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Documentary video highlighting key events of the Tamil Genocide
- Tamilselvan Tamilarasan
- 19 apr
- 3 minuten om te lezen
Bijgewerkt op: 23 mei
Accountability for Tamil Genocide
In 1948, when the British left Ceylon, they handed the land over to Sinhalese. For decades, successive Sri Lankan Governments, elected predominantly through Sinhala Buddhist nationalist propaganda, have fuelled deep divisions. This Sinhala-Chauvinistic ideology gave rise to systemic violence against the Tamil nation with the intention of destroying us as a nation. Tamils have endured waves of brutal pogroms — including rape, enforced disappearances, sexual humiliation, mass killings, and the destruction of their homes and businesses. These are not just historical facts. They are lived realities, scars carried by generation to generation.
In 1956, the Sri Lankan government passed the Sinhala only act, making Sinhala only official language. This leads to the complete exclusion of the Tamil language, spoke by the citizen living in the tradition Tamil homeland, Tamileelam. As a consequence, the Tamil-speaking citizens, were pushed out of public service jobs, denied access to government services, and marginalized from education and legal systems. This wasn’t just about language. It was about erasing identity and enforcing dominance.
In 1970 the Sri Lankan government introduced the standardization law. It was framed as an education reform, but it was designed to limit Tamil access to universities. Tamil students were required to score significantly higher marks than Sinhala students to enter the same courses at university. It was a devastating blow to an entire generation. Dreams were crushed. Merit was discarded. Discrimination was legalized
In 1981, the Jaffna public library, at the time the largest library in South Asia was burned to the ground by the Sri Lankan state. Over 97.000 books and two thousand years of Tamil culture, history and literature were destroyed. It wasn’t just a building that burned, it was a memory, identity and centuries of knowledge that was burned.
In July of 1983 also knows as Black July, Eelam Tamils witnessed one of its darkest chapters. A state sponsored genocide pogrom against Eelam Tamils which resulted in the deaths of 3.000 Tamils and the destruction of over 5.000 businesses and over 15.000 homes. This event resulted in tens of thousands of Tamils being displaced with many fleeing the country to the diaspora.
Black July was just one of the genocidal acts perpetrated by the ethnocracy state. Later on we witnessed the genocidal war by the Sri Lankan state that lasted from 1983 to 2009 resulting in tens of thousands of deaths with many as 146 679 forcibly disappeared during the final stage of the war in 2009.
In May 2009 during the final stages of the war, Mullivaikkal, a small village in Tamileelam (currently under the occupation of Sri Lanka), became the site of a horrific massacre. Over 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in a brutal military offensive by the Sri Lankan armed forces, which deliberately targeted so-called “no-fire zones” with relentless aerial and artillery bombardments.
According to Bishop Rayappu Joseph, census data revealed that nearly 146,679 Tamil people went missing during this period. Schools, hospitals, and refugee camps were bombed indiscriminately, and internationally banned weapons like cluster bombs and white phosphorus were used, alongside widespread reports of torture, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances. Essential food and medical supplies were intentionally withheld from the Eelam Tamil population, intensifying the humanitarian crisis.
This massacre, often referred to as the Mullivaikkal genocide, marks one of the darkest chapters in Tamil history and continues to symbolize the Tamil people's enduring struggle for justice, recognition, and peace. The Sri Lankan government's persistent denial of accountability and the internationalcommunity's inaction have only deepened the wounds. Remembering Mullivaikkal is not just about mourning a national tragedy—it is about standing against oppression, upholding truth, and reaffirming the universal commitment to human rights and justice for all.
Eelam Tamils are till this day fighting for accountability and justice in international forums while the perpetrators are enjoying the culture of impunity with zero political willingness to prosecute anyone accused of killings Eelam Tamils over the past seven decades. We remember! We resist! We demand justice!
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