The Tragedy of the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka Cries Out for Justice!
The Tragedy of the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka Cries Out for Justice!
3 min. read | By Kiri Vadivelu
No doubt, it is good to see some Canadian political leaders address the suffering of the fast growing and resilient Tamil community in Toronto. As the socialist mayoral candidate, I am skeptical of the formal statements from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poillivre, supposedly in support of Tamils. We need more than words professing sympathy.
From 1983 to 2009, the total loss of Tamil civilians due to political violence exceeded 150,000, not including the injured or those still missing. According to the United Nations, approximately 75,000 Tamils were killed in the final months of the state genocidal war between January and May 2009. Any political advocacy without a meaningful action plan for recovery and justice is simply an insult to the victims.
The Sinhalese Buddhist hypocrites celebrated the Tamil genocide with fireworks across Sri Lanka and continue to destroy Hindu temples, school libraries and Tamil memorial sites. 14 years after the genocide, Tamil people who survived continue to live in deplorable poverty under full state surveillance, aggressive hostility and militarized occupation of the northern province.
Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who conducted the vile national hate and killing campaign, lives today in luxury without facing justice for the war crimes he committed. Meanwhile, many parts of the country are unable to meet basic needs such as for food, shelter or fuel for transportation. Palestinians and Tamils share the pain of genocide without reconciliation, peace or justice to this day.
Knowledge of the Tamil genocide committed by the state of Sri Lanka, to the extent that the facts are known, is due in large part to the tireless advocacy of Francis Anthony Boyle, a human rights lawyer and professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. The Tamil community appreciates his humanitarian efforts to expose the crimes of the ruling class.
What is to be done on the basis of the growing consciousness of the pain of the Tamil genocide? Today, Indigenous peoples across the Canadian state and Turtle Island are suffering from the repercussions of colonial exploitation, which continues before our eyes, somewhat like the way the Tamil community in Sri Lanka endures oppression in many forms.
Furthermore, working people in Canada are paying the high price of inflation while a privileged few hoard the wealth, wealth which is created by the working class, deposited into domestic bank accounts and offshore holdings of the super-rich. The hardships of working people and marginalized sectors is beyond the capacity of non-profit organizations such as food banks and charities.
Climate conditions indicate the prospect of an imminent collapse of a sustainable environment and the end of human civilization. Big corporations do not feel the necessity to act swiftly to bear the burden of protecting civilization on the planet that industry has plundered and befouled. Instead, those economically privileged parties with the deepest pockets continue to commodify housing, food, healthcare and all the elements required to satisfy basic human needs. They systematically fail society by obstructing democracy, by exercising power through monopoly control. Immediate, class conscious intervention is required -- beyond mere acknowledgment of injustice and social inequality.
As a Tamil Canadian and a member a visible minority segment of society in Canada, I urge all leaders to recognize the human crisis unfolding before us. The oppression of racialized people, from the days of chattel slavery to the present, and the suffering of gender oppressed people, must end. The Municipal Socialist Alliance urges unity in action so that working class people enjoy wages sufficient to live with dignity and good health, that students learn history without censorship and onerous debt, that women and LGBTQI+ folks flourish with equality and respect, putting an end to bigotry and discrimination forever.
That is why I joined the Municipal Socialist Alliance which endorsed me to be the first Tamil-Canadian mayoral candidate in this city, to make revolutionary change happen. If you agree, please join the MSA. Together we can advance the goal of peace through social justice, unity through mutual solidarity, and the socialist transformation of society.