In the lead up to Maveerar Naal, an 18-year-old British Tamil in London reflects on the sacrifice made by her uncle.

The day, which is marked by Eelam Tamils around the world, commemorates those who gave their lives in the Tamil liberation struggle.

Tamil National People's Front general secretary and parliamentarian Selvarajah Kajendran paid tribute to the LTTE's Major Sothiya as the Tamil nation prepares for Maaveerar Naal this week. 

The parliamentarian joined Major Sothiya's mother, to pay respects to the fallen cadre who was the commander of the LTTE's first female unit. 

The leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) highlighted the state’s failure to rebuild the North-East during the government’s second budget reading on November 21^st, despite numerous interruptions by Sinhala politicians attempting to overturn the focus of his speech.

Speaking in parliament on Sri Lanka’s new budget, Tamil parliamentarian C V Wigneswaran slammed Colombo’s continued inflated defence expenditure, questioning whether the government is “expecting another war” and “if so with whom?”

“Whom is our government afraid of?” questioned the Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK) lawmaker and former Supreme Court justice asking whether it was the “Tamils or the Indians or the Western Countries”.

“Why are we arranging for war time security needs rather than post war security needs?” he continued.

The Tamil nation, in the homeland and in the diaspora, holds steadfastly to records of the liberation struggle. The well-known dates and the lesser known dates are tirelessly observed. Heroes are canonised in the Maaveerar Naal calendar.

But with the destruction of LTTE records and cemeteries, it becomes inevitable that some names are lost to us, at least momentarily.

The record of Muslim fighters remains incomplete. Their contribution to the Tamil struggle for liberation is often overlooked in the mainstream commemoration of Maaveerar Naal.

Jaffna High Court rejected an appeal demanding an injunction against court bans for Maaveerar Naal commemorations in Mullaitivu and Vavuniya, last week but “there is no prohibition on memorialising the fallen, individually at home,” said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP M. A. Sumanthiran.

Sumanthiran insisted that the court ruled that permission to commemorate publicly for Maaveerar Naal was refused on the grounds of “national security”.

Tamil Nadu Fisherman and local trade union members staged a protest against the Sri Lankan navy for seizing the fisherman’s boats, on Friday.

The protest, which took place on Pamban beach in Rameswaram, called on the Sri Lankan navy to return the 19 boats that were seized from Tamil Nadu fisherman in 2016 and has as a result impacted the livelihoods of families of fisherman in villages across Rameswaram.

A senior Sri Lankan official claimed that The Elders, a group of senior luminaries founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, have “become senile” or “deliberately twisted the facts about Sri Lanka” in a statement that lashed out at the organisation this week.

Sugeeswara Senadhira, the Director of International Media at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo, was responding to an earlier statement that referenced Sri Lanka when the group spoke on US President Donald Trump’s refusal to “adhere to the protocols and processes governing the transition of power”.

US Congressmen Brad Sherman and Jamie Raskin introduced a House Resolution calling for an end to enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka, across Asia and around the world and also calls upon the United States to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

The resolution highlights that "Tamil families of the disappeared have demonstrated tremendous courage in conducting continuing protests, lasting over 1,300 days to demand answers from the Sri Lankan state, despite being met with threats, intimidation, and harrassment by state security forces."

It also noted that Sri Lanka has "promoted high-ranking military officials suspected of forcibly disappearing persons and bearing responsibility for war crimes, incuding Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, and has failed to hold accountable other current military officials accused of war crimes."

Amidst a Sri Lankan state crackdown of commemoration activities for Maaveerar Naal, Tamil families of the disappeared have asserted families' rights to remember their war dead.

‘‘No one can stop individuals from participating in the remembrance. The mothers will also commemorate in the same way’’ a representative of families protesting in Vavuniya said.