Jaffna University remembers Vanni genocide amidst SL military oppression

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 May 2013, 13:39 GMT]
Sri Lankan military harassments continue at Jaffna University where a memorial event was silently observed by hundreds of students on Friday, news sources in Jaffna told TamilNet. The occupying SL military is on a continuous war with the university community of students and teachers in the last four years on the issue of remembering the slain. It took a serious turn on the Heroes Day last November. The arrests and the military ‘rehabilitation’ of the student leaders didn't deter the students from paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the genocidal war at Vanni. Despite refusal by the University administration to provide a hall to the event this year, hundreds of university students and teachers gathered at the Paramesvara temple premises in the university on Friday for a silent memorial without any speeches.

Last year, the students of the University observed remembrance events for one week.

This year, the Jaffna command of the occupying SL military was seeking to suspend all lectures for one week and exerted pressure through the University administration.

Lectures were suspended for one week only at the faculty of arts.

At the same time, students from South, both Sinhalese and Muslims, had left the University fearing confrontations between the Sinhala military apparatus and the Tamil student community.

Amidst the monitoring by the SL military, the students have managed to successfully mark the event, said a student activist of the Jaffna University providing photos of the event and urging media to conceal the identity of the students who participated in the memorial event.

Following the remembrance event observed on 17th May from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the SL military intensified its military deployment at the entrance of the University on Saturday and Sunday.

The ground situation had once again demonstrated that the lip service by the so-called international community in pleading with the genocidal Sinhala State to tolerate or provide outlet for the Eezham Tamils to at least remember their dead, will never work, commented political observers in Jaffna.

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