Eleven years ago, on this day -18 May 2009, the three-decade-long war for Tamil Ee­lam ended with the mas­sacre of the fight­ing forces of Ee­lam Tamils and in­no­cent Tamil civil­ians at Mul­li­vaikkal vil­lage, on the north-east coast of Sri Lanka -which be­came the the­atre of war in the fi­nal stages of the Sri Lanka-Ee­lam bat­tle. The war with weapons may have ended but the bat­tle for hu­man rights and jus­tice for geno­cide con­tin­ues. Hu­man rights and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists have been cry­ing hoarse since that day, ob­serv­ing it as Tamil Geno­cide Day. WSN pre­sents a video pre­sen­ta­tion of hu­man rights ac­tivists -Dr Paul New­man and Dawn­ing Jeeva -who have been at the fore­front of es­pous­ing the Ee­lam Tamils hu­man rights cause at var­i­ous UN fo­rums.

The armed strug­gle for Ee­lam home­land may have ended eleven years ago, but the po­lit­i­cal strug­gle for sur­vival, hu­man rights, jus­tice for the geno­cide of Ee­lam Tamils, ho­n­our and dig­nity of Ee­lam Tamils will con­tinue,” said Naam Tami­lar Katchi leader See­man while re­leas­ing on­line the video pre­sen­ta­tion of the work done by hu­man rights ac­tivists -Dr Paul New­man and Dawn­ing Jeeva.

Since 2010, the Tamil world across Tamil Di­as­pora has been knock­ing the doors of var­i­ous United Na­tions fo­rums to high­light the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of Ee­lam Tamils, pin-point the ac­count­abil­ity of the Sin­halese Sri Lankan lead­er­ship which per­pet­u­ated the geno­cide of Ee­lam Tamils and urge the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity to in­ter­vene in de­clar­ing Sri Lanka a rogue state.

“It was the need of the hour to keep the is­sue alive and seek jus­tice in the in­ter­na­tional arena such as the United Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil and we have been con­sis­tently do­ing that to the cha­grin of the Sri Lankan gov­ern­ment, said Dr Paul New­man, who spe­cialises in con­flict res­o­lu­tion and as the video shows has par­tic­i­pated and pre­sented the Ee­lam Tamils case in a forth­right man­ner in many meet­ings of the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil.

The gov­ern­ment of Sri Lanka has al­ways been in a de­nial mode and un­der the pre­text of Covid-19 re­stric­tions did not al­low protests in the Tamil strong­hold in Sri Lanka.

Join­ing the cho­rus of protest on the Tamil Geno­cide An­niver­sary, Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh said, “It’s al­most 11 years since the Sri Lankan Gov­ern­ment car­ried out “anti-Tamil pogroms, sex­ual vi­o­lence and acts of cul­tural and lin­guis­tic de­struc­tion. Even the 12-year-old son of Tamil na­tion­al­ist leader V. Prab­hakaran was sum­mar­ily ex­e­cuted. A se­ries of pho­tographs dated 18 May 2009 show Bal­achan­dran Prab­hakaran, was cap­tured alive and killed at a later stage.”

“The armed strug­gle for Ee­lam home­land may have ended eleven years ago, but the po­lit­i­cal strug­gle for sur­vival, hu­man rights, jus­tice for the geno­cide of Ee­lam Tamils, ho­n­our and dig­nity of Ee­lam Tamils will con­tinue.

See­man, Chief Co­or­di­na­tor, Naam Tami­lar Katchi

“Dal Khalsa has been sup­port­ing the de­mand that Mahin­dra Ra­japaksa, other lead­ers and the Army chiefs and their forces must be brought to jus­tice and hauled up for geno­cide and crimes against hu­man­ity,” he added.

Even though the Ee­lam fight­ers are no more en­gaged in any armed strug­gle, still 16 of the 19 di­vi­sions of the armed forces are sta­tioned in Tamil-strong­hold North Sri Lanka. The more than 150,000 Tamils who dis­ap­peared in­vol­un­tar­ily in Vanni are still to be ac­counted for.

Dr Paul New­man states in the video that Sri Lanka should im­me­di­ately de­mil­i­ta­rize the north part of Sri Lanka and al­low the civil­ians to lead a nor­mal life.  His com­pa­triot Dawn­ing Jeeva told WSN that, “the doc­u­men­tary gives an overview of steps taken to make the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity aware of Ee­lam po­lit­i­cal con­cerns and right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. We will con­tinue to raise our voice against atroc­i­ties and hu­man rights abuse.”

The doc­u­men­tary lays bare that in its 72-year ex­is­tence as an in­de­pen­dent coun­try, Sri Lanka has not ho­n­oured any com­mit­ment to Tamil peo­ple nor to the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity. In fact, it has backed out of res­o­lu­tions un­der one pre­text or an­other.

We need jus­tice..We need in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion abt Tamil geno­cide in ee­lam.Un­til then we’ll rise our voice & trans­fer de­tails about the in­ci­dent to next gen­er­a­tion which we’re hope some­day the world will lis­ten.We will def­i­nitely make them to lis­ten.#Jus­tice­For­T­amilGeno­cide pic.twit­ter.com/​IK0zIEW5aH

— Thamizh­sel­vam BSH (@thamizh­baby) May 18, 2020

It would be fu­tile to give more time to Sri Lanka. The United Na­tions Se­cu­rity Coun­cil or the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil must set up with­out de­lay an In­de­pen­dent In­ter­na­tional In­ves­ti­ga­tion Com­mit­tee on Geno­cide in Sri Lanka 200-2010. The ac­count­abil­ity of the Sri Lankan gov­ern­ment must be de­ter­mined and steps must be taken to pros­e­cute the guilty.

On this day, it is dis­as­trous to note that the Sri Lankan gov­ern­ment un­abashedly an­nounces that the armed forces or po­lit­i­cal lead­ers will never be tried or pun­ished for their role in the Sri Lanka-Ee­lam war. The video pre­sen­ta­tion tells us that, “the struc­tural Geno­cide on Tamils is still go­ing on.”

#Jus­tice­For­T­amilGeno­cide
Tamil Geno­cideTo­day is 11th aniver­sary of Tamil Geno­cide in Sri Lanka.I pay my deep­est homage to my Tamil Broth­ers/ Sis­ters who at­tained mar­tyr­dom fight­ing in­jus­tice.I pray to god the flag of Tamil Ee­lam fly high in skies and my Tamil Broth­ers get free­dom pic.twit­ter.com/​NgN­TQrn­bUX

— Bhag­want singh (@bhag­wantvirk1) May 18, 2020

Twit­terati is abuzz with the hash­tags #TamilGeno­cideRe­mem­brance­Day and #Jus­tice­For­T­amilGeno­cide trend­ing with thou­sands of Tamils join­ing in lam­bast­ing the abuse of hu­man rights by Sri Lanka in as­so­ci­a­tion with In­dia and other coun­tries.

#Jus­tice­For­T­amilGeno­cide#TamilGeno­cideRe­mem­brance­Day
Ee­lam af­ter the dis­place­ment pic.twit­ter.com/​UMx5otvL5V

— Car­o­line Ma­hen­draS­inghᴺᵀᴷ (@car­olkr­ish) May 18, 2020

Ex­press­ing sol­i­dar­ity with Tamils across the world, hu­man rights ac­tivist Jag­mo­han Singh said, “Tamils are not alone in this cry for jus­tice. We have to fight this bat­tle unit­edly. Geno­cide can­not be tol­er­ated any­where, any­time and against any peo­ples. What is 18 May for Tamils is 6 June for Sikhs. Re­mem­brance Days will con­tinue till we win the right to our dis­tinct iden­tity, ho­n­our and dig­nity.”