Tamil families of the disappeared in Vavuniya voiced their criticism of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) last week, as it became the only major opposition party to attend a meeting convened by Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, after all other major parties boycotted it.

On the 1,173th day of their protest the Tamils families in Vavuniya displayed banners slamming the TNA, accusing them of “electoral duplicity”.

Thampi (little brother), our dog Singaa, my 30 pet doves and myself in Eelam at the end of 2008 moving from Vaddakkachchi to Visuvamadu.

I was 15 years old at that time and thought it’d only be two or three weeks then we’ll be back to our place and continue with our normal lives. But I was wrong.

File photograph

"As sale and exports of fish crash, another huge crisis is staring at Sri Lanka's fisherfolk," writes Meera Srinivasan for The Hindu. 

I am from Vadduvaakal, Mullivaaikaal. I was a fisherman before the war. I used to do all my work, no matter how much work I have.

I lost both my legs during a Kfir attack during the last days of the war.

I wanted to die when I knew that I lost my legs. I asked the doctors at the hospital I was being taken care of, to please kill me with an injection; but they helped me recover.

11 years have gone by since the Tamil diaspora community mobilized and took our voices to the streets. We raised our voices in an effort to raise awareness on the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. 

I was 15 at the time, but I remember that day so clearly. It was Mother’s Day, and I was sitting with my family at my grandmother’s house feeling hopeless about what was happening to our people back home. My father and I quickly left to join the thousands of Tamils protesting on University Avenue. After chanting and pleading, we started marching, soon enough we ended up on the Gardiner Expressway. 

The Gardiner protest was pivotal in shaping the political identity of many young Tamils. It inspired a new generation of activists and my own in continuing to demand justice for Tamils on the island while also carrying on the fight for liberation. 

The protest, which occurred on Mothers day, had predominately negative public perception and media coverage, evidenced through their use of language - which often carried racial undertones - and played a role in delegitimizing the protest itself. Rather than centring the story around the genocide and international intervention – the purpose behind the protests, the coverage focused on dominant narratives surrounding the Tamil community as being ‘disruptive’, an ‘inconvenience’ and ‘ungrateful’ and labelling us as ‘others’ and ‘terrorists’ while also removing women from their political agency. 

On May 10, 2009, Catholic Priest Father Francis Joseph wrote to the Pope from inside the No Fire Zone, calling on the Church to break its silence on the massacre of Tamils. Father Francis Joseph disappeared after surrendering to the Sri Lankan Army alongside hundred of LTTE cadres and high ranking LTTE officials in May 2009.

In cities around the world 11 years ago, the Tamil diaspora took to the streets in a historic series of protests, demanding international action to halt Sri Lanka’s massacres at Mullivaikkal.

To mark 11 years since the protests, the ‘Mapping Resistance’ website has been re-launched.  

The head of Sri Lanka’s air force joined a teleconference call organised by the US military last month, as part of continued military relations between the two governments.

Sri Lanka’s air force commander Sumangala Dias was amongst the participants in the call with 19 air forces across five continents, as they discussed responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The call was organised by the US Pacific Air Forces.

Sri Lanka’s war crimes accused prime minister sent a message of congratulations to British parliamentarian Ranil Jayawardena this morning, after the lawmaker announced he was appointed as a Minister at the Department for International Trade