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#GetThePicture campaign maps Sri Lankan state massacres of Tamils

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The United States Tamil Political Action Council released an updated version of their #GetThePicture campaign map this week, detailing the long history of massacres that took place across the Tamil North-East, at the hands of the Sri Lankan state.

Announcing the updated maps, Dr. Karunyan Arulanantham, President of USTPAC said,

"The Tamils have suffered massacres and violence at the hands of the mono-ethnic Sinhala military since 1958 with increasing frequency and barbarity."

"This unchecked and systematic decades-long violence culminated in a genocidal onslaught in 2009 in which 146,000 Tamils are unaccounted for, and the continuing military occupation of Tamils in the North-East and forced land grabs all point to the intention and designs of Sri Lankan state to marginalize the Tamils and reduce them into a submissive minority."


Referring to a letter sent to the UN Human Rights Council by Tamil councillors of the Northern and Eastern Provincial Council, Dr. Arulanantham added,

"The letter to the UN Human Rights Council by the lawmakers from the Tamil homeland calling upon the investigative panel to determine whether Genocide was perpetrated, gave the impetus to us to map out the pattern of massacres."

Dr. Arulanantham concluded,

"These maps are not yet complete. We are releasing them, however, to demonstrate the decades-long pattern of intentional violence against Tamils. We will be continuing to update the maps with additional data over the coming months.”

See the latest map below.

Also see our earlier post: #GetThePicture campaign maps militarisation of North-East (08 Septeber 2014)

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