Thousands of people across Sri Lanka’s Northeast and the Tamil Diaspora have been commemorating the fast-unto-death of Lt. Col. Thileepan, who died trying to get the Indian government to honour the security undertakings it gave to the Tamil people alongside its 1987 pact with Sri Lanka.
Rememberance events were held last week in major towns across the Tamil-dominated Northeast in honour of the Liberation Tigers’ of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) commander who died on September 26, 1987 during a hunger protest which failed to move the government of Rajiv Gandhi to act.
On Monday thousands of people attended the final day of commemoration events held at the Palugamam Throupathy Amman Kovil grounds in Batticaloa. A new hospital named after Thileepan was also opened in Tharavai the same day. In Ampara district a commemoration event was held at the Kanjikudicharu.
In the northern Vanni, thousands of people congregated at the Murugan temple, Kilinochchi, for a commemoration rally in memory of Thileepan who died after 12 days without food or fluids. The commemorative events began twelve days earlier to coincide with the anniversary of the first day of Thileepan’s hunger-strike.
A march in Kilinochchi reached the Regional Administrative office where the Government Agent (the region’s most senior civil servant) received the people participating in the day’s token hunger-strike.
In the Jaffna peninsula the final day events of Thileepan’s commemoration started at the site of Thileepan’s monument, in the compound of the famours Nallur Kandaswamy Temple. Before the events began, students and community activists put up posters and decorated the site.
Eighteen years ago, an estimated hundred thousand people gathered in and around the Nallur Kandaswamy temple to support Thileepan in his hunger strike which he began on 15 September 1987 on a stage in front of the historic temple.
Thileepan, then the LTTE’s political wing leader for the Jaffna district, made five demands from the Indian government, including the release of all Tamils held under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), a halt to the state-sponsored Sinhala colonization of Tamil lands, an end to the building of new Sri Lankan military camps in the Tamil areas, the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan security forces from Tamil schools and the disarming of Sinhala and Muslim paramilitary militia.
As Jaffna’s political wing leader, Thileepan was a popular figure in the Tamil community and had already won renown for his courage in combat. The LTTE has named a series of medical centers, located both in government and LTTE-held areas, after him.
Born Rasiah Partheepan, in 1964 as the fourth son of a school teacher in Urelu, in a hamlet of Urumpirai in the Jaffna District, he took up the name Thileepan when he joined the LTTE.
His motivation for joining the Tamil freedom struggle was prompted at the age of ten by the deaths of ten youths in a violent assault by Sinhala policemen on the World Tamil Research Conference held in Jaffna in 1974.
Compiled from TamilNet and local press reports
Rememberance events were held last week in major towns across the Tamil-dominated Northeast in honour of the Liberation Tigers’ of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) commander who died on September 26, 1987 during a hunger protest which failed to move the government of Rajiv Gandhi to act.
On Monday thousands of people attended the final day of commemoration events held at the Palugamam Throupathy Amman Kovil grounds in Batticaloa. A new hospital named after Thileepan was also opened in Tharavai the same day. In Ampara district a commemoration event was held at the Kanjikudicharu.
In the northern Vanni, thousands of people congregated at the Murugan temple, Kilinochchi, for a commemoration rally in memory of Thileepan who died after 12 days without food or fluids. The commemorative events began twelve days earlier to coincide with the anniversary of the first day of Thileepan’s hunger-strike.
A march in Kilinochchi reached the Regional Administrative office where the Government Agent (the region’s most senior civil servant) received the people participating in the day’s token hunger-strike.
In the Jaffna peninsula the final day events of Thileepan’s commemoration started at the site of Thileepan’s monument, in the compound of the famours Nallur Kandaswamy Temple. Before the events began, students and community activists put up posters and decorated the site.
Eighteen years ago, an estimated hundred thousand people gathered in and around the Nallur Kandaswamy temple to support Thileepan in his hunger strike which he began on 15 September 1987 on a stage in front of the historic temple.
Thileepan, then the LTTE’s political wing leader for the Jaffna district, made five demands from the Indian government, including the release of all Tamils held under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), a halt to the state-sponsored Sinhala colonization of Tamil lands, an end to the building of new Sri Lankan military camps in the Tamil areas, the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan security forces from Tamil schools and the disarming of Sinhala and Muslim paramilitary militia.
As Jaffna’s political wing leader, Thileepan was a popular figure in the Tamil community and had already won renown for his courage in combat. The LTTE has named a series of medical centers, located both in government and LTTE-held areas, after him.
Born Rasiah Partheepan, in 1964 as the fourth son of a school teacher in Urelu, in a hamlet of Urumpirai in the Jaffna District, he took up the name Thileepan when he joined the LTTE.
His motivation for joining the Tamil freedom struggle was prompted at the age of ten by the deaths of ten youths in a violent assault by Sinhala policemen on the World Tamil Research Conference held in Jaffna in 1974.
Compiled from TamilNet and local press reports
