. The three sisters sell flour to feed the seven orphans the bombs produced in the family. Government conceals data Although the list of countries with ethnic and religious conflicts has not varied much, the number of clients of this kind to have been supplied with ammunition by Brazil has grown considerably over the last decade. From the year 2000, at the end of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government, an average of one country suffering this kind of conflict bought Brazilian ammunition every year. During the first Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva mandate, between 2003 and 2006, the annual average increased to three countries. In this second mandate, there are already five conflicted nations being supplied with ammunition per year. This partly reflects growth in ammunition exportation in general; its average over the last triennium is equivalent to three times the one registered at the end of the FHC government. We are no longer going to be vestals, says Norton Rapesta, director of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commercial Promotion Department, which authorizes ammunition exportation. If Brazil doesn t sell, others will. Apart from sales to countries facing conflicts, at the end of last year the Ministry also authorized companies to negotiate ammunition exportation to Iran, a country chaired by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused of trying to produce nuclear bombs, and to Libya, of homicidal dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

6 The National Policy for Exportation of Materials for Military Use (Política Nacional de Exportação de Material de Emprego Militar/PNEMEM) was created in 1974, during the Brazilian military regime. The ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs do not divulge most of the information concerning these sales. The Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC), apart from also concealing data, registers - in tables available in their home site - the exportation of bombs, missiles, rockets and other ammunition as shells for shotguns and smooth-bore rifles, weapons frequently associated to hunting and to shooting clubs. After being contacted by this reporter, federal congressman Edson Duarte made four requests to MDIC for information about ammunition exportation. The Ministry gave out information about values, destination countries and weight of sold material most of the data used in this article -, but did not supply names of exporters, importers or any information whatsoever about the type of ammunition sold. Over the last ten years, five companies exported Brazilian ammunition to countries facing religious or ethnic-based armed conflicts: Avibras, CBC, ETR, Imbel and Mectron. Amongst the product recipients are, as well as Sri Lanka, countries such as the Philippines, Turkey and Pakistan. Although nowadays it is common for companies of various fields to select suppliers so as to avoid buying raw material resulting from forest devastation or child labour, for example, the exporters of Brazilian ammunition do not consider filtering the other end of the chain the buyers. We hand in products according to what is specified, says Rubens Jacintho, president of ETR, that supplied bombs for the massacre in Sri Lanka. I cannot judge what a country is going to do with them.