Sri Lanka's Secrets: How the Rajapaksa Regime Gets Away with Murder

Sri Lanka's Secrets: How the Rajapaksa Regime Gets Away with Murder is a 2014 book written by Australian writer, veteran journalist and activist Trevor Grant, examining the various forms of genocide perpetuated on Tamil people by the Sri Lankan government and the complicity of international establishments.^[1][2][3]

Grant who had worked closely with torture victims and other persecuted asylum seekers, presents the extent of Sinhalese chauvinism in power in Colombo, and the evil complicity of establishments in New Delhi, Washington and Westminster that allowed and assisted a brutal regime to slaughter tens of thousands of innocent people and then carry on with its genocidal plan.

The book features about 90 pages of photographic evidence and many eyewitness accounts.^[4] The book is published by Monash University Publishing with a foreword by eminent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.

Synopsis

Sri Lanka’s Secrets, which is illustrated with graphic photos of the war and its aftermath, has poignant eyewitness accounts of survivors who experienced the war, ^[5]torture and rape first-hand.

Grant discloses that the brutalities meted out to the Tamils are not just about the Rajapaksa regime but that the current president is “simply the most successful at it, in a long line of Sinhalese rulers whose desire to contain and destroy the Tamil identity and culture has known no bounds.”

The author notes how foreign powers tilted the balance in favour of the Sri Lankan government. He also exposes in detail the level of complicity that Australia has in legitimizing Sri Lanka, elaborating on Australia’s cruel treatment of Tamil asylum seekers.

The author also criticizes the inaction of the UN during the war and after for being responsible for the genocidal atrocities committed on the Tamils, condemning it for “callous indifference and abject incompetence.”

Despite elaborate accounts of the horrific crimes endured by Tamil survivors, Grant’s book is not defeatist as its conclusion shows. “There is always one thing that despots forget as they go about their business of murder and terror. You can kill thousands of people, but you can never kill the human spirit.”

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