“We see every action pursued by the Government of Sri Lanka after the war being malignant towards the Tamils and are not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence. It is time for TNA to explain to the Governments of the world the ground situation in Sri Lanka,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke while addressing a gathering in Auckland, on Saturday that remembered Black July, the pogram against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983. In a calculated move genocidal Sri Lanka chose 23 July, the remenmbrance day to conduct civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils. But it didn’t prevent Eezham Tamils in many parts of the world from observing the day, which marks the times that impelled the actual beginnings of their militant struggle.
Speaking on the occasion in New Zealand, Dr. Siva Vasanthan who chaired the gathering cautioned that while the world is debating on the war crimes investigation, Colombo is coolly implementing its hidden agenda of genocide of Tamils. He and Mr A Theva Rajan of the New Zealand Tamils Senior Citizens Association urged the UN to implement the Right to Protection provision without hesitation.
Comparing East Timor and the question of Eezham Tamils, Human Rights activist Maire Leadbeater said, Colombo does not seem to abate its genocidal policies.
While the Labour Party parliamentarian, Phil Twyford told the Eezham Tamils at the gathering, “We will stand by you,” the National Party parliamentarian, Dr. Jackie Blue observed, “The international community cannot turn a blind eye to crime s against humanity and war crimes. No country can be an exception. It applies to Sri Lanka too.”
Ms. R. Danisha, while remembering the events of Black July, elucidated especially on the plight of Tamil women in the hands of the occupying SL Army after the war.
There are around 89, 000 war widows and about 80 per cent of them are under 25-years-old. Most of them have on an average 2 children. Living in insecure shelters they are prone to sexual assaults. Women sell them to feed their children and even children do odd jobs. This scenario was never witnessed in Tamil areas until now, Danisha said.
Narrating SL Army’s sexual assaults on women in the ‘concentration camps’, she cited a human rights lawyer from Tamil Nadu reporting about seeing SL Army freely walking into houses in Vanni after dusk.
“The first voice or the first book on feminism came from New Zealand, if I am not mistaken,” Ms. Danisha said while calling for the women’s activists and human rights champions in New Zealand to take first initiatives in attending to the plight of Tamil women.
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