As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, prepares to visit Sri Lanka this month, the question is not what Tamil survivors will say — they have been saying it for over a decade. The question is whether the High Commissioner and the United Nations will listen and act.

On 21 May 2025, The Jerusalem Post published an interview with Israeli security expert Moshe Elad. He claimed that Sri Lanka’s military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 offers a model for eliminating Hamas. “Sri Lanka did it without a Supreme Court or B’Tselem,” he said. The subtext was clear: Israel should replicate the same path, minus legal oversight, to achieve total victory.

The genocide unfolding in Gaza today has shocked the world, but it should not come as a surprise. It follows a now-familiar playbook.

Last month in Brampton, Canada, hundreds gathered as a new Tamil genocide monument was officially unveiled. It was an act of remembrance that resonated not only with the Tamil diaspora but with justice seekers across the world.

Sixteen years on, the island of Sri Lanka remains divided, between the victors and the vanquished.

In April 2025, Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves fell by 3%, slipping from the previous month $6.53 billion to $6.32 billion, according to data from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The $210 million decline, despite the ongoing IMF-supported programme, highlights persistent vulnerabilities in the country’s post-crisis recovery trajectory.

Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), the largest Tamil party in Sri Lanka and once a pioneer of Tamil nationalism in the first decades after the independence of Ceylon, has strayed far from its historic mission.

From Madras Cafe (2013) to The Family Man 2 (2021) and now Jaat (2024), a consistent pattern has emerged — one that rewrites history, erases Tamil suffering and maligning resistance to oppression.

The news of Pope Francis’ passing earlier today has been met with mourning and reflection across the world. For Eelam Tamils, his legacy is remembered not only for his humility and progressive voice within the Catholic Church, but also for the moral clarity he brought to the unresolved injustice of the island’s bloody past, articulated during his historic visit to the Tamil homeland.