Nirupama Subramanian: Why a demolition in Jaffna recalls Sri Lanka’s unaddressed Tamil question

By Dilip -

The sudden demolition of a memorial in the Jaffna University Campus in northern Sri Lanka to remember Tamil civilians killed during the LTTE’s last stand against the Sri Lankan Army in 2009 has brought attention to the simmering and yet unaddressed issues of post-war ethnic reconciliation, justice and accountability, as well as a political resolution of the Tamil question. The demolition triggered protests by Sri Lanka’s Tamil community in the North and East, and condemnation by Tamil diasporas and human rights groups, and from politicians in election-bound Tamil Nadu including Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and DMK chief M K Stalin.

The widespread outrage, and a hunger strike by students on the campus, seems to have taken the government by surprise. On Monday, three days after the demolition, University Vice-Chancellor S Srisathkunarajah visited the site, and promised to rebuild the memorial. The online portal of the Sri Lankan weekly Sunday Times said “ he led the students to the destroyed memorial and laid a symbolic foundation stone for the new monument with religious prayers”…

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-why-a-demolition-in-jaffna-recalls-sri-lankas-civil-war-and-the-unaddressed-tamil-question-7144962/

 A Tamil heroine unmourned & the sociology of obfuscation - University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna; (1998)

Sri Lanka, thirty one years after: Burning of the Jaffna Public Library, May 1981

Michael Roberts – Sri Lanka: Ben Bavinck’s Testimony Within The Crucible Of War, 1994-2004

RAJAN HOOLE - In Sri Lanka, a Government in Denial About the Ramifications of a Long History of Violence

Sri Lanka heading towards dictatorship says UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

Lankan Tamil newspaper office torched in pre-dawn attack

 


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