Australian Tamils join global rallies

Tamils in Australia gathered at Pongu Thamil (Tamil upsurge)events in Melbourne and Sydney over the weekend of 5 and 6 July to lend their voices to the global show of Tamil solidarity.

“Let the International Community hold a referendum to get the will of Eelam Tamils for an independent homeland if it is not convinced of their sentiments shown explicitly through the events of Pongu Thamil all over the world. Australia supported such a referendum in East Timor,” said Tamil National Alliance MP, M. K. Shivajilingam, when he came to address the Pongu Thamil event held at Sydney on Sunday July 6.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Gnanam Sivathamby, a former principal said that the International community is ignorant of the fact who are the terrorists and who are the terrorized in Sri Lanka.

"We do not want war. The Tamils are a peace-loving people. We want a peaceful solution. But, we want peace with justice and freedom", said a young member who spoke at the event.

"We have witnessed too much discrimination, too much blood shed and too little justice. It is too late and we have come too far to compromise on Tamil Eelam" spoke another young member.

Over 3000 Tamil Australians gathered at Mason Park in Sydney Sunday afternoon for the event, which was largely organized and addressed by the Tamil youth of Australia.

Many of those who attended were clad in red and yellow and carried pictures of the LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.

A similar event was held in Melbourne on Saturday at which over a thousand Tamils gathered in Federation Square. The event included traditional Tamil dancing, music and speeches on the Tamil people’s struggle for self-determination in Sri Lanka.

Mahenda Rajah, president of the Eelam Tamil Association of Victoria, outlined the oppression of the Tamil’s in Sri Lanka. He described the state-sponsored “colonisation” schemes, where Sinhalese settlers were placed in traditionally Tamil areas with the aim of making Tamils a minority, told of the decision to make Sinhala the sole official language of Sri Lanka, and described other state measures that discriminate against Tamils in “employment, economy, education and every other area of life”.

Peaceful protests have been met by violent repression. Rajah said: “Tamils have been subjected to intimidation, torture, rape, unlawful imprisonment … There have also been cases of targeted killings of Tamil members of parliament, journalists, human rights activists, religious and community leaders, and civilians who speak out against the human rights violations of the Sri Lankan government and armed forces.”

Referring to the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Rajah said, “Tamils were forced to defend themselves” against the violence. The LTTE had been willing to negotiate with the Sri Lankan government and a peace agreement was signed in February 2002, but the government later withdrew from it.

Rajah urged people to “support us to achieve a lasting negotiated political solution” that would “establish a recognised homeland for the Tamils with full autonomy”.

Other speakers at the Pongu Thamil event included Bishop Hilton Deakin, retired Uniting Church minister Richard Wootton, Tamil radio broadcaster Anthony Gration, aid worker Jason Thomas, Margarita Windisch from the Socialist Alliance and Green Left Weekly, and visiting TNA MP M. K. Shivajilingam.