In this interview, we speak to the leader of the Thamizh Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK), the former Supreme Court Justice and former Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C. V. Wigneswaran, who won a seat in Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections yesterday. We discuss the prospects of international justice, Tamil-Muslim unity, economic development and his response to criticism over his tenure as Chief Minister of the Northern Province.
As part of a series marking 11 years since the atrocities of Mullivaikkal, a Tamil woman shares her reflections on the experiences and the struggles she faces. At the end of the war, it was estimated that there were almost 80,000 woman-headed households in the North and East. In this video, a Tamil woman whose husband and brothers were disappeared during the war, reflects on the struggles she goes through as the head of the household and the gender-based discrimination in the society she lives in. _____ See more reflections on our website www.RememberMay2009.com
I am in grade 10 now. I want to score enough to be able to enter Advance Level soon. I love the subject history. I was four years old when I lost my leg, I am 15 years old now. My studies depend on the income we get from the coconut grove.
I am 22 years old. My right hand was amputated during the end of the war in Valainjarmadam. I was 10 years old at the time and I became disabled. I am right-handed. It was very difficult to learn to write with the left hand after I lost my right hand. At the beginning no matter how much I tried, my writing didn’t come out well. However, now I am able to use my left hand to do everything I need to do. I sat for Ordinary Level exams twice and now I have passed the A / L exam as well.
As part of a series marking 11 years since the atrocities of Mullivaikkal, land protestors from Keppapilavu shared their reflections on their experiences and the struggles they continue to face. The community has been protesting the military’s occupation of their land continuously since February 2017.
I am from Vadduvaakal, Mullivaaikaal. I was a fisherman before the war. I used to do all my work, no matter how much work I have. I lost both my legs during a Kfir attack during the last days of the war. I wanted to die when I knew that I lost my legs. I asked the doctors at the hospital I was being taken care of, to please kill me with an injection; but they helped me recover.
Phil Miller was a student in university when he first heard the name ‘Keenie Meenie Services’ . “It was about 2010, 2011,” he told the Tamil Guardian in London. “I was involved in visiting asylum seekers in immigration detention centres.” Miller had spoken to Tamils who fled Sri Lanka, but faced an uphill battle in the United Kingdom, where British authorities were still attempting to deport them. “The Home Office was saying it was safe to send Tamils back,” says Miller. “And after the first few deportations, reports emerged that Tamils were being arrested upon arrival and tortured.” “So that got me thinking - why is the UK government sending people to be tortured when supposedly we are a country that respects human rights and opposes torture?” From conversations that Miller had with activists and asylum seekers themselves, the name ‘Keenie Meenie Services’ or KMS began to crop up.
On the morning of September 16th 2008, Benjamin Dix was part of a United Nations convoy that was driving out of Kilinochchi. “Civilians were protesting outside our offices begging us not to leave,” he recalls. “As we drove out that morning a Kfir - a government fighter jet - flew over the top of us and into the Vanni… It almost haunts me”.
The Sri Lankan government announced that Viraj Mendis, the Sinhalese chairperson of the International Human Rights Association – Bremen (IMRV), has been added to their list of known “terrorists” in an updated gazette notification that has been slammed as a "escalation in political repression". Mendis, who joins dozens of other Tamils who have been on the list, is accused of “funding terrorism”. “The listing by the Sri Lankan State of someone whose real crime has been to campaign strenuously against the criminalisation of the Tamil struggle, shows an escalation in political repression,” Mendis...
As part of a series marking the atrocities of Mullivaikkal, families of the disappeared protesting in Kilinochchi shared their reflections on their experiences and the struggles they continue to face a decade on.