"I believe that the issue of confronting and resisting demilitarisation for the Tamil community has to start from home. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are actually living in a state of abnormalcy. This may sound strange but this is absolutely essential and key to any resistance. It is important to learn not to live with militarisation and to internalise oppression. The easiest path to breaking the inherent collectivity of a community is for it to internalise oppression and accept it as a way of life. We need to educate our children that what they see around them is not normal and that they should not accept it as normal. The most difficult need that has no alternative is a process of political consciencitisation. I truly believe that this is necessary both in the homeland and the diaspora,"

Lecturer in Law, University of Jaffna and Co-Spokesperson of the Tamil Civil Society Forum, Kumaravadivel Guruparan, at the Mamanithar Late Prof C.J. Eliezer AM Memorial Lecture, Monash University, Melbourne, 12 June 2016.

The international community must stay “fully engaged” on Sri Lanka to ensure all aspects of a UN resolution are fully implemented said the Global Tamil Forum, in a statement released on Wednesday.

“Sri Lanka has time and time again shown it is both unwilling and unable to investigate allegations of war crimes against its own forces or hold perpetrators of grave abuses to account,” said the statement.

Noting that Sri Lanka had agreed to a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in September last year, the GTF stated that “it appears the government is now trying to back away from this commitment”.

“Given the history of failures of Government Commissions and judicial processes, international participation as specified in the resolution is a must to guarantee the credibility and effectiveness of the Special Court,” it added. “GTF therefore calls upon the Council Members and the High Commissioner of the UNHRC to urge the Sri Lankan government not to renege on this all important commitment to the UN.”

The Sri Lankan military organised a two day workshop on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in the Tamil North-East earlier this month.