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May 18 declared as Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 May 2019, 10:27 GMT]
The grassroots groups which came together from the North and East to organise the 10th Remembrance Day commemorating the deaths of tens of thousands of lives in the Tamil genocide declared the day as the Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide at Mu'l'livaaykkaal. The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka had put up several, and a particular military unit that had from Colombo was visiting door-to-door in Mullaiththeevu warning the people against taking part in the event. However, the remembrance event proceeded with people who had come from other towns. The event was peaceful and emotional. The statement issued by the organisers called for the international investigations and to recognise the distinct sovereignty and inalienable right of self-determination of Tamils in the merged North-East.



Although the participation of the people from Mullaiththeevu was suppressed, they managed to attend the prayers at the church as they did last year.

The presence of foreign journalists, particularly the photojournalists attached to global news organisations, was helping to mitigate the harassment of the SL military at the last minute in a positive way, the organisers told TamilNet (The foreign media was showing more interest particularly after the Easter attacks).

“Mobilizing ‘people power’ as non-violent social resistance movement against structural genocide is the need of the hour. Using Tamil National Memory, let us be united to take the struggle forward,” said the statement issued by Mullivaikal Remembrance Public Forum (North-East), the organisers of the common event.

“We would like to declare today as the Awakening Day of Tamil Nation against Genocide and we declare year 2019 is a year to heighten the international support for political justice and campaign against Genocide.”



The declaration contains the following requests:

• To strengthen the call to refer Sri Lanka to the International criminal court (ICC) for the crimes perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state, especially genocide;
• To demand for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the recognition of the Tamil nation and its inalienable right to political autonomy on the basis of our people’s distinct sovereignty and inalienable right to self-determination;
• To call for the North-East merger, the territorial habitation of the Tamils because it is this very existence that the Sri Lanka State wishes to destroy through the genocide and structural genocide of the Tamils;
• To prevent the structural genocide unleashed on the collective existence of Tamils;
• To strengthen social structures in the North-East in order to take the struggle for Tamil collective rights forward;

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