Why Sri Lanka’s Tamils Have Occupied Parliament Square

Thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils converged spontaneously on Parliament Square in Westminster today, to swell the ongoing demonstration of several hundred, as news came in of Sri Lankan government forces breaking through earth defences to the last stronghold of separatist rebels, the Tamil Tigers, amid fears of massive civilian casualties. As it is, tens of thousands of Tamil civilians have been living (or in many cases dying) in a humanitarian catastrophe that much of the outside world has ignored. Hence the demonstrations in Parliament Square . This situation is particularly relevant to the UK, given Britain’s colonial legacy and its role in creating a unitary state of Ceylon, with an inbuilt Tamil minority, and the presence of a large number of Tamils living in the UK, not least in London.

 One of the hunger strikers, Subramanyam Parameswaran, most of whose immediate family has perished in the recent troubles on the island, is continuing without food, and he lies motionless in a tent in the square, though receiving regular medical attention from sympatisers. A high percentage of Sri Lankan Tamils in the UK are doctors and other professional people.

Simon Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey, has been working tirelessly on the issue and is due in New York this week, to help present the Tamils’ case to the United Nations. The Prime Minister’s Special Representative, Des Browne MP, has already gone there. Even the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has declared that he is ‘gravely concerned’ about the situation in Sri Lanka. And yet the Sri Lankan government has turned a deaf ear to pleas from the international media for access to the affected region, to report honestly what is happening, and from humanitarian agencies who rightly fear for the safety and health of the civilian Tamil population effectively caught in a trap. Even more important, there needs to be an immediate and permanent ceasefire and a political, not a military, appoach to the fundamental issues.

The Sri Lankan government believes ‘victory’ is in sight over the Tamil Tigers. As an objective commentator with a first-hand knowledge of the region, I do not endorse violence. But I recognise that the armed struggle in Sri Lanka (as in so many other parts of the world) grew out of generations of frustration among Tamils in Sri Lanka at being treated as second-class citizens. After the 1983 anti-Tamil riots in Colombo (which I witnessed with my own eyes, seeing people being hacked with knives and other makeshift weapons), the situation went from bad to worse. As one Tamil doctor from Bexley told me in Parliament Square this evening, ‘We should have made this demonstration 30 years ago. We were too quiet. We are a reasonable, educated community. Now the young people have shown us how to make our voice heard!’

Link: www.tamilsforum.com

Tamils Make Their Point in London

At the beginning of this week, Sri Lankan Tamil demonstrators — protesting about what they see as the international community’s inaction to counter the humanitarian crisis in the Vanni region of the island, where government forces are conducting what they hope will be a final assault on rebel-held areas — brought Central London’s traffic to a standstill by occupying Westminster Bridge. They were then persuaded to move onto Palace Green, opposite the Houses of Parliament, even though that is technically illegal under New Labour’s draconian legislation curbing freedom of expression. Simon Hughes, MP (alongside whom I spoke at a big Tamil gathering in Brent not long ago) has been instrumental in brokering a deal between the demonstrators and the police, whereby the numbers of protestors will be reduced to 400 and at least one of the two young men who have been on hunger strike for the past few days will end his fast.

The demonstrations have certainly brought the issue of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority to public attention and a few newspapers, such as The Guardian, have given informed and sympathetic coverage to the question. Whether the Sri Lankan government is listening is another matter, or indeed whether the international community will show the necessary political will to mediate. The Tamil Tigers who have been fighting to try to set up a independent Tamil statelet are no angels, of course, and there have been worrying reports of them preventing civilians leaving the disputed areas, as well as allegedly press-ganging youngsters into military service. The important thing, however, is that a situation is arrived at in which humanitarian agencies can work effectively in he Vanno and in camps for displaced persons, and journalists are allowed in to report accurately what is happening. The demonstrators in London are right to argue that the world should not just sit idly by.