It has been a deeply painful week. As tens of thousands of Eelam Tamils gathered to mark Maaveerar Naal, or Great Heroes’ Day, Cyclone Ditwah tore across the island. It was a tragedy that could have, and should have, been mitigated. 

For years in the Tamil homeland, Maaveerar Naal commemorations were forced underground. Lamps were lit behind closed doors, portraits of the fallen hidden from the state and gatherings broken apart by armed soldiers. Not today.

The events unfolding in Trincomalee over the past week have laid bare an uncomfortable truth that many in the Tamil homeland have long understood, but some around the world chose to hope against. The ruling National People’s Power (NPP) government is not the rupture from Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism it promised to be.

This week across the Tamil homeland preparations have begun as the nation readies itself to mark Maaveerar Naal – Great Heroes Day. For Eelam Tamils this is more than just a day of remembrance. It is a moment that brings together a nation that has suffered war, destruction, and occupation, yet continues to endure. For decades, the Sri Lankan state has tried to stifle it. Sixteen years since the death of the last Tamil liberation fighter, such repression must end. 

Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Defence made an audacious claim last week, stating over 700 acres of land in the North and East have been “returned to the public”. It only takes a cursory glance to see the painfully clear reality in the North-East. The occupation continues.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution on Sri Lanka last week, extending the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) for a further two years. This extension will allow the OHCHR to continue gathering and preserving evidence that can be used in future war crime trials. When those trials will be, however, is the question that no one is able to answer. More than 16 years after the genocide at Mullivaikkal, impunity still reigns in Sri Lanka. And the UN has just given Colombo another carte blanche.

At the United Nations General Assembly last week, Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Despite the rhetoric, Dissanayake pointedly avoided naming the state responsible for those atrocities: Israel. This was not an oversight, but a calculated choice.

An unprecedented number of events took place across the North-East last week. Hunger strikes were staged. Flames were lit and garlands laid. The elderly and children gathered together. A kavadi even procession took place, with hooks piercing the flesh of a devotee in a symbolic act of devotion. All to remember the LTTE’s Lt. Col. Thileepan – a young man who undertook a hunger strike until death thirty-eight years ago, demanding justice for his people.

Last week, Tamil farmers in Mayilaththamadu and Mathavanai marked 730 consecutive days of protest. For two years, through scorching heat and monsoon rains, they have maintained a peaceful vigil, demanding the return of 3,025 hectares of grazing land and an end to Sinhala settler violence. Despite their longstanding and peaceful protest, their demands have fallen on deaf ears.

To call the latest draft resolution from the UNHRC in Geneva disappointing would be too kind. It is a disastrous step backwards in the longstanding struggle for justice.