Demolition of Tamil genocide monument, fourth emblematic trauma since 1974: Rev Fr Sakthivel

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 January 2021, 09:37 GMT]
Tamils experienced one of their first collective trauma when Colombo’s Sinhala police massacred nine Tamil civilians at the World Tamil Conference in Jaffna in 1974. Then came one of the worst acts of cultural and heritage genocide, the state-backed burning of Jaffna Public Library in 1981. The 2009 genocidal onslaught caused the third emblematic trauma. Now, the demolition of Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Monument at the Jaffna University has triggered the fourth wave of trauma to the same extent, said Rev Fr Sakthivel, a prominent rights activist of Up-Country origin. He urged the Tamil political parties to unite and demand justice for the protracted genocide that has caused waves of collective trauma to the genocide affected Tamil nation.



The demolition was an act of genocidal policy intended to erase the Tamil nation’s memory, Fr Sakthivel said.

Tamils are a nation that consolidates itself through the emblematic trauma, he commented about Tamils’ psyche.

The act of SL State has brought resentment, and the emotions were running high among the people.

Two dailies published in Jaffna ran their first pages in black colour on Saturday.

Tamil political parties have called for a complete shut-down on Monday in the Tamil homeland.

In the meantime, SL Police, Special Task Force commandos and the military personnel were deployed in large numbers within the premises and at the university entrance.

The SL forces chased away the protesters by threatening to carry out polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to every single one of them if they continued their protest.

The Vice-Chancellor has said that the university’s security was in the hands of the ‘security forces’ of the SL State.

Fr Sakthivel condemned the collaborators and agents of the SL State among the Tamils in his comment to TamilNet.





Chronology: