Justice for Nimalarajan should start with Tamils addressing IC paradigm of injustice

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 October 2018, 21:45 GMT]
The University community in Jaffna and the journalists in the North and East marked the 18th death anniversary of Eezham Tamil journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan. There is no point in demanding investigations from the Sri Lankan State anymore. Tamils should start addressing the wrongdoers in the international community first on delivering the long-overdue international justice, commented journalists in Jaffna vowing to bring the issue into a wider debate in 2019. Tamils should launch a global movement to address the paradigm of international injustice if they are serious about remembering the sacrifices made by Tamil journalists of the calibre of Nimalarajan, Nadesan and Sivaram, they said.



Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power who interacted with the journalists in Jaffna in 2015 was dodging to respond to the Tamil journalists when they confronted her on the question of Tamil genocide. She came with a counter-question as a response. The question was whether the journalists had trust in the Sirisena-Wickramasinghe government. She also questioned the journalists why they were particular about beginning the investigations on the killings of journalists such as Mylvaganam Nimalrajan. Why can't the investigations start with something recent, she asked.

Her successor, Nikki Haley, has now pulled out the USA from the UN Human Rights Council.

It is this injustice, upheld by both the Obama administration as well as that of Donald Trump's current administration, that needs to be addressed by the Tamils, journalists in Jaffna said.

If we don't address this, the next IC actor visiting Jaffna would tell us to forget Mu'l'livaaykkaal as a past issue and start the path to justice with something recent, they said.

Mr.Nimalarajan was shot dead in his residence on 19th October 2000 by unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the EPDP paramilitary, which was being operated by the SL military as well as the SL President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga at that time.

Nimalarajan was a regional correspondent for BBC's Tamil and Sinhala services, Colombo-based Tamil daily Virakesari and the Ravaya, which was a progressive Sinhala newspaper. He was also a reporter for TamilNet and a close associate of the late Senior Editor Mamanithar D. Sivaram (Taraki), who was assassinated in 2005.



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