Tamil Diaspora efforts to get justice in the past decade, change in direction in the 2020 and the future
The Tamil Diaspora
Almost a million Eelam Tamils fled to several parts of the world and they are identified as Tamil Diaspora. As they are a citizen of countries where they live and became loyal and contribute to their new home country. Due to horrifying experiences and facing Genocide back home, most of them won't be happy to identify themselves as Sri Lankans and some feel it's an insult if someone identifies them as Sri Lankans. Their proud identities became British Tamil, Swiss Tamil, American Tamil, Australian Tamil, Canadian Tamil, etc. Since Sri Lanka tried to erase their Tamil Identity, they are determined to keep it and be proud of the identity of Tamil in addition to being loyal to their present country of citizenship or residence. Countries such as Canada recognized Tamil Canadian’s contribution and declared January as Tamil Heritage Month a law in Ontario and unanimous motion federally. Tamils' collective worldwide united identity is Tamil Diaspora.
The Tamil Eelam government
Fleeing of Tamils from their homeland Eelam escalated in the 80s and 90s due to Sri Lanka's Genocide against Tamils especially the Black July in 1983 when the Sri Lankan government provided a voters list of Tamils to Sinhala thugs and armed forces to hunt down Tamils who lived in Southern part. It caused the start of a significant number of educated Tamils to sought refuge in European and Western countries. As Eelam Tamils mandated Tamil youths to use force to resist Sri Lanka's Genocide and form Tamil Eelam as a secular State to protect the Tamil Nation, Tamil Tigers (LTTE) fought for two decades and achieved the Tamil mandate and created Tamil Eelam with all elements of a modern government including the judiciary, banking, police, military, etc.
In 2002, with Norwegian facilitators with the backing of European and Western countries, peace talks started and Tamil Tigers presented a federal-based interim proposal called ISGA. However, Sri Lanka smartly used congress party India and some selfish Tamils and Geopolitics effectively to eliminate the Tamil Eelam military and destroyed that country. For the selfish Tamil political leaders in TNA (eg. Sampanthan), paramilitary, and agents, the promise given to them was that once the Tamil Tigers were eliminated, a government would be given to them to rule. The west and Europe were also hoping that the Sri Lankan government lean on them once Tamil Tigers are eliminated. They underestimated China's influence in the region and it was the Tamil Eelam government that acted as a buffer zone for India and also a friendlier nation to the west and Europe than Sri Lanka. During the peace talks additional ban unnecessarily placed on the Tamil Eelam government and systematically help to tilt the balance toward genocidal Sri Lanka.
Erasing the history efforts in the past
Once the Tamil Tigers ceased to exists, China became friends with the Rajapakse regime and bought and still owns a significant southern part of that Island. Few elite Tamils (eg. Suren Ragavan) were tasked to tarnish the image of Tamil Eelam and the government of Tamil people even after they were eliminated. The extensive documentation done by Tamil Tigers while they fought against Sri Lanka prevented their history from these tarnishing efforts. The raised awareness for the Genocide of Tamils also makes it hard. Heavy fact destroying efforts by Sri Lanka and Congress party India couldn't completely destroy the artifacts. Even in this digital age, Facebook, Google, etc. keep deleting the Tamil Tiger historical data citing the ban on Tamil Tigers in some of the countries. Eventually, the western and European nations have to remove the ban. The recent high court judgment from Swiss and the past judgment from the European court showed the starting sign of it.
Sri Lanka's genocide against Tamils
The mass amount of atrocities, war crimes, and genocide committed by Sri Lanka in 2009 after the war ended and was the worst time in Tamil history. While killing Tamils, many Tamil identities were destroyed. It proved the true face of Sri Lanka to the world and history will stay. After May 2009, the UN passed a resolution that appreciated Sri Lanka for reconciliation and Tamil political groups such as TNA said they have no choice other than corporate with the Sri Lankan government, hesitated to raise their voice. Sri Lankan government was very confident that they can put the rest of the Tamils in concentration camps and eliminate slowly by dragging the resettlement for several years. They are also confident that Tamils will forget when years passed by and colonization will dilute and change the demography of Tamils at home. Sri Lankan government also did much work to break the morale of the Tamil Diaspora by creating groups to confront each other. By 2009 and later, only Tamil Diaspora had some means to raise awareness even though there were so many frustrated and depressed group of Tamil Diaspora and few opportunists among them. In 2015, the Northern Provincial Council unanimously passed a resolution rightly calling it genocide and a request sent to UNHCR.
After the elimination of honest leadership such as Tamil Tigers, Tamil Diaspora lost their unity and split into several groups such as TGTE, GTF, ICET, etc. in efforts to look for justice for war crimes and genocide. They didn’t trust each other. Even though there were internal fights between these groups, some of the projects such as the Permanent People Tribunal by ICET, war crime awareness by GTF, and UNHRC MAP project by TGTE succeeded. Other Tamil organizations also succeeded in projects such as war crimes evidence collections and raising awareness for justice. The most turning point was when UK Channel 4 published the documentary "No Fire Zone" - "Killing Field of Sri Lanka". That evidence put the war crimes case straight to people in the European and Western world. This with other Tamil Diaspora efforts put the UNHRC to admit its mistakes and prompted its internal investigation.
Even though world Tamils were saddened and angered by watching those war crimes most of it happened after the war ended, there were only a small group of activists who worked hard with limited funds. Some of the other Tamils either frustrated opting to do nothing or opt to be opportunists. The western media and think-tanks published several reports before 2009 saying that Tamil Tigers had a big reserve of funds in western and European countries, but the people who worked in highlighting justice for war crimes and genocide and advocacy efforts knew that raising funds for those projects were extremely difficult. For example, when Tamils were tried to form an office that cost about a hundred thousand pounds per year in front of the UK parliament in London, it took several months even though the office was important to highlight war crimes by 2010/11. While activists faced fundraising challenges, there are a group of Tamils who gossips saying they are using the funds that were owned by Tamil Tigers. This gossips made the activists face more challenges within the community when executing projects. The reality was that most of the human rights projects didn’t receive enough funding or easy support from the community. For example, after Channel 4 initial documentary, director Callum Macrae tried to raise funds via crowdfunding for “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields Of Sri Lanka” documentaries in 2013 and 2015, both of these fundraising went extremely slowly.
The USA and Canada sponsored a resolution to investigate war crimes in the UN, the resolution to form a hybrid court with foreign judges passed in 2015. Before that, the USA's effort was primarily a regime change as Rajapakse's government tilted toward China. Some Tamil groups such as GTF got trapped in this regime change ploy and dragged by the Sri Lankan government. Few years of discussion about constitution changes and development projects, but nothing implemented. Meanwhile, the Northern Provincial Council also passed a resolution calling what happened to Tamils in Eelam is Genocide and sent it to the UN. Even though the hybrid court was accepted by the Sri Lankan government they continue to refuse to implement it. It was extended two times for the last 4 years and it most likely won't happen in near future. However, it clearly documented the history of the Tamil struggle so that no one able to deny it in the future. People who know history know very well that there is no chance of justice inside Sri Lankan jurisdiction.
Sri Lanka walkout from UNHCR resolution and international justice
The last decade was an extremely difficult time for Tamil Diaspora, but they were still able to achieve some milestones. Getting the Tamil struggle documented at the UN and international level is one such achievement. By doing so, even though justice still not in near future, they legitimized their struggle. They were able to put their case effectively at the world table. Even though Tamil Tiger hero's rest places were destroyed, their stories deleted from world digital spaces, several efforts by big governments to tarnish their image, Tamil Diaspora able to still proudly honor their heroes. Remembering the bravery, sacrifices, and heroes is important because the whole purpose of destroying the historic data is to block it from getting into the next generation Tamil's hands. While working in the past decade for justice, the Tamil Diaspora able to preserve the history and created tons of documents to tell their stories to the future. The next decade mostly starts to seek justice outside of UNHCR either tribunal or International criminal court. Tamil Diaspora already sees some new organizations started in 2021 such as the Tamil Rights Group (TRG) and new justice-seeking efforts using international mechanisms. While Sri Lanka's genocide against Tamils continues in the ground, Tamils' land and population density in their homeland shrink, Tamil diaspora trying its best.
https://archive.org/details/embergence-of-the-tamil-community-in-the-gta/mode/2up
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