Today is Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day
On the 18th of May 2009, the Sri Lankan state carried out the most brutal phase of its genocide against Eelam Tamils. During those final stages of the Civil War, thousands of Tamil civilians were killed by relentless shelling and gunfire. Hospitals and schools (places the government knew were full of displaced people) were deliberately targeted. Reports indicate that more than 300,000 Tamils were killed in the genocide.
The horror of May 18 was the climax of a decades-long project by the Sri Lankan state to dismantle the Tamil identity. Immediately after independence, the state began a systematic campaign to strip Eelam Tamils of their rights, starting with the “Sinhala Only” act that effectively erased Tamil as an official language and shut Tamils out of public life.
At the same time, the government began state-sponsored colonisation of the Tamil homeland. They moved thousands of Sinhalese settlers into the North and East to alter the demographics and break the territorial continuity of the Tamil people. This was very similar to how the Zionists used settlements and land grabs to slice up and occupy Palestine.
The Sri Lankan army also employed mass sexual violence (similar to the IOF) as a weapon to terrorise and demoralise the Tamil population.
The Sri Lankan state is in many ways similar to Israel. In fact, declassified documents reveal that Israel played a significant role in the genocide of Eelam Tamils.
To this day, justice has been denied to the victims. No high-ranking officials have been held accountable. Instead, the military still occupies Tamil lands while keeping the North and East under a heavy suffocating surveillance that’s never really ended.