This book is not only about recording the mass murder, the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces, but also an effort to bring to the fore the process engineered by the successive Sri Lankan governments by which the Sinhala ruling elites are both willed and empowered to deprive and deny the Tamils, both individually and as part of a broader family and ethnic groupings, of their basic rights and dignity. Thus, recognising the process of genocide of ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka" -- Préface, page xvii.