Photographs TCCMediaFr The Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) marked the 4th anniversary of the Mullivaikkal massacre in Mannar on Saturday. Plans to hold it by the remembrance memorial in Samanakulam, Vavuniya were ended when the memorial monument was destroyed the night before. Following the event, S. Kajendran and V. Manivannan of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF), were arrested along with other party members. According to party president, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the TNPF members were questioned by the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) for many hours, before eventually...
The Tamil National Alliance held the a remembrance event for the thousands massacred during the final stages of the armed conflict, in Vavuniya on Saturday. Speaking to AFP, Suresh Premachandran said : "We had a meeting to commemorate all those who died in the conflict." Addressing the Tamil diaspora in a recorded message, TNA MP S.Sritharan reiterated May 18th was not a day of celebration for Tamils, unlike Sri Lankans, and highlighted the growing instances of land-appropriation across the North-East, educational disadvantages and sexual assaults on Tamil women.
Hundreds of Mauritian Tamils marched through Port-Louis on Friday, demanding an end to the genocide of Tamils by the Sri Lankan government and called upon the Mauritius not to attend the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo. [ more ]
Tamils in Copenhagen, Denmark, marked the 4th year anniversary of the Mullivaikkal massacre, and marched from the country's Foreign Office towards Parliament on Friday, demanding justice for the genocide that took place in 2009.
Australian Parliamentarian Don Nardella An exhibition in Melbourne, detailing the Tamil genocide, was attended by over one hundred people. Don Nardella, Member of Parliament for the Australian Labor Party and secretary to the leader of the opposition spoke at the event and said the exhibition will open the eyes of the Australian people, and Steve Campbell of the Democratic Labor Party called on the organisers of the event to take the exhibition across Australia.
Tamils gathered yesterday, in cities across Norway, to mourn for those that lost their lives at Mullivaikkal. The Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NECT) organised events in the cities of Bergen and Trondheim, where speeches were made and candles were l it to commemorate the dead.
German Tamils gathered in D üsseldorf to mark the fourth anniversary of the Mullivaikal massacre. Over 2000 Tamils marched through the town centre before congregating outside the local parliament of North-Rhine Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany. The event, organised by the Tamil Youth Organisation - Germany and the Volksrat der Eelam Tamilen (Country Council of Eelam Tamils), saw speakers from German leftist party Die Linke and Kurdish activists.
The run up to this year’s Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day has seen the Tamil nation express itself through various creative avenues, from marches through city centers, to choreographed dance, to haunting works of poetry. The latest avenue of expression to be explored is the world of hip-hop. A British Tamil rapper, Ellaalan, has produced his debut rap song in collaboration with producer Santhors. The new single ‘Viduthalai Part II' , underlining the rapper’s discontent with the Eelam Tamil situation, was released on Friday. *Warning: explicit language*
Sri Lanka's Technology and Atomic Energy Minister, Champika Ranawaka, said holding Northern Provincial Council election in the North would be an insult to Sri Lanka's dead soldiers. Speaking at the 4th anniversary of what Tamils mark as genocide, and Sri Lanka celebrated as a victory, Ranawaka said : “If not for the war victory achieved by the government, Tamil and Muslim political leaders who are very vocal today would have met with the same fate as Amirthalingam,” “Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa and Sampanthan are trying to take Sri Lanka to the past again with the help of foreign nations such...
A witness recalls the horrors of her walk towards the Sri Lankan Army controlled territory on the penultimate day of the conflict, the 17th May. “I walked, following many others, thousands. As I walked I saw the scale of the destruction, there were pools of blood and many wounded or dead. I saw a truck laden with people that had been hit by a shell not long before - the wounds were fresh. There was a mother dead, her baby still alive beside her.” What then followed was months in an IDP camp, months punctured by torture, and upon release, the constant fear of persecution. This, 4 years on from those final days of death and surrender, is the reality of life for many Tamils in Sri Lanka. On this anniversary, we remember those who lost their lives and those who survived them and we ask, what progress has been made in the fight for justice? The answer is sobering – far too little. This in spite of incontrovertible evidence of the crimes perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state against its own citizens, this despite the manifest failings of the Sri Lankan state to provide justice, this despite much international condemnation by states, INGOs, and, especially of late, the international legal community.