British Tamils held a demonstration in London last week to mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, marching from the Sri Lankan High Commission to the British Prime Minister’s Office to demand justice for the disappeared and for those massacred at Chemmani.
Protestors carried placards and raised slogans as they called for accountability for the Sri Lankan state’s atrocities, including the enforced disappearances of tens of thousands of Tamils and the mass killings during the armed conflict.
The rally was organised in remembrance of the Chemmani massacre by the Movement for Self-Determination of Tamil Eelam (MSDTE), where mass graves uncovered in Jaffna have already yielded more than 200 skeletal remains, with excavations continuing. Campaigners have repeatedly pointed to Chemmani as emblematic of Sri Lanka’s mass atrocities, where Tamils were murdered and secretly buried by security forces.
Speakers and demonstrators stressed that only an international process can deliver accountability for these crimes. They condemned Colombo’s refusal to allow any international role in investigating past human rights violations, despite repeated calls from the UN and human rights organisations.
Successive Sri Lankan governments have insisted that accountability will be pursued through domestic mechanisms, a stance that Tamil survivors and rights defenders say has only entrenched impunity.
