By Colombo Telegraph –

“The absolute power and the arrogant ways of the present Sri Lankan regime are earning the disgust of the international community. This in turn is creating conditions favourable to our cause. In addition, there are noticeable and encouraging changes in the mind set and approach of the international community following the disaster at Mullivaaikkaal. It is up to our ingenuity and political intelligence how we take advantage of these turn of events in the way we act. We should strengthen our ability to collaborate across differences with a shared understanding and collective action.” say  two powerful Tamil diaspora groups.

Issuing a joint statement called  “Mullivaaikkaal remembrance message” Global Tamil Forum (GTF) and Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) further say “many thousands of civilians were murdered by the Sri Lankan government forces in inhumane ways, under the guise of a war on terrorism, having abandoned all international norms and conventions of war. History has recorded the abject failure of the international community, including the United Nations, to take any form of sensible action to prevent the mass killings of Tamils in Mullivaaikkaal.”

Below we give the full statement;

Today marks the third anniversary of the genocidal events that the Tamils had to endure in Mullivaaikkaal. On this day, we remember with deep sorrow and solemn responsibility all the people who perished in Mullivaaikkaal and in the long freedom struggle of Eelam Tamils in preceding years.

Many thousands of civilians were murdered by the Sri Lankan government forces in inhumane ways, under the guise of a war on terrorism, having abandoned all international norms and conventions of war.

History has recorded the abject failure of the international community, including the United Nations, to take any form of sensible action to prevent the mass killings of Tamils in Mullivaaikkaal.

The Tamil people deserve justice for all the brutal inhumanity suffered by them. Those who committed the crimes should be brought before justice. It is also prudent to ensure that in the future no other people are subject to the same cruelty and pain that the Tamils were meted out. Our struggle for justice is, therefore, not for Tamils alone. It indeed becomes the struggle for setting the limit on any state that might intend using brutality and violence on its own people.

A substantial body of evidence is in our hands and those of the international community incriminating the Sri Lankan Government of its mass killings, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is not incomprehensible for the international community that the Sri Lankan State has neither the intention nor the capability of inquiring into its war crimes through an internal mechanism in an adequate manner.

The longer it takes for the outside world to act on Sri Lanka, faster it seems would be the rate of destruction of the Tamil people and their land by the same State. Therefore, we call upon the international community to act decisively to bring about an international and independent investigation on the events of Mullivaaikkaal.

The Tamils in Sri Lanka are longing for relief and a life of dignity to take them out of the miserable conditions in which they are trapped at present. It is essential that an international protection mechanism for safeguarding the lives of the Tamil people is created urgently.

It is timely that we seek the attention of the international community in our clamour for justice through unified sets of action. In this, Tamils in Eelam, those in the Diaspora and in Tamil Nadu would need to work with the support of the wider community of Tamils from around the world and the international civil society concerned with human justice matters.

The absolute power and the arrogant ways of the present Sri Lankan regime are earning the disgust of the international community. This in turn is creating conditions favourable to our cause. In addition, there are noticeable and encouraging changes in the mind set and approach of the international community following the disaster at Mullivaaikkaal. It is up to our ingenuity and political intelligence how we take advantage of these turn of events in the way we act. We should strengthen our ability to collaborate across differences with a shared understanding and collective action.

With this in mind, representatives of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam and the Global Tamil Forum got together in San Francisco on the 13th and 14th of this month. We are pleased to announce that following discussions on several areas of joint action, agreements were reached on some of these areas. This is indeed an important milestone as we move through the third phase of our struggle for freedom coinciding with the remembrance of Mullivaaikkaal.

The Global Tamil Forum intends to liaise with other Diaspora Tamil organisations and representatives of Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka in its efforts to build similar forms of shared understanding.

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, for its part, is engaged in building a power base among the world Tamil community, particularly in Tamil Nadu, and with sections of the international civil society. On this occasion, while we remember the mass atrocities in Mullivaaikkaal, it is incumbent upon us to jointly and solemnly declare that the pursuit of freedom by our people shall remain incessant.

Visvanathan Rudrakumaran                                                   Rev Dr S J Emanuel
Prime Minister,                                                                             President,

Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)              Global Tamil Forum (GTF)