Today is Mullivaikal Remembrance Day or Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day
A day to remember the thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils killed in government-identified civilian safe zones.
May 18 commemorates the 2009 genocide of Tamils by the government of Sri Lanka, and the global failure to intervene on behalf of human rights, yet again.
If you don't know what we're talking about, it is because, like nearly all stories of human rights violations against BIPOC (in Canada and around the world), this story didn't get the news coverage it deserved until the Tamil community in Canada took their cry for help to the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto.
Quick Context: On the Tamil Struggle in Sri Lanka
WHO: Tamils, largely Hindu, are the largest minority community in the country currently referred to as Sri Lanka. Singhalese, largely Buddhist, is the language spoken by the majority population in Sri Lanka.
COLONIAL LEGACY: Sri Lanka is a small island south of India that was colonized first by the Portuguese, Dutch, and then, of course, the British. For administrative purposes, multiple independent kingdoms on this island were merged together so European colonizers would have an easier time exploiting the Island. As per the colonizer playbook, when the British "granted" independence, they ensured that Sri Lanka was left with economic, political, and social instability.
RECENT HISTORY: This instability, paired with years of colonial rule, would set Sri Lanka up to fail as an independent state, and set the stage for decades of state-sanctioned violence, discrimination, and human rights violations of the Tamil community by the Sri Lankan government (comprised of Singhalese peoples). In response to this violence, freedom fighter groups like the Tamil Tigers would form.
For the love of every Hindu god, please stop calling it a "civil war"
The media and the Sri Lankan government often call decades of this violence a "civil war" when that isn't a correct characterization of what the Tamil community has experienced in Sri Lanka for several decades.
A Civil War makes it sound like two equal sides were fighting each other within a country when that wasn't the case. How can it be, when one side is a government-funded by tax dollars (including that of Tamil civilians) and the other was groups like the Tamil Tigers trying to fight back against these unjustified human rights violations and systemic oppression of Tamil civilians?
The government had resources, power, law-making abilities, and international legitimacy - so this isn't a civil war. It's state-sanctioned violence, oppression and genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The Tamil Tigers, an imperfect organization in an impossible situation
May 18 commemorates the 2009 mass killings of tens of thousands of civilian Tamils, by the Sri Lankan government, under the guise of finding and charging the Tamil Tigers.
"Look, the Tigers get a lot of criticism, notably from people who have never had to fight to protect their human rights and Indigenous land. I’ll accept that the Tigers were an imperfect organization, but being a freedom fighter is a messy job where morals are often blurred as you try to gain justice and human rights for your people. What I find frustrating with popular criticism of the Tigers is that people often act like if the Tigers just politely asked the government for the liberation of Tamils, that it would have been granted."
-Samanta Krishnapillai, 'On the Ousting of Sri Lankan President G. Rajapaksa' | July 2022
Yet another global failure to act, proving commitments to human rights is lip service from Western countries
The Sri Lankan government bombed Tamil hospitals, captured and executed the 12-year-old son of the LTTE leader, stripped civilians and soldiers when they were captured and then executed them while naked and blindfolded, allowed soldiers to SA women, children, and men, and bombed civilian bunkers. 300,000 people were in displacement camps, which at the time was the largest in the world.
The Sri Lankan government declared regions no-fire zones and urged Tamil civilians to take refuge there before bombing those very regions.
January to May of 2009 were the deadliest months of this conflict, in which hospitals were destroyed, people starved, humanitarian aid was restricted, and sexual violence and extrajudicial killings increased.
The Sri Lankan government set up "No-fire zones" which quickly became packed with hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians seeking safety.
Under this guise, the Sri Lankan army systematically targeted and shelled the no-fire zones repeatedly, killing thousands. And the international community did nothing to stop it.
The whole world watched as thousands of Tamil civilians were slaughtered, turned a blind eye to it, and never held the Sri Lankan government accountable.
Entire multi-generational families were wiped out, children were orphaned, hundreds of thousands injured, and people are still missing to this day.
And this wasn't a war without witness. The international community saw months of violence and knew that the Sri Lankan army had just lied in order to kill people desperate for safety.
But despite that, they did nothing to protect Tamils, and nothing to punish the Sri Lankan gov for this literal war crime and act of ethnic cleansing.
Tamils have seen no accountability, justice, reconciliation, or reparations for the violence they experienced. Instead one of the biggest war criminals became President of Sri Lanka
Leaked US Embassy documents show discussions between the then security of defence, now president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, where the US embassy urged the Sri Lankan government to accept a mediated surrender, to which Rajapaksa said: “We’re beyond that now.”
He was asked to allow for time to evacuate the wounded and dead and he chose to reject it. It was clear to anyone watching that the government had the Tigers and innocent Tamil civilians on their knees, but instead of ending the war, the Sri Lankan government decided to try and end Tamil people.
Over 100,000 Tamils faced enforced disappearances during the civil war and are still unaccounted for — perpetrated by the state against Tamils.
In the years since 2009, there have been countless protests from the families of the disappeared seeking justice for their loved ones. And yet, there have been no answers. Tamils deserve justice and liberation.
Tamil Liberation can not and will not happen in isolation, our liberations are linked and it's time to act accordingly.
The truth is, what we've written here about the Tamil struggle is no different from that of Palestinians, of Sikhs and Muslims in India, of the Sudanese, of Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada, or literally any community facing state-sanctioned violence and discrimination.
And yet, the majority of the Tamil community will protest for just our issues in Tamil Eelam and rarely show up for any of these other communities.
Because here is what Tamils and the larger BIPOC community need to realize: A Canada that truly cares about the human rights of Black and Indigenous peoples domestically, is a Canada that will care about human rights everywhere. And that Canada will fight for the human rights of Tamils, and all other communities experiencing systemic violence worldwide.
So if you can't show up for other communities because it is the right thing to do, do it because there is no Tamil liberation in Sri Lanka without collective liberation for everyone. All our individual communities' liberation is intrinsically linked so it’s time to act accordingly.
Excerpt Below:
There is something incredibly sticky around the fact that Tamils in Sri Lanka, have essentially been living as second-class citizens on their ancestral lands. This was happening for a long time but I’ll continue to focus on the 2009 Genocide.
I remember the visuals and stories coming out of Sri Lanka during the 2009 Genocide and yet, there was no mass protest, no show of solidarity. It wasn’t until Gotabaya did something that directly impacted the majority population group, the Sinhalese people, that a major protest of this nature occurred.
Protesting in this way is not something Tamils in Sri Lanka, outside of the Jaffna region, could have done in 2009 without support from the Sinhalese people, as protesting, and protesting in a disruptive nature, is a privileged, and one that certainly isn’t afforded to Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled Gotabaya has been forced to go bye-bye, but that doesn’t change the discomfort at seeing that people in Sri Lankan can rise to action, just not when their Tamil neighbours are being slaughtered.
But as I reflected, even that feeling felt complicated...
- Samanta Krishnapillai, July 2022
