The text of former London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s speech to the Tamil National Remembrance Day (Nov 27, 2010) in Britain

Thank you for inviting me to be here at this enormous gathering. This reminds me of just how large and important the Tamil community is in this city; that helps to make it such an international city and such a dynamic one.

My first involvement with the Tamil community came nearly 30 years when I was leader of the Greater London Council and we started to get the first waves of refugees of Tamils coming here fleeing the violence. We got involved in trying to find housing, community centres and that was the first time that I began to understand the pain that has been inflicted on the Tamil people.

Of course when I became Mayor we already had a very established Tamil community that had become such a vibrant part of this city. And you will remember those of you who were there during the last Mayoral election in 2008 I was visiting many of your temples and part of your community festivities.

But there was one incident that you may not have seen. A week before polling day, the Sri Lankan High Commissioner worked with the Evening standard to denounce me as a supporter of Tamil Terrorism, and virtually urged Londoners not to vote for me.

I have to say to the Sri Lankan High Commission, it would have been more embarrassing if you had called for people to vote for me, given your appalling record on the abuse of your Tamil citizens and the terror that has been waged against the Tamil community.

I don’t want the support of the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka. And even this week there was an attempt to stop me coming here. On Thursday night the doorbell rang and I opened it and a man was standing there saying ‘we would like you to come to a very important event on Saturday.’ And he produced the invitation. It was an attempt to celebrate the Sri Lankan armed forces.

They had consciously set this up to try and undermine your amazing gathering here today. And I simply said ‘well I will be celebrating the Tamil community and its commitment to this city and commemorating those whose lives have been lost in the struggles of the last few decades.’

I wouldn’t celebrate the Sri Lankan armed forces, because of the scale of the war crimes and genocide and ethnic cleansing that they are guilty of. And so I say to the High Commission of Sri Lanka, ‘you can condemn me in eighteen months time when I am running for election in this city again, and I will wear it as a badge of pride.’

The government of Sri Lanka is a disgrace to the international community. With its disregard for human rights. And the transformation of what was once a democracy into effectively a dictatorship through the eighteenth amendment to the constitution. Behind the façade of voting there is no longer a democracy in Sri Lanka. And I look forward to the day once again when Sri Lanka once again can become a real democracy, and get rid of the current war criminal who occupies the office of president, and the Tamil people can be freed to pursue their own culture and their own way of life.

I end by just giving one promise. The great thing about this city is that every religion and every nationality is gathered here, and together we share the problems of looking for good housing, getting good public transport, getting our children educated in good schools. All of that is about bringing people together.

But we also should recognize the amazing strength of the different cultures. And what I will want to do is to work with the British Tamil Forum, so that every year in Trafalgar Square, we give Trafalgar Square to the Tamil community of London to organise an event like this, so that Londoners in all their diversity can come and see and be part of what you have brought to this city as we celebrate your culture.

I am with you in all you seek to do. I will be with you forever. Thank you very much.