Representatives of women’s groups in London, who met on Thursday at Kingston to observe International Women’s Day centenary, appealed for immediate international community move to rehabilitate an estimated 89,000 Eezham Tamil war widows. The gathering organized by Tamil Women Development Forum and Elders Empowerment Programme was participated by representatives of various communities in London and was attended by the Mayor and council officials of Kingston. Speaking on the occasion, Ms Annabelle Sartoris, a university researcher, said that Sri Lanka breaches UN resolution 1325 in protecting the rights of Eezham Tamil women.
Ms Annabelle Sartoris
Councillor Chrissie Hitchcock, the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Commenting on the appeal, a diaspora activist in London engaged in anthropological study of Eezham Tamils said that true and comprehensive rehabilitation of widows – economic, social and cultural – comes in only when the nation of theirs is empowered to take direct responsibility.
The following are further comments from the activist:
The international community so far has not attended to that vital point due to illusions of state in the island and due to the unjustness and prejudices of some establishments of the IC in not recognizing genocide and in not recognizing the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island.
The IC therefore, again and again, makes the gravest blunder of handing over the victims to their oppressors. The international women should rise up to stop this happening to the widows. There is nothing worse than handing over the affairs of the Eezham Tamil widows into the hands of a regime like that of Rajapaksa that is ruling the territory of Eezham Tamils like that of a military colony.
India, USA and China have to be mainly told of by the international women that what the powers blinded by greed doing in the island is wrong and that has to be immediately rectified.
Immediately after the war, without any assurance for political solution in sight, a foundation in India prepared a ‘blue print’ to be handed over to the genocidal Rajapaksa regime, to involve Eezham Tamil widows in ‘Vietnam’ model farming.
Eying on the destitute like the war widows, the Rajapaksa regime is sending in teams of Sinhala businessmen to start exploitative industries such as garment factories in the war-torn Tamil land. When the garment industry has enough tales of exploitation in the south and when it is declining there, the exploiters seek cheaper and non-complaining slaves among the war victims in the north. They will even claim this as a great ‘philanthropy’ of them in ‘rehabilitating’ the war widows.
Donor agencies in a country like Norway that once had the neutral, peace facilitating responsibility in the island, ironically set a wrong precedent in rehabilitation in the island, by insisting on Eezham Tamil diaspora to work under Sinhala NGOs in the island. They come out with all kinds of pretext in discouraging and denying aid to the diaspora of the Eezham Tamil nation to carryout the rehabilitation of its nation directly.
International civil society groups like the women’s organisations in the UK, caring for the war widows of Eezham Tamils should as a priority work for setting the platform right for any meaningful rehabilitation, the diaspora activist engaged in anthropological research said.
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