Use of chemical weapons in Sri Lankan civil war

Use of chemical weapons in Sri Lankan civil war has been confirmed by the United Nations and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Chemical attacks, according to these organization's reports have reportedly occurred during the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war, in the Tamil-dominated northern part of the country and these have been attributed to the Sri Lankan government forces.

Video Evidence pertaining to the use of such weapons by the Sri Lankan government forces upon ethnic Tamil civilians was broadcast on NewsX, an Indian news channel, in March 2014. The footage was obtained, from a documentary This Land Belongs to the Army by an Indian journalist, Thamizh Prabhakaran.

Broadcast evidence
The footage from the broadcast shows a Sri Lankan soldier pointing to a chemical weapon and describing in detail of its utility:

"This one is a very potent weapon. When it hits the grounds it disintegrates into several pieces. The chemical in this burns the skin immediately. We used this in the last stages of the war. We used it on LTTE fighters holed up on the beach. All the people died when we used this."

Pointing to another store of weapons, a soldier explains:

"This one is dropped from a plane. It will explode only when it hits the ground. An area of 1 square KM is completely destroyed by this."

Along with the footage, the broadcast also included photographs of civilians from the war zone who had developed chemical burns and other ailments.

The Sri lankan army categorically rejected the evidence from the footage. The government had also denied such allegations earlier during and at the closure of the war.

Thamizh, the documentary director who was earlier arrested by the government forces in the midst of his filming, responded to the denial, saying that the government had been rejecting every evidence of war crimes for a long time, and its views were of little significance. He added, that in the last stages of war, hundreds of thousands of Tamils were hemmed in the 3 km surroundings of Mullivaikkal, a small hamlet wedged between a lagoon and the ocean. And going by the words of the soldier in the interview, one single chemical weapon attack and kfir bomb attack would have wiped out people over a 1km radius, he voiced his fear over the magnitude of death and destruction that could have been inflicted by the Sri Lankan military's final offensive. He also stated:

"The Sri Lankan army use chemical weapons and heavy weapons to cleanse the Tamil population from Sri Lanka. These are not just war crimes, it's clearly a genocide."

The footage was screened in the British parliament in February, 2014 amidst reservations from the Sri Lankan government.

UN Report
The pages 47–48 of the United Nations Panel of Expert(POE) report stated that the Sri Lankan Army executed LTTE combatants who were waving white flags signaling surrender and also used chemical bomb munitions or white phosphorus against the civilians in the “No Fire Zones”:

"There are allegations that the SLA (Sri Lankan Army) used cluster bomb munitions or white phosphorus or other chemical agents against civilian, particulary around the PTK and NFZ’s (No Fire Zones). Accounts refer to large explosions, followed by smaller explosions consistent with the sound of a cluster bomb. Some wounds in the various hospitals are alleged to have been caused by cluster munitions and white phosphorus."

OPCW statement
In 2009, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons issued a statement noting:

"The government of Sri Lanka has violated the Chemical weapon convention by using chemical warfare on the minorities of the country the Tamils. They acquired these weapons from the Russians and used the RPO-A Shmel rocket launcher that has a warhead that contains a thermo baric flammable mixture, which is most affective when detonated inside structures killing live being through suffocation and burns but, also causes death and destruction over wide areas. After the attack on the civilians, doctors found traces of Triethanolamine and Phosgene on the wounds and after further development concluded that these are a type of mustard gas attack, delivered by high explosives. The government in turn blames the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) for the chemical weapons related mishaps."

Other evidence and allegations
During the last phase of the Civil War in 2009, combat photos released in the Sri Lankan government's websites, indicated the use of banned chemical weapons by the state. Lawrence, a senior commander of the Tamil Tigers, who escaped one such attack at Puthukkudiyiruppu was recorded attesting to the fact.

The Sri Lankan state has in turn, been accusing the LTTE as possessing chemical weapons. This was in fact a calculated propaganda to shield Colombo's own deployment of chemical weapons, the observers said. The Sri Lankan state was in fact was already on record for clandestine purchase of prohibited chemical weapons and accessories in 2001.

Cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda went missing after he started researching the Sri Lankan military's use of chemical weapons in war and started publicizing his findings to diplomats outside Sri Lanka. His wife also wrote a letter to BBC Sinhala, on Prageeth's chemical weapons investigation.

In January 2014, the Roman Catholic Bishops in the former war zone called for an international inquiry as to whether government forces used cluster munitions and chemical weapons in densely populated areas.