Jan Jananayagam- Together Against Genocide

Jan Jananayagam of Together Against Genocide UK discusses what inspires her to campaign for the rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka and the work of her organisation.

How did TAG start and what inspires you to fight for the rights of Tamils

In Sri Lanka ?

I first became involved in campaigning for Tamil rights in 1995. The decisive experience that motivated me was some raw footage Sri Lankan army attacks on civilians. One piece of footage was the aftermath of the air-force bombing a church after they had dropped leaflets telling people they should take shelter in churches – so this was a mini-version of the 2009 ‘No Fire Zones’ (NFZs), because the Churches were so-called ‘safe zones’ just like the NFZs would be. The Church was in Navaly, Jaffna. There was also footage of the aftermath of the air-force dropping bombs on a school in Nagerkovil in Jaffna. I had a friend who was studying film and theatre production, and we ended up translating and sub-titling this footage at a time when the mainstream British media were not covering it. The government of the time (under President Chandrika Kumaratunge) was telling the outside world that it was a ‘war for peace’. That was the decisive moment when I became involved.

But my professional training is in other areas, so in 1997 I went back to my day job, taking an on and off interest in Sri Lanka.

In the lead up to the final phase of the war in 2009, I was worried that it would end in mass atrocities, so I started writing a series of articles comparing the context to other genocides. See e.g. http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=1800

TAG was founded in the US, in 2008 (under the name Tamils Against Genocide), again in a situation when the war was getting worse, the US founders approached me to help them. I think they did this partly because of the articles around genocide but also because they learnt I had some experience in initiating anti-government litigations.

When I watched Channel 4’s Killing Fields, that was again a decisive moment, when I felt compelled to devote myself full-time to TAG as a sabbatical from my commercial work. That’s when TAG was founded in the UK and earlier this year we changed our name to ‘Together Against Genocide’, reflecting our non-Tamil volunteer-base and our interest in genocides in other regions.

So in summary, film and visually seeing what happened, is the key motivator. I want to be satisfied that in my own way I have done my best to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself. But there is still a strong possibility that 5 years down the line, there will be another mass-atrocity in Sri Lanka.

What are you most proud of in terms of what TAG has achieved?

TAG has been a first-mover in many areas within our geographic focus. But I am also incredibly proud of our volunteers, consultants and staff - many choose to be anonymous but they are each very talented and either are or (post-TAG) have gone on to be influencers in their own spaces.

One area that gives me satisfaction is the impact we have on asylum space – both in terms of influencing asylum legislation through strategic litigation as well as in daily case-load. As an example of strategic litigation, we successfully argued that witnesses to mass atrocities, who were known to have testified against the Sri Lankan government were persecuted by the government. Thus we have a measurable impact on the lives of mass-atrocities survivors.

Another area where we have had visible impact is in genocide recognition. When we started, it was considered ‘radical’ to frame the situation in Sri Lanka as a genocide, but now a broad cross section of people outside SriLanka – analysts, parliamentarians, lawyers - agree that any investigation and prosecution must include the crime of genocide. So for example in a recent UK poll, a majority of Members of Parliament, who expressed, supported an investigation into genocide. No one said they thought genocide should be excluded as a charge. Inside Sri Lanka because of ethnic and religious polarization and intolerance, it is very difficult: there are huge levels of denial that war crimes took place, let alone that those war crimes constituted a genocide.

What is the organisation working on currently to help improve the rights

of Tamils in Sri Lanka?

With respect to Sri Lanka we monitor what is going on and make submissions to governments and bodies such as the UN with a view to preventing further ethnic and/or religious persecution.

In the UK, we engage in strategic litigation and regularly testify in asylum courts on country conditions in Sri Lanka. This has a measurable impact on refugees but it also helps Tribunals make more informed decisions.

One of our recent global projects is memorialization - documenting survivor testimonies – both to raise awareness and also in order to collect evidence that will help survivors to seek reparations through international courts.

But increasingly we will shift to genocides and global justice for mass atrocities in areas of geographic focus outside Sri Lanka. You can see that a little already on our social media advocacy. This shift will take time to execute.

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