Tamil vigil – International Human Rights Day
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 – 11am
In front of Complex Guy Favreau, 200 boul. René-Lévesque
On December 10, International Human Rights Day, the Montreal Tamil community will hold a vigil in front of the downtown federal government building, Complex Guy Favreau, to highlight the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. They are urging that the Canadian government pressure Sri Lanka to end the indiscriminate bombings and shelling of civilians and allow international and local humanitarian workers to provide much needed assistance to those displaced due to the conflict.
Ramani Balendra, a Community Social worker at South Asian Women’s Community centre says,
“Food, shelter, clean water, sanitation and, above all, security remain the most urgent concerns for the 300,000 internally displaced people at the moment, Among them 40,000 are children. The Canadian government should pressurize the Sri Lankan government not to deny the Tamil population food, shelter, medicine and other fundamental necessities; to allow the UN and other international relief agencies access to the areas affected by the conflict, also to stop shelling and bombing civilian habitats, hospitals, schools and places of worship.”
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), up to 300,000 Tamils
have been internally displaced in the Northern Vanni area alone since the beginning of the recent clashes between government forces and rebels fighting for an independent Tamil homeland. Approximately 260,000 more remain displaced from previous stages of the conflict.
“There have been hundreds of people killed and many more injured in the indiscriminate aerial bombing and artillery shelling in the region,” states Shyamala Sivarajah, Montreal coordinator for the Canadian Tamil Congress.
“We were very concerned that the government was gearing up for an all-out war on Tamils when they expelled all international and local NGO representatives from the Vanni mainland in September of this year,” explains Sivarajah, “Our fears were confirmed as reports of the growing numbers of displaced and killed reached us from official and unofficial lines.”
In a statement made public this past September, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon expressed his “deep concern over the increased hostilities in northern Sri Lanka and the grave consequences
for civilians.”
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that more than 1,500 cases of enforced disappearances of ethnic Tamils were reported between 2005 and 2007. Evidence in the HRW report points to the involvement of government security forces.
“With the situation being this bad in Sri Lanaka, we are concerned about the hundreds of Tamil refugee claimants who are being denied by Canada and being sent home to this humanitarian crisis,” says Sivamalar Kandiah a community social worker. “This is compounded by our concerns for Canadian citizens and those with landed status facing years of bureaucratic delays in the sponsorship of family members.”
The Tamil community will have support for their vigil by other communities in Montreal who wish to draw common ground due to the Human Rights situation in their own country.
“Political killings, enforced disappearances, displacements due to militarization are the scourge affecting millions of people in the third world,” comments Tess Tesalon of the Canadian chapter of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA).”What is going on in Sri Lanka is also happening in other parts of the world like the Philippines. We have to support the Tamil community to ensure that these things are condemned, that international pressure is applied to end this humanitarian crisis and that the rights of refugees and displaced peoples are upheld.”
The vigil is being organized for December 10, starting at 11am on 200, boulevard René-Lévesque West, in front of Complex Guy Favreau.
Ref: Tamil Action Committee, Ramani Belandra (514) 898-8019
or Sivamalar Kandiah (514) 731-9186
